Lenskart Wins Top Honors at The Economic Times Startup Awards 2024

ET Startup Awards 2024: Lenskart bags top honours, a look at the winners

Omnichannel eyewear retailer Lenskart bagged top honours at the tenth edition of India's most prestigious awards for entrepreneurship -- The Economic Times Startup Awards. A high-powered jury led by Infosys cofounder and chairman Nandan Nilekani picked eight winners from a shortlist of 41 contenders after deliberating for well over two hours at a meeting in Bengaluru on Wednesday. Startup of the Year: Lenskart The ten-member jury chose Lenskart, which is currently valued at $5 billion, over publicly-listed general insurer Go Digit in a keenly contested round where the relative merits of both companies were discussed in detail. "The Startup of the Year winner Lenskart stood out for me. The growth they've shown while disrupting the whole market, creating a category while keeping the Tatas at bay," jury member and CEO of BrowserStack Ritesh Arora said. "It is still day 1 for us at Lenskart," Peyush Bansal, CEO, Lenskart, told us on being informed of the jury's decision. "Our purpose of transforming the way people see, coupled with a very unique team and culture is the backbone of Lenskart." Midas Touch: Mukul Arora, Elevation Capital After lengthy discussions, the jury picked Nexus Venture Partners managing director Suvir Sujan and Elevation Capital (formerly SAIF Partners) co-managing partner Mukul Arora. While Sujan garnered appreciation for his bold wager on Zepto, the jury finally zeroed in on Arora for the variety of his investments. "What stood out for me is that two of his prominent bets -- FirstCry and Swiggy -- are category-defining companies," said juror and CaratLane founder Mithun Sacheti. "There's never been a more exciting time to be a founder or investor in India," Arora said on winning the Midas Touch award. Woman Ahead: Hardika Shah, Kinara Capital Building a business in a competitive and complex sector and leading it profitably for the past nine years made Hardika Shah a standout contender for the jury in the Woman Ahead category. Shah founded Kinara Capital, a non-banking financial company, in 2011 to drive financial inclusion for small businesses and emerged as the jury favourite because of her ambition to solve a significant problem in the lending space. "We liked the ambition from Hardika to solve a large and substantive problem in the lending space," said jury member Albinder Dhindsa, founder and chief executive of Blinkit. Top Innovator: BrainSightAI While space technology startup SatSure was in contention, the potential use of artificial intelligence in reading complex MRI scans and its eventual impact on humans tilted the jury towards BrainSightAI. "When we started this firm, the idea was to put research around the human brain into practical use, but today that we have been recognised by The Economic Times, it shows that the idea has grown much bigger than the vision we had started with," said BrainSightAI cofounder Laina Emmanuel. Shubman Gill, Indian cricketer and a member of the jury, said, "It was very inspiring to see what people are doing, especially in that (mental health) space, to be able to help the country and uplift everyone." Comeback Kid: Geetansh Bamania, Rentomojo The 10-member jury's focus was on ventures that have come out stronger through the Covid-19 pandemic. The two top candidates that emerged after discussions were shared workspace provider Awfis and furniture and electronics rental startup Rentomojo. Rentomojo emerged as the winner, with the jurors finding perseverance as its top-most trait, while commending the team for a successful comeback. "Rentomojo has made a strong comeback after Covid. The way they've been able to build in a difficult category and cracking it with scale has been impressive," said juror Ritesh Arora. Geetansh Bamania, founder and CEO of Rentomojo, credits this turnaround to a shift in the company's culture during the pandemic. "This award is a testament to our perseverance and to one of Rentomojo's core ethos: be brave to be free." Bootstrap Champ: Boult Wearables maker Boult, the second largest seller of wireless audio devices in the country as of the April-June quarter this year, stood out among the candidates for achieving its scale without tapping external funding. Boult's growth trajectory, from a bootstrapped homegrown brand to a key player in consumer electronics, is commendable," juror Nandita Sinha, CEO, Myntra, said. "For us, bootstrapping meant building from the ground up with no external funding, just passion and persistence, and focusing on building a great product," cofounder Varun Gupta said. Social Enterprise: Haqdarshak Jury deliberations for the Social Enterprise category focused on two critical issues plaguing society at large: waste management, which Saahas Zero Waste is trying to solve, and accessing government schemes and benefits, which Haqdarshak has addressed. The elite jury voted for Haqdarshak as the winner after two rounds of discussions, weighing in on both the nominees and how they are making an impact on society through