Cars24 announces inaugural Grand Startup Challenge with ₹1 crore prize pool to give India’s founders the freedom to build
Gurugram : Cars24, an AI-native automotive ecosystem, in collaboration with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the Startup Policy Forum (SPF) and MeitY Startup Hub (MSH), today announced its inaugural Grand Startup Challenge. With a ₹1 crore prize pool, the national challenge is designed to give India’s most promising early-stage founders access to capital, mentorship and a real, national-scale environment in which to prove what they have built. The national finale is planned around National Startup Day on 16 January 2027.
The Challenge is one of the flagship initiatives under the Memorandum of Understanding signed between Cars24 and DPIIT to strengthen India’s startup ecosystem. It brings the MoU’s commitments across mentorship, skilling, AI enablement, investment access and road safety into a national platform where founders compete for both funding and the opportunity to deploy their solutions within Cars24’s operations.
Many talented Indian founders face constraints beyond funding: limited access to real data, compute, live customers and distribution. The Grand Startup Challenge is designed to help remove these barriers, giving founders the resources and opportunities to take a promising prototype into real-world use.
What is on offer
The Challenge commits a total prize pool of ₹1 crore, alongside deployment opportunities, technical resources and mentorship:
● ₹1 crore prize pool: Distributed across the Grand Champion, runners-up, finalists and Track Excellence Awards, with the detailed award structure to be finalised jointly with DPIIT.
● Real deployment: Top teams will enter live pilots within Cars24’s operations, with production deployment for the Grand Champion within 90 days.
● Cars24 AI Labs access: Direct induction into Cars24 AI Labs for the Grand Champion, alongside the Bharat Deeptech Cup.
● Sandbox access: Shortlisted teams will receive access to API credentials, compute credits and datasets to build and test their solutions.
● Mentorship and investor access: Guidance from Cars24’s founders and leadership, introductions to venture investors, and jointly published technical case studies to showcase participating founders and their solutions.
Four national bottlenecks, four tracks
Problem statements will be developed jointly with DPIIT across four tracks, each supported by Cars24’s live operations:
● Fintech for the Unbanked: Building financial infrastructure for Indians with limited access to formal finance or little credit history.
● Mobility and Logistics Optimisation: Reducing the cost and improving the efficiency of moving goods and vehicles.
● Lending and Credit Infrastructure: Expanding credit access and improving lending efficiency.
● Road Safety and Vehicle Intelligence: Building systems that help prevent crashes and make Indian roads safer.
A bridge between ambition and execution
By bringing together DPIIT’s convening power and the Startup India platform, SPF’s ecosystem connections, MSH’s support for technology startups and Cars24’s operational scale, the Grand Startup Challenge aims to create a practical path from an idea to deployment.
Participating founders will have the opportunity to test solutions across automotive, logistics, lending and vehicle intelligence workflows. The goal is to help founders demonstrate measurable value in a live business environment and build evidence that can support their next stage of growth.
Cars24 intends to develop the Challenge into an annual national platform that identifies promising founders, helps them scale and shares their journeys with the wider startup ecosystem.
Vikram Chopra, Builder, Cars24, said:
“Cars24 was once a young company that just needed a real environment to prove its ideas. Today, we can offer that environment to the next generation. The Grand Startup Challenge gives founders who have talent but limited means access to capital, data, compute, mentorship and a national stage to deploy on. That is what it means to open up a world of possibilities. We are proud to deliver this as our first flagship initiative under our MoU with DPIIT.”
Shweta Kohli, President, Startup Policy Forum, said:
“India has no shortage of ambitious founders. What can make a difference is access to a first customer, an opportunity to test a solution at scale and the support to take it into the market. The Grand Startup Challenge brings these opportunities together. Through our collaboration with Cars24, DPIIT and MeitY Startup Hub, we hope to help promising founders move from building a prototype to proving its value in the real world.”
Applications, problem statements, the detailed award structure and the final event format will be announced in the coming months and developed by Cars24 in collaboration with DPIIT, the Startup Policy Forum and MeitY Startup Hub.
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