Intellecap Annouces Sankalp 2009 Winners
Recognizing Businesses with Social and Financial Returns
April 29, 2009
“I would like to complement Sankalp for making the jury’s job difficult this year. I have participated in many such fora but rarely have I seen the quality of plans that I saw at Sankalp. I would not be surprised to see a number of participants who are looking for capital actually get funding as a result of Sankalp 2009.
Kudos also to the Sankalp team and especially the entrepreneurs who have a splendid vision for creating sustainable, profitable entities with a potentially incredible socio-economic impact across a broad swath of India. Whether it is clean water, affordable healthcare or access to critical information, if the presenting companies achieve a fraction of what they are capable of, we would be referring to them in the future as ‘game changing.’” – Mohanjit Jolly, Executive Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and jury chair of the Sankalp 2009 jury for the healthcare track.
The Sankalp 2009 Awards were declared yesterday by a jury of prominent investors.
The awards for the Education for All sector was declared by Mr. Anal Jain (MVA Ventures), Jury Chair of the same. The Sankalp 2009 Emerging Award for Education went to Technable, while the Sankalp 2009 Growth Awards for Education were won by Elements Akademia, a chain of finishing schools (training & placement), and IL&FS Education & Technology Services. Commenting on the nominations, Mr. Jain said, “Going through these plans was a very positive experience. As someone concerned about development, several of the plans show what good work and efforts are going on to solve the problems the country faces”. Mr. Jain also much appreciated the level of flexibility and discretion provided to the Jury by the organizers.
The Sankalp 2009 Emerging Award for Healthcare was won by Biosense Technologies, an enterprise that is actively focused on combating anaemia – the cause of 40% maternal and infant mortality. The Jury Representative, Vikram Ramana, Acumen Fund, announced the Growth Award to Vaatsalya and the High Impact Award to TanClean.
In the Environment & Clean Energy Sector (ECE), Sustaintech was a unanimous choice for the Sankalp 2009 Emerging Award. The Sankalp 2009 Growth Award was presented to Tara Machines, while Eco Recycling won the Rianta Capital Sankalp 2009 High Impact Award. The Jury Representative Neeraj Doshi of Rianta Capital announced the awards on behalf of Prasad Gadkari of IDFC Private Equity.
Travel Another India, a venture committed to responsible tourism, won the Sankalp 2009 RIN Emerging Award for Agriculture & Rural Innovations, while Rudi Multitrading Company received the prestigious Sankalp 2009 NABARD Award for Growth. Suminter Organics won the High Impact NABARD Award in this sector for its impact and scalability. Moumita Sensharma of RBS declared the results on behalf of the Jury Chair Arindom Dutta of Rabo Bank.
In the Highly Scalable Sector, both Desicrew Solutions and LabourNet were chosen for the Sankalp 2009 Emerging & Growth Award (the Jury clubbed both the categories in this sector). A Little World, won the Sankalp 2009 High Impact Award for their innovative use of technology for greater financial inclusion. The Highly Scalable Awards were announced by the Jury Chair P.Pradeep of Aavishkaar and were handed out by the keynote speaker Vijay Mahajan.
Last but not the least, the Rural Innovations Network (RIN) Special Award for the most innovative rural business was awarded to Akashganga":http://www.akashganga.in/ (Shree Kamdhenu Electronics Pvt. Ltd.). Paul Basil, founder of RIN, presented the award.
The Jury consisted of 30 investors across the 5 sectors and in addition to the names mentioned above included prominent investors such as Bejul Somaia of LightSpeed Ventures, C.K. Gopalakrishnan of NABARD, Kumar Ashish of ICICI Bank, Amit Vikram of Milestone Religaire, Deepthi Reddy of IFMR Trust, and Prof. James Tooley, among others.