their businesses. "We have touched the lives of seven million Indians as of now, which is a drop in the ocean. This recognition will drive us to work harder towards expanding the beneficiary base," said Aniket Doegar, CEO, Haqdarshak. "Their (Haqdarshak's) innovative use of technology to empower individuals and build self-reliance truly sets them apart," said Prativa Mohapatra, managing director, Adobe India. Best on Campus: ClaimBuddy After two rounds of discussions and a secret voting, ClaimBuddy emerged as the winner, edging out aerospace and urban mobility startup Khageshvara Aviation Technology. There is immense potential to streamline the claims process in India and ClaimBuddy is making inroads in doing just that, said one of the jury members as the nominees were discussed. "Being acknowledged by such a prestigious jury not only validates our approach but also highlights the importance of our mission in the industry," said cofounder Khet Singh Rajpurohit. Shubman Gill with SoftBank's Sumer Juneja Entrepreneurs might be the stars and indeed the raison d'etre of the ET Startup Awards, but at the jury meeting, the cynosure of all eyes was jury member and Indian cricketer Shubman Gill, who sportingly obliged multiple requests for both his signature and selfies. Jury chair Nilekani was seen greeting fellow Bangalorean and Zerodha cofounder Nikhil Kamath warmly, introducing him as a hometown boy to some of the other jury members enjoying the breezy afternoon before being cloistered together for the discussions. The jurors took time to sift through the merits of each of the contenders across categories. They deliberated the most over deciding the investor with the Midas Touch and the Startup of the Year. Both categories had six contestants this year, up from five each in previous editions. Also Read | ET Startup Awards 2024: What the jury said about winners and nominees Having seen multiple cycles of a funding boom followed by a tech winter, The Economic Times Startup Awards are a true testament to the way Indian entrepreneurship has matured in the past decade, despite many crests and troughs. But what goes behind selecting the nominees and the winners? Read on to find out Previous winners of the ETSA have stood out amid a crowded ecosystem and have gone on to become successful businesses. A look at a few of them from previous editions of the awards: Today's ETtech Top 5 newsletter was curated by Megha Mishra in Mumbai.

The Economic Times Startup Awards 2024: And the big winners are...

Top entrepreneurs, business leaders and an international cricketer came together in Bengaluru on September 11 to pick the winners of The Economic Times Startup Awards (ETSA) 2024. Today, we take great pleasure in announcing the winners of the tenth edition of India's most coveted award for entrepreneurship. Omnichannel eyewear retailer Lenskart edged out the competition to bag top honours at ETSA 2024, the tenth edition of India's most prestigious award for entrepreneurship. In a discussion that lasted for more than two hours, a high-powered jury led by Infosys cofounder and chairman Nandan Nilekani picked the company as the Startup of the Year. Beating out the competition: The panel recognised Lenskart's success in building a fast-growing, large-scale, omnichannel consumer retail venture while creating an entirely new category. The jury members, who joined in from across India and London, chose winners from a shortlist of 41 contenders across eight categories. Joining winners: Lenskart, founded by Peyush Bansal, Amit Chaudhary, Ramneek Khurana, and Neha Bansal in 2010, joins an elite list of eminent businesses that have previously won the top prize. Former winners include OfBusiness, Zomato, Zerodha, Razorpay, Delhivery, Oyo Hotels & Homes, Swiggy, Freshworks, and Ola. ET Startup Awards 2024: Playing on front foot in innovation game Jury's views: Key themes that emerged during the jury's meeting were strong revenue growth, profitability, and plans to eventually go public. The 10-member jury chose the winners after several rounds of discussions followed by a secret ballot. Several of the contests proved to be intense. "The overarching theme of ETSA is that the so-called startup world is coming of age," Nilekani said after the jury meeting. "We learnt a lot because many of these companies, which we may not have heard of, some technology innovations we have not seen, and even the quality of entrepreneurs," he said of the process of deliberations and picking winners. Omnichannel eyewear retailer Lenskart won the coveted title of Startup of the Year 2024, leaving behind nominees Go Digit and Zepto in a detailed discussion, impressing the jury with its strong revenue growth and its ability to craft a new business model in a primarily unorganised sector. Besides its operational excellence, the jury also noted the strong (secondary) exits of over $600 million provided by Lenskart to its investors in the past year. Jurors noted Lenskart's ambition to float an IPO over the next two years, following in the wake of previous SOTY winners like Zomato and Freshworks. In one of the most high-profile