Aryan Sisodia, Vaibhav Kaushik & Aalaap Nair

Best on Campus – Nawgati

Nawgati began as a student-led idea and is now a critical player in India’s mobility ecosystem. Its flagship platform, Flow, streamlines fuel-station operations by reducing queues, improving throughput, and digitising workflows for consumers and operators alike. Today, Flow is deployed across more than 13,000 fuel pumps, handling over 2.6 billion litres of fuel each month and serving 11 million daily consumers through partnerships with Indian Oil, BPCL, and Nayara. In a sector long resistant to digital disruption, Nawgati’s youthful vision has transformed the everyday refuelling experience at national scale.

Vijay and Vivek Jain

Bootstrap Champ – Minfy Technologies

Minfy Technologies, founded in 2016 by Vijay Jain and Vivek Jain, has quietly built itself into one of India’s most trusted cloud transformation specialists without raising a single rupee of outside capital. In a sector dominated by deep-pocketed players, Minfy’s disciplined, low-burn model stood out, enabling it to scale profitably while serving clients in healthcare, BFSI, manufacturing, and government. An AWS Premier Partner, Minfy has executed complex migrations and modernisation projects across regulated industries, extending its footprint into Southeast Asia and beyond. Its success underscores the power of agility, automation, and a founder-driven ethos in building a resilient global services business.

Aneesh Reddy, Anant Choubey

Comeback Kid – Capillary Technologies

Capillary Technologies, cofounded by Aneesh Reddy, Anant Choubey, and Sridhar Bollam, epitomises resilience. Once heavily reliant on retail, the SaaS firm saw nearly 80% of its revenues vanish overnight during the pandemic. But instead of folding, Capillary reinvented itself, pivoting sharply to loyalty management, doubling down on profitability, and pushing deep into the US and Middle East markets. Today, more than three-fourths of its revenue comes from outside India, and the company is preparing for a public listing. Capillary’s turnaround is a masterclass in strategic agility and founder tenacity.

Ashish Agrawal

Midas Touch – Ashish Agrawal (Peak XV Partners)

Ashish Agrawal, Managing Director at Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India), has emerged as one of the most influential venture investors in the country. His early bet on Groww, now India’s leading investment platform, exemplifies his knack for spotting transformative ideas and backing founders with conviction. Focused on fintech and consumer internet, Agrawal has guided multiple startups through scale and complexity, shaping India’s financial services landscape in the process. The ETSA jury honoured him for a portfolio that not only delivers returns but also defines new categories of growth.

Kushagra Srivastava

Social Enterprise – Chakr Innovation

Chakr Innovation, founded at IIT-Delhi in 2016 by Kushagra Srivastava, is tackling one of India’s most pressing urban problems, air pollution. Its breakthrough device, Chakr Shield, retrofits diesel generators to cut particulate emissions by up to 70%, while converting captured soot into usable carbon black. Already deployed across thousands of sites for 1,500 clients, Chakr has turned regulatory compliance into a climate-tech opportunity. With FY24 revenues crossing ₹125 crore and profitable growth, the company is now expanding its technology to vehicles and other stationary sources, proving that clean air can go hand in hand with sustainable business.

Varun Khaitan, Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Raghav Chandra

Startup of the Year – Urban Company

From solving the chaos of finding reliable plumbers to becoming a household name in beauty, cleaning, and appliance repair, Urban Company has rewritten the playbook for India’s services economy. Founded in 2014 by Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Varun Khaitan, and Raghav Chandra, the company now serves millions of customers across India and international markets. In an industry notorious for informality, Urban Company built trust, standardisation, and scale. Being a profitable venture that delivered a stellar IPO, it is not just India’s largest home-services platform but also a rare consumer internet brand that has cracked governance, growth, and global expansion.

Prashant Warrier

Top Innovator – Qure.ai

Qure.ai is redefining the future of medical diagnostics with artificial intelligence. Founded in Mumbai in 2016 by Prashant Warier, Qure.ai’s mission is to make healthcare more affordable and accessible through AI-powered diagnostic tools. Its products assist clinicians in detecting conditions such as tuberculosis, lung cancer, and pulmonary disorders, speeding up diagnoses, and enabling more efficient treatment plans, particularly in resource-constrained settings. Qure’s solutions are deployed in over 100 countries, with 18 US FDA clearances to date, the highest for lung disease AI. Qure has shown how cutting-edge Indian innovation can bridge one of healthcare’s toughest gaps: timely, accurate diagnostics for all.

Prukalpa Sankar

Woman Ahead – Prukalpa Sankar (Atlan)

Prukalpa Sankar, co-founder and CEO of Atlan, represents a new generation of global SaaS leaders from India. Atlan, her second venture after SocialCops, has become the go-to data collaboration platform for enterprises worldwide, integrating seamlessly into the modern data stack. In 2024, the company raised $105 million led by GIC and Meritech, pushing its valuation to $750 million. Sankar’s leadership blends sharp product thinking with a community-first culture, helping Atlan expand rapidly in the US while staying anchored in its mission, making data more human. Her journey is a testament to how Indian entrepreneurs are now shaping category-defining software for the world.