Why These Awards?

More and more high-impact startups are flourishing in India - young companies that innovate, solve hard problems, grow fast and create jobs. These startups deserve recognition and support. From all of us.

Definitive, Comprehensive, and Engaging

Targeting over 500 nominations across various sectors and geographies in India, Hottest Startups will uncover and showcase the largest number of potential startups. Its open voting process combined with expert evaluations provides an opportunity for every one to help choose the winners.

Who's Involved?

The TATA NEN Hottest Startup Awards are a result of the combined efforts of TATA, a rapidly growing business group in India with significant international operations, and the National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN), a non-profit organization, and India's leader in entrepreneurship education.

TATA' s track-record of innovation, its presence in all parts of India, plus its dedication to India's growth make them ideally suited, in partnership with NEN, to create this innovative platform to celebrate the courage of those who step away from the mainstream to start companies, and to support their efforts.

Two leading venture capital firms, Seedfund and Helion, join TATA NEN Hottest Startups as major partners to lend their expertise. HT Mint will provide ongoing analysis and special coverage, as the Official Print Media Partner.

In addition, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has partnered with the Awards to provide common office applications and vertical specific applications free of cost as part of its IT-as-a-Service concept to the winning startups that fall in the areas of manufacturing, retail, healthcare and education.

Over 25 Knowledge & Associate Partners representing the entire entrepreneurial community, and beyond, have joined to make the Awards a success. They include: 376 NEN member academic institutes, TiE, Indian Angel Network, Open Coffee Club, Smart Techie, Proto.in, Pagalguy, Cool Avenues, MBA Universe, Kickstart.in, Startups.in, Webyantra and many more. In total, Hottest Startups will reach over 5,50,000 people, through partners alone.

> More About Partners

What are the Eligibility Criteria for Startups?

The startup must be:

• A registered business (not an idea or plan)
• Headquartered in India
• 5 years or younger (founded in 2003 or after)
• Independent business - not subdivision

Characteristics that make startups HOT:

• Innovative in operations, product or service, or marketing
• Solving hard problems
• Gaining traction - either with increasing number of customers or in research and development
• Have the potential to reshape their industry
• Exhibit a great combination of passion & opportunity

How Are the Winners Chosen?

• The final 5 winners are companies with the most genuine votes chosen from the pool of 30 shortlisted companies.
• Winners will be declared shortly after Dec 22.
• Winners receive a combination of business support and publicity. View Benefits.
• The 30 shortlisted companies are those with both maximum number of votes and highest expert rating.
• If there is a tie in the overall ranking for the shortlist, first the higher expert rating will be considered as tiebreaker and then the number of votes.
• If both the expert rating and number of votes are equal, the rank will be tied.

Phase II Clarifications

Once voting closes on Dec 22, there will be an audit period from Dec 23, 08 to Jan 9, 09. NEN may announce the Winners at any time, at their discretion, to accommodate any auditing they deem necessary.

Winners will be those who have the most genuine votes, as determined by Ernst & Young, the Tata NEN Hottest Startups Official Tabulators.

Voting rules:

What is a genuine vote? A voter must be:

• Voting on his/her own behalf
• Informed about the contest and making a conscious choice to vote for a company
• Not getting "paid" to vote for a company

Phase II Voting Process

Voting shall continue to be by both SMS and online. A voter may vote only once for each company
(as in Phase 1).

Online votes will continue to require the voter to register. However, if the voter has already registered with us in Phase 1, they will not be required to register again.

During Phase 2, every SMS voter will be required to provide similar information as the online voters, in order for the vote to be deemed genuine. A voter voting by SMS must provide: his or her name, the name of the company they are voting for, and the name of the awards, in addition to the short code for the contest and the company ID.

SMS Voting Process

Example:

If a voter named Ajay Kumar wants to vote for "ABC Company", which has the company code 18, then he must send the following message to 56767:

HSU 18 Ajay Kumar ABC Company TataNENHottestStartups

So in general that means the voter types:

HSU<space>[company code]<space>[voter first name]<space>[voter last name]<space>[name of company]<space>TataNENHottestStartups

Remember, the message must be sent to 56767.

Notes:

1. Minor spelling errors will not automatically disqualify the SMS vote.
2. SMS votes that include all the information listed above shall still be subject to audit.
3. SMS votes that do not include all the information listed above shall not be considered genuine.

