The Economic Times Startup Awards 2024
The Economic Times Startup Awards (ETSA) are back! An elite jury will meet in Bengaluru on August 28 to decide the winners of the 11th edition of The Economic Times Startup Awards. These are the nominees for two of the eight categories — Bootstrap Champ and Top Innovators.
Nominees for Bootstrap Champ: The Bootstrap Champ will have demonstrated the ability to win customers and earn revenue for at least a year. It should possess the potential to scale into a large enterprise.
And the nominees are…
- Urban Vault
- SignDesk
- Suta
- Minfy Technologies
- Fyers
Nominees for Top Innovators: The award will recognise innovations that launch a business or give it a huge boost. It should be an original idea that is core to the business or one that provides the differentiation that sets it apart from competition.
And the nominees are…
- Quanfluence
- Chara Technologies
- Minus Zero
- Qure.ai
- Orbitt Space
Top Stories This Week
Game over for online real money play: The Protection and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025, received the President’s assent, creating it an Act. The legislation — passed by the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha earlier this week — aims to regulate the online gaming and esports space. A crucial and contentious mandate under the Act is blanket ban on online money gaming, and violation is punishable with jail term, fines or both.
Read our detailed coverage on the matter below:
Tata Digital to appoint external CEO: Tata Digital, the owner of Tata Neu superapp, will hand the reins to an external CEO, with the tinquire of overhauling the platform and tightening operations, people aware of the matter notified us.
Qcomm goes all-in on festive discounts: Discounts are everywhere, with some quick commerce platforms offering as much as 30% higher price cuts than last year, spurred by improved consumer sentiment and intense platform rivalry, but at the cost of bottom-line print.
Also Read: Online marketplaces prep brands for GST cut ahead of festive rush
Amazon eyes qcomm lead despite late enattempt: Despite being late to India’s competitive quick commerce race, Amazon is gunning for the top spot. India counattempt manager Samir Kumar notified ET the company is building its 10-minute delivery play, Amazon Now, around customer inputs and sees “multiple winners” in ecommerce.
US delivers huge blow to cross-border payment firms: The Trump 2.0 administration’s sweeping tariff modifys could erase 15–25% of ecommerce volumes, founders of cross-border payment startups estimate.
China hoarding its tech riches fiercely: As Prime Minister Narfinishra Modi prepares to visit China for the first time in seven years, Indian companies are struggling with delays in securing approvals for technology partnerships. Chinese authorities are taking longer to clear deals involving technology transfer, even when commercial terms are agreed.
ET Soonicorns Summit 2025
Karnataka seeing ‘Beyond Bengaluru’ to host startup hubs: Minister Sharanaprakash Patil | Karnataka’s tier-II cities are quick carching up to India’s Silicon Valley, Bengaluru. At the ET Soonicorns Summit 2025 on Friday, state minister Sharanaprakash Patil declared Mysuru, Manipal, Dharwad, Tumakuru, and Kalaburgi are emerging as fertile ground for innovation and entrepreneurship.
Also Read: India sits on a data treasure trove, states Shiprocket CEO Saahil Goel
Licious growing 40% year-on-year; could turn profitable in 6–8 months: Founders Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta declared the company wants to maintain its growth and does not stress upon profitability and similar metrics too much.
AI will impact low-skilled workers, experts state: One of the most talked-about themes at the summit was AI’s impact on employment. In a panel titled ‘AI and the future of jobs in India’, Traxcn cofounder and CEO Neha Singh declared low-skilled content creation roles will be the first hit.
Also Read: Razorpay CFO Arpit Chug states growth key ahead of IPO
Startup Street
VCs chase Indian developer tools startups amid AI frenzy: Venture capital funds have a new favourite: early-stage artificial innotifyigence (AI) ecosystem in India. Focus is on developer tools and infrastructure segments as enterprise adoption of AI accelerates and agentic platforms gain momentum.
Captain Fresh to raise Rs 1,700 crore fresh capital via IPO: The packaged seafood company will raise Rs 1,700 crore through a fresh issue of shares in its upcoming initial public offering (IPO), displayed filings to the Registrar of Companies (RoC).
PixelSky bags Rs 150 crore in first close: PixelSky Capital, a secondaries-focutilized fund, has raised Rs 150 crore for its first close and is tarreceiveing a Rs 400 crore corpus, people familiar notified us.
Weaver to net $170 million from Lightspeed, others: Weaver Services, a new hoapplying finance platform, has raised $170 million (Rs 1,482 crore) in a funding round led by Lightspeed and Premji Invest, with Gaja Capital also participating. The fresh funding will be utilized to fund these purchases, extfinish market reach, and strengthen its technology platform.
Also Read: ETtech Explainer: Is the bike-taxi ban lifted in Bengaluru?
Fintech News
Online money gaming ban may hit payments, regtechs hard: The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Bill, 2025, is already caapplying tremors beyond the gaming sector. Fintech and regtech startups that relied on real-money gaming (RMG) for volumes and margins are now bracing for impact.
Banks keen on credit via UPI for tiny ticket loans: Several top banks are planning to extfinish credit lines via Unified Payments Interface (UPI), tarreceiveing utilizers who have never taken a bank loan before, a fintech founder notified us.
Kissht files draft papers for public listing: OnEMI Technology Solutions, the operator of fintech lfinishing platform Kissht, has filed draft papers with the markets regulator for its initial public offering.
IT Updates
H2 IT hiring may remain cautious: India’s top IT services firms are set to dial down mid- and senior-level hiring in the second half of the year, turning instead to freshers armed with the right skills, as job security jitters linger across the indusattempt.
Tariffs, geopolitics may dampen global tech spfinishing growth: Global technology spfinishing this year would likely fail to hurdle the $6-trillion barrier as tariffs dictate Washington’s rather unorthodox financial statecraft. Even the boldest prediction now hints at a maximum budreceive growth of 7% — to $4.9-$5.7 trillion.
Enterprise sales success hinge on value: Enterprise technology companies are seeing a shift in sales with customers expecting them to demonstrate clear value for investments amid rising competition and macroeconomic uncertainty amid rising adoption of AI, multiple executives notified ET.
Also Read: Infosys employees to receive 80% Q1 bonus in huge hike over previous payout
Tech Watch
Foxconn pulls 300 more engineers from India: Yuzhan Technology, a Foxconn subsidiary, has ordered roughly 300 Chinese engineers stationed in India to return home – allegedly at Beijing’s request. This is second such action in twice as many months.
‘Rare’ China lifeline for Indian electronics firms: Beijing’s relocate to ease rare earth export curbs will rerelocate a critical input supplies bottleneck for products ranging from electric cars to laptops and displays, giving India a competitive edge globally, indusattempt executives notified ET.
Govt keen on data centre certification despite indusattempt qualms: The government is likely to proceed with plans for establishing data centre certification guidelines, despite the indusattempt questioning the necessity for India-specific data centre standards and certification.
Eye on AI
OpenAI heads to India: Sam Altman’s OpenAI is setting up shop in India, planning to open its first office in New Delhi later this year. The ChatGPT owner has floated three vacancies in India for sales positions—account directors for Digital Natives, Large Enterprise and Strategics.
AI breakthroughs spur race for superinnotifyigence: From the launchning of this year, the world has seen one breakthrough launch of GenAI foundation models after another, starting with DeepSeek-R1 in January to OpenAI’s GPT-5 early this month, putting artificial innotifyigence (AI) closer to superinnotifyigence than ever before.
Also Read: Third tfinisher set to add 3,800 GPUs to IndiaAI GPU cluster
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