It is said that if you don't love your life too much, then open your own company. But how can we forget that these newbies in the market are disrupting the entire ecosystem, thus affecting millions of lives globally. The world is going gaga over startups. The interesting fact is that the nucleus of 2015 has been the startups, worldwide. Around two decades ago, Silicon Valley and Boston were regarded as the hub of startups, but today technology entrepreneurship is a global phenomenon. Startup ecosystem similar to Silicon Valley is rapidly emerging all round the world and the new eye grabbers are New York, Austin, Bangalore, Singapore, Berlin and Chicago amongst several others. While the year saw several emerging hot spots, Vancouver, Toronto, Sydney and Seattle lost their charm.

The startup ecosystem has become more interconnected and international, thus attracting huge VC funding from global investors. Exceptional to this, there still lies a huge crater when it comes to gender equality. However, the ecosystem is working towards filling this gap and a larger socioeconomic structural shift that is taking place globally will help bring this change. Today, technology startups are playing crucial role in the information ecosystem. This highly denotes that the healthy startup ecosystem will be on rise, especially in India.

Around a year back, Chu Kee Lock, Group President & CEO of Vertex Venture Holdings said that India is about 10 years behind China when it comes to the ecosystem for startups companies. India broke this myth. In the first quarter of 2015 itself, Indian startup investments increased by 300 percent beating China in the number of deals. Seems India has eventually folded her sleeves to play the game with head over heels. And we bring to you the stories of few such startups who have played an eminent role in bringing about this change in our edition of 'Startup of the Year - 2015'.

The companies featured are from different industries and verticals, but what is common among all of them is their awe-inspiring stories of struggle, failure and success. Each of these entrepreneurs have turned the table in their favor with persistent hard work and innovation, whether it's thought or work culture or offerings. We wish them all the very best for their future.