The Jury: The Masters Of The Game

The winners of BW Young Entrepreneurs Awards 2016 have been hand-picked by the finest minds in the Indian startup industry. The jury, assembled by BW Businessworld, met on 21 September to adjudge the top ten winners of the second edition of India’s most prestigious startup awards. Read below about the jury members:

Sanjeev Bhikchandani
He is BW’s old hand. He was part of the jury in the first BW YEA too. Popularly known as the Naukri man, Bhikchandani has funded and mentored many early stage startups. So far, his firm Info Edge has invested about Rs 570 crore in several high potential startups. Most of his investments have turned out very well; best examples are Zomato and Policybazaar.

Siddharth Talwar
For Sid — as is fondly known — it was his first time as part of the BW YEA jury. He is a co-founder and partner at venture capital firm Lightbox, which invests in emerging technology companies at an early stage. Known as the most ‘terrific’ venture capitalist in town, he has a huge appetite for spotting and funding new kids on the block. In the last few years, Sid has advised several startups, angel funds and a very special NGO called Magic Bus. Recently, Sid also launched a new restaurant, The Hungry Monkey.

K. Ganesh
The serial entrepreneur is the founder and chief executive officer of TutorVista, the most successful online tutoring company. Ganesh has incubated several internet and e-commerce companies, and has also launched four startups with an aggregate capital of Rs 16 million and an aggregate exit valuation of $300 million.

Bala Deshpande
In the course of her 26-year-long career, the senior managing director at New Enterprise Associates (NEA) India has spent 16 years in investment, meeting over 3,000 companies across sectors and stages. According to her, “Today, entrepreneurs have to go through the create-build-disrupt-yourself cycle in an excruciatingly short time frame.” NEA is the world’s largest venture capital firm with over $13 billion in committed capital. Under her leadership, NEA started direct investments in India during the downturn in 2008 and has since built a portfolio of 14 companies.

Ritesh Pai
He is the senior president and country head of Digital Banking at YES BANK, India’s fifth-largest private sector lender. Under his leadership, the bank started ‘smart box’ solution for e-commerce deliveries. Yes Bank is likely to get into equity investments in startups soon, under Yes: Head-Startup programme. The bank has also partnered with Indian Angel Network for funding and mentoring startups. Around 10 companies, including app-based utility service provider Bucker.in and robotics platform Robofest, have already signed up for the programme.

Sudhir Variyar
Currently the managing director at Multiples Alternate Asset Management, Variyar has worked in the Indian financial services sector including private equity, investment banking, structured finance, corporate finance, and credit rating for over 17 years. He has lead the deal cycle of origination, evaluation, investment, monitoring and exits for several startups. He has deep industry knowledge of several sectors including financial services, telecom, energy, infrastructure, metals and mining.

monica@businessworld.in;
@MonicaBehura