Conquest 2017, the international start-up competition organised by CEL held its Grand Finale at the Hyatt Regency on 3rd September. With Nilesh Kothari of Trifecta Capital, Dhruv Mathur of LBB, Padmaja Ruparel from IAN among those judging the eventual beneficiaries of 4 lakhs in equity-less funding and mentor-mentee assistance, the event proved as richly rewarding as it was engaging.

A conversation with Anirudh Tusnial, Rahul Chabbra and Sanskriti Sharma from CEL’s executive committee revealed that Conquest was a campus specific Business-plan start-up competition before it rose to its present stature. ‘The event was first held in 2004 while restricted to Pilani campus start-ups, later expanding to Goa and Hyderabad. It was as late as 2014 that we altogether moved out of the BITS ecosystem, testing Delhi before becoming a national competition.’ Several BITSian start-ups also participate in the event; four start-ups across the three campuses participated this year, with two start-ups (and the eventual winner) from BITS Goa. They were quick to reject any claim of bias however – ‘CEL doesn’t judge in the later stages; it’s only in the initial filtering of candidates that we’re active, applying a data-driven, algorithmic approach.’

Another stand-out feature about the organization of Conquest is CEL’s filtering of applicants – after a comprehensive form judging critical aspects like revenue, traction, and idea, the data is fed into an algorithm developed in conjunction with LetsVenture to select the top fifty. Following this, one-on-one mentoring sessions are conducted in Delhi, Bangalore, and Chennai to pick the top ten for the finals.

When asked what makes Conquest different from other start-up contests in the country, Anirudh was quick to respond. ‘Conquest is different from other events since our competition doesn’t merely test the business plan of a start-up, but its feasibility, among other metrics.’ This emphasis on applicability over paper ideas also reflects in the competition guidelines, which require participating start-ups to have been over 3 years old.

Conquest’s focus on emerging technologies is similarly laudable, with sectors like healthcare and wellness, renewable energy, and emerging tech given special emphasis. The ten finalists this year included Incredible Devices which seeks to bring affordable treatment to CVD victims, Aquivio which minimizes waste-water generation in RO processes, and Drone Nation, which seeks to make ubiquitous drone technologies.

CEL’s work doesn’t really end after the Grand Finale. Post-conquest, CEL puts current and previous participants in touch with investors looking to invest in specific fields – like when Aquivio, a 2017 finalist and HoundElectric from 2016 were presented to an angel investor looking to invest in their specific fields.

‘Connecting start-ups with investors, and providing them with mentors, funding and media exposure is ultimately what Conquest is all about’, Anirudh concludes. Here’s to wishing the team the very best for the future!