BANGALORE, INDIA: Six months of heady campaigning culminated in a suspense filled evening where India’s first people’s choice awards for startups– the TATA NEN Hottest Startups Awards 2008 has been announced. The five innovative and high potential startups that made it to the top are - activecubes solutions, Lakshya, StarAgri, takeovercode.com and The Loot.

The TATA NEN Hottest Startups Awards, the world’s first people’s choice awards for new startups attracted around 600 nominations covering a wide range of sectors and geographies -- with startups from over 40 cities covering nearly 20 industry segments, making it India’s largest startup contest. For the first time the public was invited along with over 250 top experts, including distinguished entrepreneurs, investors and industry representatives, to help select the winners. The contest fired the imagination of public engaging over 2 lakh voters in the very first year of its launch. 

Awards for winners

The 5 winners are entitled to a host of exciting awards, including:

TCS Small & Medium Business (SMB) Group -- A 3 year software service subscription to all five winners, free of cost for select business applications.
IIMA’s Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) – 1:1 consultation with leading faculty member associated with CIIE; identification of and input on support areas and introductions to various experts in the IIM-A network across industry and academia.
IIM-B’s N.S. Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL) -- Free admission for 2 representatives per winning startup to any one of the short-duration NSRCEL programs
Mentoring consultations -- Exclusive business support sessions to enable winners to benefit from the best minds in industry and academia, featuring an open exchange of ideas and strategies in a fully confidential manner. 
The Gateway Hotel, a new brand of contemporary hotels from the Taj Group – awarding special rates and free nights stay for the five winners at any Gateway property across India.

Special Awards

In keeping with the premise of the contest, to provide value not just to final winners but also the shortlisted finalists, the knowledge partners of the TATA NEN Hottest Startups Awards stepped forward with three ‘Special Awards’ that were handed out at the Awards ceremony, including:

The ‘IIM Ahmedabad-CIIE Mentorship Award’ awarded to the Chennai based firm, Ennovasys.
The ‘IIM-B NSRCEL Incubatee Award’ awarded to Bangalore’s Wyn Brands, and Belgaum’s Vayavya Labs
The ‘Microsoft BizSpark Award’ awarded to the Noida based firm, ITCONS e-Solutions