categories of the ET Startup Awards, jurors awarded the conviction of venture investors who not only spot business ideas early on but also stay on with an entrepreneur for the long haul. It came down to Nexus Venture Partners managing director Suvir Sujan and Elevation Capital co-managing partner Mukul Arora. The jury finally decided on Arora as the winner of this category for the variety of his investments, ranging from sectors such as food delivery and ecommerce to used-car sales and edtech. Elevation Capital secured sizeable exits through the secondary sale of shares in Swiggy and Unacademy, where it was among the earliest investors. Arora has also seen portfolio firms like business-to-business (B2B) online commerce firm Indiamart go public. Hardika Shah, the founder of Kinaara Capital, took the prize in this category for building a business in a complex sector and leading it profitably for the past nine years. Kinara Capital is a non-banking financial company (NBFC), founded in 2011 to drive financial inclusion for small businesses. It had the jury's favour because Shah aimed to solve a significant problem in the lending space. "We liked the ambition from Hardika to solve a large and substantive problem in the lending space. Kinara has the potential to lead the way in creating more entrepreneurial opportunities in the country," said jury member Albinder Dhindsa, founder and chief executive of Blinkit. The firm is particularly committed to supporting female entrepreneurs through its 'HerVikas' programme, which enables female entrepreneurs access to several benefits to empower them to access formal credit. After long deliberation, two contenders emerged in this category: BrainSight AI and space technology startup SatSure. The jury ultimately favoured BrainSight AI because of the promise of artificial intelligence (AI) usage in reading complex MRI scans and its eventual impact on humans. The jurors said innovation in the mental health and neurology space has a massive potential to transform lives. Shubman Gill, Indian cricketer and a member of the jury, pointed out that there were a lot of discussions about the company in the Top Innovator category and that they specifically talked about BrainSight AI. Cofounded by Rimjhim Agarwal and Laina Emmanuel in 2020, the startup uses AI tools for functional brain mapping. The jury of the ET Startup Awards lauded champs in this category that build successful businesses without the help of venture capital. And for this, wearables maker Boult stood out among the nominees for achieving its scale without tapping external funding, although it faced tough competition from ethnic wear startup Suta. The company is the second-largest seller of wireless audio devices in the country as of the April-June quarter this year. Jurors were won over by Boult's ability to be bootstrapped in a category where rivals have raised large amounts of capital, particularly given the company's scale and size. The ETSA 2024 jury aimed to recognise enterprises that have shown resilience and adaptability in the face of challenges for this category after a contest between shared workspace provider Awfis and furniture and electronics rental startup Rentomojo. Ultimately, Rentomojo emerged victorious, with the jurors keeping perseverance as the topmost trait. The panel commended the team for a successful comeback after the severe difficulties it faced during COVID-19 in early 2020. However, by October 2021, the Bengaluru-based company had turned its financial situation around and achieved profitability. In this category, the jury's deliberations were centred on two critical issues in society: waste management, which Saahas Zero Waste is trying to solve, and Haqdarshak, which aids citizens in accessing government schemes and benefits. The jury finally picked Bengaluru-based Haqdarshak, founded in 2016, as the winner for its efforts to bring more people within the ambit of the government's welfare schemes through a profitable business model. One of the jury members stated that the government is investing large sums into social security, and anyone helping more citizens access these schemes is set to make a major impact. Praised for solving a massive pain point for users, ClaimBuddy edged out aerospace and urban mobility startup Khageshvara to win the Best on Campus category. The Gurugram-based startup, founded by Khet Singh Rajpurohit and Ajit Kumar Patel, provides digital infrastructure to hospitals for processing insurance claims and assists patients in getting faster payouts. One of the jurors said there is immense potential to streamline the claims process in India, and ClaimBuddy is doing just that. Another juror personally vouched for the company after having used the platform to process claims. In its tenth year, the ETSA has captured the ever-changing world of technology and digital India as the sector has grown from its infancy to the stage of spawning publicly traded corporations. But what goes behind selecting the nominees and the winners of the ET Startup Awards? Here is a timeline of the effort to make the process most rigorous and detailed.