What do the Winners Get?

Winners receive both publicity and significant business support. HT Mint, Official Print Media Partner, will profile the short-listed companies and the winners in separate supplements. Other media partners and NEN will provide additional coverage of the winners.

IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, Microsoft, and NEN will provide business support to the Shortlisted companies and Winners of Hottest Startups. Support includes specially designed courses for the winning teams, possible admission to incubations, and access to funds of over 50 lakhs for each Winner.

> More benefits

How Can I Engage?

YOU spot; YOU shortlist; YOU vote for the top five winners.

If you belong to a startup that is doing something innovative; or have friends working in startups with high potential; or have discovered a startup that deserves to be recognized.

Once the nominations are in, pick the startup you think has the best ideas - and give them the chance to grow.

Competition Audit

As you know, Hottest Startups is designed to be a fair, valuable platform for showcasing Indian entrepreneurship.

To this end, we are very pleased to announce that Ernst & Young, a world-class and highly experienced auditing organization, has come on board as official Tabulator. E&Y is advising us on our procedures, and auditing our practices, the votes, the tabulation, and verifying the information provided by the shortlisted Nominees.

Ernst & Young's rich experience in the domain of process validation and official tabulation includes some of the country's most prestigious television shows and awards such as Kaun Banega Crorepati, Mission Ustaad, Dial One Aur Jeeto, Kam Ya Zyada, Jeeto Chappar Phad Ke, Filmfare Awards, Auto Car Awards, Mirchi Kaan Awards, Wisden International Cricket Awards, CNBC India Business Leader Awards, Indian of The Year Awards and many more...

Phase II Audit Period: December 23 2008 - January 9 2009

Once voting closes on Dec 22, there will be an audit period from Dec 23 2008 to Jan 9 2009. NEN may announce the Winners at any time, at their discretion, to accommodate any auditing they deem necessary.

Phase I Audit Period: November 6 2008 - November 20 2008

Based on advice from E&Y, we have implemented an audit period from Nov 6 - 20. During this time, the Nominations will be visible on the HottestStartups.in, but no more votes will be accepted.

• All the votes, from all Nominees, are being reviewed.
• During the audit period, each of you will get a mail from us informing you of your audited vote count.
• The audited vote total will be reported on the site at that time.
• Rankings will be tabulated as outlined in contest rules, using the expert ratings and the numbers of genuine votes as determined by the audit.
• Based on preliminary audited rankings, during the audit period, we will be in contact with the companies who look like they will be shortlisted, in order to complete the process of verifying their information.

Terms and Conditions

1. National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) retains the exclusive right to include and/or remove any nominee from the contest at any time whatsoever, at its sole discretion.
2. NEN reserves all rights to make prospective and/or retrospective change(s) and/ or amendment(s) to the existing Rules, at its sole discretion, without any prior notice.
3. The outcome of the voting and/or the decision made by NEN regarding voting shall be final and binding on the Nominee(s) and in no event shall the Nominee(s) dispute the decision made by NEN and/or its employees in connection to the awards and/or otherwise.
4. The Nominee(s) of the awards agree that he/she shall indemnify and keep indemnified and hold harmless NEN, its employees, officers, contractors or any other person in relation to any injury/damage/harm/loss suffered by him/her, in any manner whatsoever in connection with the awards and shall also not file in person and/or through any family member and/or any third party applications, criminal and/or civil proceedings in any courts or forum in India against NEN to claim any damages and/ or reliefs and/ or otherwise.
5. NEN is in no manner whatsoever responsible and/or shall not be held liable in any manner whatsoever for any loss, injury, death, mental trauma caused to the Nominee(s) in any manner whatsoever, in connection to the awards and/ or otherwise towards the Nominee(s) in any manner whatsoever.
6. The terms of these Rules shall be construed in accordance with the laws of India and in case of any dispute or any other matter arising in reference to the awards and/ or otherwise shall be referred to a sole arbitrator to be appointed by NEN and shall be governed by the provisions of Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, amended from time to time. The venue for arbitration shall be Bangalore and the same shall be conducted in English language. The costs, charges and expenses in connection to arbitration shall be solely borne by the Nominee(s) disputing the same.

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