Fifty shades of nifty growth: ETSA jury spots next giants

There are two red-letter days in India’s startup calendar. The first is the night of ET Startup Awards, usually falling in October every year. The second came on Tuesday, August 25, the afternoon when the crème de la crème of India’s entrepreneurial ecosystem debated and decided on who will be the next generation of trailblazers in the ET Startup Awards class of 2026.

The elite jury was chaired by one of India’s brightest next-generation leaders Rishad Premji, executive chairman, Wipro. Members of the jury included Sachin Bansal, cofounder, Flipkart and Navi; Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder and CEO, Paytm; Mukesh Bansal, cofounder, Myntra; Mithun Sacheti, cofounder, CaratLane; Nandita Sinha, CEO, Swiggy Instamart; Ajit Mohan, chief business officer, Snap Inc; Irina Ghose, MD, Anthropic India; Paras Chopra, founder, Wingify, Lossfunk; Abhiraj Singh Bhal, cofounder and CEO, Urban Company; and Aryaman Birla, director, Aditya Birla Group.

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This confluence of corporate leaders, doyens of consumer internet and global tech leaders generated a stimulating session of discussion and deliberation to award the best of India’s entrepreneurial talent.

The jury analysed executional power, institution building mindset, future promise and trailblazing journeys of nominees to decide on winners. That was a demanding task given the track records and growth momentum of top contenders.

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Once the jury started on the deliberations, there was plenty of admiration for the strategies that some of the nominees had deployed, and for the exemplary numbers many had put up. The future, the jury noted, was so bright that it observed that at least two of the nominees in the list will make it to the Nifty 50 in the not so distant future.

But the loudest celebration was reserved for those who are dreaming big in deep tech. Sometimes the boldest of bets are the triggers to a whole new wave of inspiration. That translated into the members of the jury being particularly delighted to find a growing presence of unconventional ventures aiming to solve global problems across categories that offered informed optimism about India’s tech future.

As Chopra underlined, “It’s also great to see people who are still in their 20s working on deep tech. They are not just building standard companies; they are working at a fundamental technology level. It’s inspiring to see engineers take what they have learned and translate it into actual products.”

That was to be a theme of the conversation through the jury meeting, when the audacity of the entrepreneurial dream was pitted against the real-world impact at this moment in time.

In some categories decisions came quickly. In many others, the conversations were nuanced out with clarifications being sought beyond what was shared in the already comprehensive black book of nominees that Team ET had put together, detailing the journey of some of India’s finest entrepreneurs.

There were instances when the jury members wondered out loud if multiple names can be awarded in the same category, a testament to compelling narratives India’s startups are scripting these days. That underlined the tough nature of the job at hand for the jury. Next stop: The awards ceremony, which will be held on Friday, October 9 in Bengaluru.