Every year Economic Times recognizes the best startups in India. The Awards recognize excellence in eight categories Startup of the Year, Woman Ahead, Top Innovator, Bootstrap Champ, Midas Touch (Best Investor), Social Enterprise, Best on Campus and Comeback Kid.
Majority of the winners of ET Startup Awards 2018 were from Bangalore & the founders were from premier schools (IIT or IIM).
| Award | Startup Name / Individual | Headquarters | About | Founder(s) from IIT/IIM? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Startup Of The Year | Oyo Rooms | Gurugram | India's largest hotel network spread across 230 cities with 8500+ hotels | No |
| Top Innovator | SigTuple | Benglauru | Their artificial intelligence & machine-learning powered models detect diseases or flag abnormalities that need further medical investigation. This eliminates the need for medical experts to be physically present for examinations. | Yes |
| Best On Campus | Skylark Drones | Benglauru | Offering drone solutions for various verticals (roads, railways) | No |
| ET-Facebook Woman Ahead | FreshMenu | Bengaluru | Food delivery, cooked in their own kitchens. | Yes |
| Bootstrap Champ | Tredence | Bengaluru | Advanced analytics paired with Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and more to deliver sustainable solutions for the clients’ business analytics needs | Yes |
| Comeback Kid | Grofers | Gurugram | Online grocery | Yes |
| Social Enterprise | Drishti Eye Care | Bengaluru | Caters to a vast underserved population, particularly in rural areas, with its low-priced solutions. Its offerings are priced at Rs 150 for a regular eye checkup, Rs 400 for power glasses, and as low as Rs 3,800 for surgeries. The company offers pre-diagnosis tests, image capturing of the eye, and uses cloud data to connect doctors and patients via video calls. | No |
| Midas Touch For Best Investor | Subrata Mitra of Accel | Bengaluru | Man behind the investments in Flipkart, Mu Sigma, Myntra | Yes |
Six of the eight award recipients are Bangalore based, i.e. 75%! Bengaluru, in spite of infrastructure problems, is still the favourite city to start your startup journey. Brand Bengaluru was the clear winner.
On another note, 37.5% of the Founders were not from IIT/IIM. VCs are inclined to fund if you are from premier schools, it is a reality one has to face. But there are exceptions, 37.5% to be precise!
Each of these winners has contributed in their own way. The panel emphasized the importance of creating jobs & scaling to very big levels.
Entrepreneurs must now try to get the man with the Golden gun Touch, Subrata to invest in them. A good exit is guaranteed after that.
OYO Rooms Founder Ritesh Agarwal’s experience in China is very interesting – the process of working with the Chinese government is complex but it is well documented, you know in advance what you are getting into & how it needs to be tackled.
Highest Number of Funding Deals in Bangalore
In spite of the various infrastructure problems we face in Bengaluru, it is the first choice for startups. Weather, people, tolerant society, talent availability are few of the factors that attract entrepreneurs to Bangalore.
| Total Deals | Total Funding | Average Deal Size | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bengaluru | 366 | $7.5 bn | $26 mn |
| Delhi / NCR | 223 | $1.7 bn | $33 mn |
| Mumbai | 145 | $582 mn | $6.2 mn |
| Source: The Economic Times, Feb 11-17, 2018 | |||
My personal favourite is Drishti Eye Care, using technology to serve the needy in rural areas is very satisfying. The founders & the team must be having a great sense of satisfaction. Truly giving back to the country. Kudos & thank you!
