The Smart CEO Startup50 Awards

The Startup50 Conference and Awards was conceptualized with a very specific goal in mind: to recognize and reward entrepreneurs who've scaled up their ventures brilliantly.

The Conference track will revolve around understanding the art and science of building long-term businesses in various sectors - including technology, healthcare, financial services, consumer, retail etc. - through discussions with venture capital investors and entrepreneurs.

The summit will culminate with an awards ceremony to recognize 50 of India's most promising startups.

nominate your startup

Calling startups founded after April 2009 to nominate themselves to The Smart CEO Startup50 Awards. It is a wonderful opportunity to showcase the various milestones your venture has crossed to India's leading entrepreneurs, business leaders, VC and PE investors, and professional CEOs. The process and methodology of identifying India's top 50 startups will be fair and transparent, and we'll share the details in this page shortly.

Startups contacted for data

Aug 10 - Aug 30, 2017

Jury Meetings

Sept 5-12, 2017

Startup50 List Announced

Oct 13, 2017

Schedule

13 Oct 2017

The Taj West End, Bangalore

9.00 AM

Registrations

Registrations: 9.00 AM to 9.45 AM

10.00 AM

Keynote by Krishnakumar Natarajan, Mindtree

Formal Inauguration & Opening Keynote by, Krishnakumar Natarajan (KK), Executive Chairman, Mindtree. KK will be speaking on the topic: "The 10 most difficult but critical decisions we made at Mindtree to take it from #Idea2IPO."

Speakers:

Krishnakumar Natarajan

10.45 AM

Panel: Idea Validation & Year-1 of a Startup

In this Panel Discussion on "Idea Validation & Year-1" we try to arrive at answers to the following questions: 1) How do I do better in Year-1 of my venture? 2) Am I pursuing the right idea? 3) Have I established proof of concept? 4) Is there a large enough market I can serve? 5) How can get customer validation. In the discussion, we understand from 2 investors and 2 entrepreneurs the approach to ensure we maximise the odds of success in the first 365 days of a business.

Speakers:

11.45 AM

15-minute Coffee Break

Coffee Break

12 Noon

Fireside Chat: The road to an IPO

On Sept 14, 2017, Matrimony.com's IPO was subscribed 441% and at the upper end of the price band, the company was valued at Rs. 2225 crore. In this fireside chat, we bring together two people who have worked with each other for a very long time. Srikanth Narasimhan is Founder of Veda Corp, will engage with the founder & CEO of Matrimony.com, Murugavel Janakiraman, on Matrimony.com's journey from Idea2IPO. And, one more thing: For Muruga, Matrimony.com is not just a business. He found his life partner on the same platform he built.

Speakers:

12.40 PM

From niche to scale

Mahesh Natarajan Senior Vice President - Marketing & Business Development, Ananda Spa, will deliver a talk on 'From niche to scale- building luxury wellness brand Ananda and taking it global'

Speakers:

Mahesh Natarajan

1 PM

Lunch

Lunch

2 PM

Panel on Scaling

In this Panel Discussion, we take a deep dive into the art and science of scaling a business. Through in-depth and nuanced questions to the founders of some of India's fastest growing ventures, we aim to answer the following questions: 1) How do we get ready internally, within the organisation, to scale up rapidly? 2) How do deal with external forces? 3) How do we balance growth and profits? 4) How do we hire the right team and design the organisation optimally? 5) How do we enter new geographies?

Speakers:

3 PM

Opportunities for Startups in Ireland

Talk by Tanaz Buhariwalla, Director, India of IDA Ireland, will address the audience

Speakers:

Tanaz Buhariwalla

3.30 PM

Panel on Startup Brand Building

5 entrepreneurs from Startup50 2017 winning companies discuss the topic of building and scaling a consumer-facing brand.

Speakers:

4.30 PM

From Angel to Series-C - What do VCs look for

4 entrepreneurs/investors from Startup50 2017 winning companies will join the Panel

Speakers:

6.30 PM

Keynote by K. Ganesh

Keynote & Interactive Session with K. Ganesh of Growth Story K. Ganesh has built and successfully exited 4 companies and is currently the founder of Growth Story, an entrepreneurship platform to pursue several startup ideas in parallel. He's currently the promoter of Portea Medical, BigBasket, FreshMenu, HomeLane and several other exciting startups. In this keynote, he'll speak about designing your organisation for an exit.

Speakers:

K. Ganesh

7.00 PM

Keynote Address by Karan Bhagat, CEO, IIFL Investment Managers

Karan Bhagat, Founder & CEO of IIFL Investment Managers, will address the Startup50 Audience on the topic of Wealth Creation, Wealth Management & More. Informally put, he's share tips and tricks on helping our successful founders invest their millions & billions with care.

Speakers:

Karan Bhagat

7.30 PM

Interactive Session with Ashok Soota

Keynote & Interactive Session with Mr. Ashok Soota, Chairman of Happiest Minds and Author of Entrepreneurship Simplified Mr. Soota will deliver a short talk on the key lessons he's drawn from building 3 different companies, Wipro where he was President, Mindtree, where he was Founder & Chairman, and now Happiest Minds. Post his talk, we'll engage in a coordinated discussion between Mr. Soota and the winners of Startup50 2017 companies.

Speakers:

Ashok Soota

8 PM

Awards Night, Dinner, Cocktails & Networking

Awards Night followed by Networking, Dinner & Cocktails, powered by Witlinger, Grover Zampa & Glenfiddich

Speakers

Ashok Soota Ashok Soota, Executive Chairman, Happiest Minds

Amit Patni Chairman, Nirvana Venture Advisors

Karan Bhagat Founder, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of IIFL Investment Managers

Shubhankar Bhattacharya Venture Partner, Kae Capital

Venue

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