VMPL
New Delhi [India], May 19: Twelve episodes. Eleven founders. One award. NewsReach is recognized at ET Kaleido Awards 2026 for building India's most credible B2B podcast storytelling platform in partnership with Amazon Web Services Startups.
NewsReach, India's integrated PR and storytelling platform, has won the Best Startup Campaign award at the ET Kaleido Awards 2026 for Crafting Bharat Season 2, produced in partnership with AWS Startups. The recognition marks a significant moment for B2B podcast storytelling in India, validating a format that NewsReach and AWS Startups have been building with deliberate intent across multiple seasons.
What Is Crafting Bharat Season 2?
Crafting Bharat Season 2 is a 12-episode podcast series, an initiative by NewsReach, powered by AWS Startups. The series launched on May 9, 2025, and concluded in July 2025. It was hosted by Gautam Srinivasan, Consulting Editor at CNBC India, CNN-News18, Forbes India, and The Economic Times, one of India's most recognized voices in business journalism.
The series explored how Indian startups are using cloud technology and artificial intelligence to build solutions contributing to the Viksit Bharat 2047 vision. Each episode was structured across three segments: Ignite, which uncovered the early journey and founding story; Launch, which explored growth strategies and key business decisions; and Orbit, which examined the startup's long-term vision for India's transformation.
The Founders Who Built This Season
Crafting Bharat Season 2 brought together eleven founders and operators building in sectors ranging from enterprise software and financial services to healthcare, logistics, pharmaceuticals, and micro-mobility. Each conversation was designed to go beyond headlines and surface the decisions, pivots, and lessons that rarely get spoken about openly.
The founders featured across the twelve episodes were:
Dheeraj Pandey, Co-Founder and CTO of DevRev, the AI-native platform bridging product development and customer success teams.
Abhishek Kumar, Co-Founder and CEO of Mygate, the world's most comprehensive community management platform with over 250 features.
Naveen Dachuri, Co-Founder and CTO of Yulu, India's largest shared micro-mobility service provider using electric two-wheelers to reduce urban traffic and air pollution.
Prithvi Chandrasekhar, President and CEO - Consumer Finance of InCred Finance, the new-age financial services group leveraging technology and data science to make lending faster and more accessible.
Elwinder Singh, Co-Founder of Connect & Heal, a HealthTech platform reimagining coordinated, family-focused healthcare across primary, preventive, and emergency care.
Swapnil Shah, Founder and CEO of Freight Tiger, which has built an intelligent operating system for India's logistics sector combining a technology platform, on-ground control tower, and digital freight network.
Anand Agrawal, Co-Founder and CPTO of Credgenics, India's leading digital collections platform reimagining debt recovery through a unified, cloud-native, tech-first approach.
Chaitanya Raju, Executive Director and CPO of HealthPlix, the AI-powered EMR platform pioneering the digitization of healthcare for doctors across India.
Dr. Raunak Bhinge, Managing Director of Infinite Uptime, an Industrial AI pioneer delivering production reliability to 801 plants across 26 countries through its PlantOS Manufacturing Intelligence Platform.
Amit Kumar, Director and CTO of Easebuzz, a full-stack payment solutions platform serving over 200,000 businesses in India.
Amit Kaul, COO of Pharmarack, India's largest Pharma B2B commerce platform focused on strengthening pharmaceutical distribution and supply chain ecosystems.
The final episode featured Goutam Kurumella, Head of Startup Solutions Architecture at AWS India, who shared how AWS is enabling the next generation of Indian founders to build, scale, and compete globally.
The Role of AWS Startups in Making This Season Possible
AWS Startups was the powering partner for Crafting Bharat Season 2, and the collaboration reflects a shared conviction that India's startup stories deserve deeper, more honest platforms.
What the ET Kaleido Award Recognizes
The ET Kaleido Award for Best Startup Campaign was given to Crafting Bharat Season 2 for the way it blended storytelling, production quality, and brand integration without compromising authenticity. The campaign was recognized not just for execution but for the category it is creating: B2B podcast storytelling as a credibility-building tool for enterprises and startups.
Speaking about the recognition, Darshan Shah, Co-Founder and CEO of NewsReach, said: "Crafting Bharat started as a simple idea. We wanted to create conversations that people would actually care about and listen to till the end. Today, audiences connect with honesty far more than perfect messaging, and that is what we have tried to stay true to. This recognition means a lot because it also signals something larger. Podcasting is no longer just a content format. It is becoming a meaningful way for brands to build deeper relationships with their audience. We are glad to be contributing to that shift."
What This Signals for B2B Podcasting in India
Podcasting in India has grown rapidly but has remained largely consumer-driven in format and intent. Crafting Bharat has been quietly defining a different use case: the B2B podcast as a trust-building instrument. For startups featured in the series, it creates a credible, long-form record of their journey, accessible to investors, partners, and customers.
The award comes at a point when NewsReach is actively expanding its investment in podcast-led formats and owned media properties, with a clear strategic direction toward helping enterprises and startups build narratives that outlast individual campaigns.
About NewsReach
NewsReach is an integrated PR and storytelling company that works with brands, startups, and enterprises to build communication that is credible, engaging, and built for long-term impact. From public relations and founder visibility to branded content and podcast storytelling, NewsReach creates narratives that people connect with. NewsReach was co-founded by Darshan Shah and Soniya Kundnani, both recognized in Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2022 in the Media, Marketing and Advertising category. Strategic investors include HT Media and Zee Media.
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