ET Startup Awards 2024: Lenskart gets 10/10, bags top honours

The award recognised Lenskart's success in building a fast-growing, large-scale, omnichannel consumer retail venture while creating an entirely new category, the jury noted. The 10-member jury chose eight winners from a shortlist of 41 contenders after deliberating for over 2.5 hours.Omnichannel eyewear retailer Lenskart bagged top honours at the 10th edition of India's most prestigious awards for entrepreneurship -- The Economic Times Startup Awards (ETSA). A high-powered jury led by Infosys cofounder and chairman Nandan Nilekani picked the Gurgaon-based company as the Startup of the Year at a meeting in Bengaluru on Wednesday. The award recognised Lenskart's success in building a fast-growing, large-scale, omnichannel consumer retail venture while creating an entirely new category, the jury noted. The 10-member jury chose eight winners from a shortlist of 41 contenders after deliberating for over 2.5 hours. Lenskart, founded by Peyush Bansal, Amit Chaudhary, Ramneek Khurana and Neha Bansal in 2010, joins a list of eminent winners that have previously won the top prize. These include Zomato, Zerodha, Razorpay, OfBusiness, Delhivery, Oyo Hotels & Homes, Swiggy, Freshworks and Ola. Three of these -- Zomato, Delhivery and Freshworks -- are now listed companies, highlighting the strength of the businesses that have snagged the coveted award since its inception in 2015. Ola spun out Ola Electric as a separate entity and went public a month ago. Ola Electric was also one of the six nominees for the Startup of the Year category. "The overarching theme of ETSA is that the so-called startup world is coming of age," Nilekani said after the jury meeting. "We learnt a lot because many of these companies which we may not have heard of, some technology innovations we have not seen and even the quality of entrepreneurs... In all, this was a good learning experience for us." ET Startup Awards 2024: Playing on front foot in innovation game Mukul Arora, co-managing partner at Elevation Capital, was chosen winner of the coveted Midas Touch award for best investor because of his astute sense of timing on making exits from early bets. The jury zeroed in on Arora for the variety of his investments ranging from sectors such as food delivery and ecommerce to used-car sales and edtech. His investments include Meesho and Swiggy. Strong revenue growth and profitability along with plans of eventually going public emerged as the key linking theme during the jury meeting. "I think the process was very well established and we asked everyone to nominate two candidates and sit down and have deeper discussions and those who know the companies well give good arguments and then go back and forth and decide the finalists," said Nilekani. The award for the Bootstrap Champ went to Boult -- which sells earphones and smartwatches -- for not having to access external funding in a capital-intensive category and yet scaling the business to be among the top players. The jury highlighted its ability to record steady growth in revenue and profit in a highly competitive sector while being bootstrapped. ET Startup Awards 2024 | Startup of the Year: You don't need glasses to see what Lenskart did in this space The prize for Top Innovator went to Bengaluru-based BrainSight AI, which is building tools for neurosurgeons and psychiatrists to detect mental health symptoms faster and better, recognising its ability to tap into such a broad sector with growing importance for mental health awareness. Geetansh Bamania -- founder of furniture and electronics rental startup Rentomojo -- was chosen as the winner in the Comeback Kid category while ClaimBuddy was adjudged the Best on Campus. Hardika Shah, founder of Kinara Capital -- a non-banking financial company (NBFC) that lends to small enterprises with a special focus on women business owners -- was the winner in the Woman Ahead category. Haqdarshak, which helps people access the government's social security services, won in the Social Enterprise category. The 10-member jury, comprising top entrepreneurs, investors and corporate leaders from across the globe, chose the winners after several rounds of discussions followed by a secret ballot. Several of the contests proved to be intense. Joining Nilekani at the milestone event were Mithun Sacheti, founder, CaratLane; Nyrika Holkar, executive director, Godrej & Boyce; Ritesh Arora, cofounder and CEO, Browserstack; Albinder Dhindsa, CEO, Blinkit; Sumer Juneja, managing partner and head, India & EMEA, SoftBank; Nikhil Kamath, cofounder, Zerodha; Nandita Sinha, CEO, Myntra; Prativa Mohapatra, MD, Adobe India; and cricketer Shubman Gill. "It's amazing to see the companies become so large and of such scale and now they are beginning to have an impact on the society and that's great news," Nilekani added. The initial pool of candidates for the 10th edition of The Economic Times Startup Awards was drawn up by a select group of around 200 founders, investors, and other stakeholders of the country's startup ecosystem. ET's editorial team worked with knowledge partner Tracxn, a research platform, to put together the final shortlist. The Economic Times Startup Awards 2024 is presented by IDFC First Bank in partnership with Tracxn.