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Groww won Startup of the Year at the 12th Economic Times Startup Awards in Bengaluru on October 9, 2026. The awards recognised winners across eight categories, including a first-ever joint win for Woman Ahead.
Winners of the 12th ET Startup Awards
The Economic Times Startup Awards were held in Bengaluru on Friday, October 9, 2026. Here are the winners named in the event report:
| Category | Winner | Recognition |
|---|---|---|
| Startup of the Year | Groww | Bengaluru-based wealthtech platform; recognised for continued rapid growth alongside healthy profitability. |
| Midas Touch | Manu Chandra | Founder and managing partner at Sauce VC; recognised for early-stage consumer-focused investing. |
| Bootstrap Champ | Habuild | Online yoga platform. |
| Social Enterprise | Varaha | Climatetech startup. |
| Woman Ahead | Pallavi Mohadikar and Pallavi Shrivastava | Mohadikar is cofounder and CEO of Palmonas; Shrivastava is cofounder and CEO of Progcap. The report described this as the category’s first joint win. |
| Top Innovator | Theranautilus | Deeptech startup. |
| Best on Campus | Armatrix | Winner named by the report. |
| Comeback Kid | Mukund Jha | Cofounder of vibe-coding startup Emergent. |
Why Groww took the top award
The report said the jury selected Groww for sustaining rapid growth while maintaining healthy profitability. It described the company as a Bengaluru-based wealthtech platform and noted that it listed in November 2025. The Economic Times/ETtech put its market capitalisation at about $12.5 billion in its October 2026 report; that is a dated snapshot, not a current valuation.
Who chose the winners?
An 11-member jury chaired by Wipro executive chairman Rishad Premji selected winners across the eight categories. The jury deliberated for more than three hours on August 25, according to The Economic Times/ETtech.
#1 Best Overall
Other named jury members were Sachin Bansal, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Mukesh Bansal, Mithun Sacheti, Nandita Sinha, Ajit Mohan, Irina Ghose, Paras Chopra, Abhiraj Singh Bhal and Aryaman Vikram Birla.
What the event report said about India’s startup landscape
The report situated the awards amid growing attention to deeptech and physical hardware startups, which can require longer development periods and major technological breakthroughs. It previewed a discussion led by Accel founding partner Prashanth Prakash with Pixxel cofounder and CTO Kshitij Khandelwal, BrainSight AI cofounder and CEO Laina Emmanuel, and Agrani Labs cofounder and CEO Dheemanth Nagaraj.
Rank #2
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It also noted that ecommerce marketplace Meesho made its public-market debut in December 2025 and had a market value above $10 billion at the time of the 2026 report. That figure, like the reported Groww market capitalisation, is a time-specific estimate rather than a present-day valuation.
Quick Recap
Best Value
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Rank #3
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