Dreams Converged @ MUMBAI! Date:   Wednesday , September 30, 2009 Rangsharddha auditorium at hotel Rangsharddha located in Bandra (West), Mumbai was bubbling over with ambition and big dreams on September 12th. It was the third edition of Siliconindia startupcity, the biggest event for startups in India, which was conducted for the first time outside Bangalore. Undoubtedly the event was a roaring success as over 3500 technology enthusiasts with entrepreneurship bent in mind thronged the venue, who were keen on understanding what's happening in Indian startup ecosystem. Siliconindia Startup City is an open platform for startups to showcase their innovative technology, meet potential investors, business partners and customers. In the third edition of the Startup City, there were 30 startups from across the country and over 55 VC firms and 500 CEOs participated in the event. The start-up platform that has been bringing together industry professionals, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, corporate investors, operators, partners, technology professionals and start up companies in its previous editions, this edition too had insightful talks from industry bigwigs like Venki Nishtala, CTO, Rediff.com, Keshav R Murugesh, CEO, Syntel, Sharad Sanghi, CEO, Netmagic Solutions, Ravishankar G, CEO, Geometric and Kailash Katkar, CEO, Quickheal to who recounted their experience of starting up in the world of business and learn exactly what it takes to be at the top of the game. What was intriguing is that participants also got a unique chance to shake hands and learn from successful entrepreneurs and leaders like Suresh Elangovan, CEO, Mindlogicx, Govind Rammurthy, CEO & MD, MicroWorld, Satya Prabhakar, Founder & CEO, Sulekha.com, Vishal Sharma, CEO, (!) Zimblee, Hemir Doshi, Co-founder and Co-Founder & VP, IDG Ventures and many more, who addressed the wanna entrepreneurs gathered at the event since early morning. "Hearing all of the anecdotal wisdom of these entrepreneurial legends was a great experience,"said Rahul Prakash, Head- Sales and Marketing, India, iKen Solutions, one of the startups, who exhibited at the event. The startups not only had the opportunity to exhibit themselves in their respective booths but also got the opportunity to present and pitch about their company and their intriguing products and business to an audience comprising of top venture firms in the country and business heads of several large enterprises. Apart from this, startups looking for financial support even had one on one meeting with the venture capitalists present at the Startupcity. After the resounding success of its earlier two editions in May 2008 and June 2009 in Bangalore, the third edition of the Startup City indeed has seen numerous innovative startups from a varied range of business domains such as software, services and Internet. Best Startups from three IT segments including software, Internet and services were awarded. HR based subscription company PlugHR won the best startup award in software segment. Content Syndicate, a company that provides content to media houses clinched the best startup award in the Internet segment. While marketing solution provider Adoroi won the best startup award in the services segment. Awards were given based on the following criteria: the company overview, market opportunity, the team, solution value proposition, competitive positioning, growth plans, go-to-market plan, current status and investment opportunity. Rediff.com, Syntel and (!) Zimblee (A Yureekah Company) were the key sponsors of the event.