Backing ideas before they become enterprises
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C.K. Ranganathan, chairman and managing director, CavinKare, and Kamal Bali, president and MD, Volvo Group India, with the award winner at IIT-Madras Research Park. | Photo Credit: VELANKANNI RAJ B.
While awards are often reserved for startups that have already established themselves and demonstrated scale, the ChinniKrishnan Innovation Awards 2026 took a different approach by recognizing ten promising ideas at the budding stage, including ideas that are yet to scale.
The initiative seeks to give early stage innovators the recognition, confidence and encouragement. FMCG firm CavinKare, in association with the Madras Management Association (MMA), honoured India’s promising innovators and emerging idea makers at the 15th edition of the ChinniKrishnan Innovation Awards 2026, that was held in Chennai.
C.K.Ranganathan, Chairman & Managing Director, CavinKare, recalled his memories of his father Chinni Krishnan, the visionary behind the sachet revolution and said: “He sold his agricultural land to feed his ambition, believing that one day his innovation would see the light of day. He went on to attempt 54 different business ideas, each one unique in its own way. He had perseverance. Innovators need to have perseverance; you can’t simply give up,” he added.
Kamal Bali, President & Managing Director, Volvo Group India, said that identifying a problem and attempting to find a solution is itself a great achievement. “The fact that you’re getting on to that journey itself is a very big thing,” he told the innovators at the event.
Three firms Biopioneer, Prantae Solutions and EF Polymer were recognized under innovation category. Biopioneer has developed an indigenous, thermostable broad-spectrum protease inhibitor intended to preserve protein biomarkers in blood, serum and plasma. By reducing dependence on uninterrupted refrigeration, the platform is designed to improve diagnostic reliability in rural, high-temperature and resource-constrained settings.
Prantae Solutions has developed Proflo-U, a portable point-of-care platform designed to quantify key kidney-health markers with laboratory-aligned performance. Its thermostable nanosensor, rechargeable analyser and simple sample workflow are intended to bring early screening for chronic kidney disease and preeclampsia closer to patients in rural and underserved settings.
The third firm EF Polymer is an agri-tech enterprise founded to address agricultural water scarcity by converting fruit and other agricultural waste into a biodegradable water-retention polymer. Its product, Fasal Amrit, is mixed into the crop root zone, where it absorbs surplus irrigation or rainwater and releases moisture as the soil dries.
The Special Jury award was given to Music Temple Private Limited. The firm has developed a written knowledge system for Indian music through Gamaka Box, a patented notation method designed to represent ‘gamakas’ - the intricate oscillations and curves that define Indian ragas. This innovation makes these musical nuances more readable, teachable and documentable while helping preserve India’s rich music heritage.
Each Innovation category winner received ₹1 lakh, a trophy and a citation, along with access to CavinKare’s expertise across marketing, finance, design, packaging, R&D and human resources, while the Special Jury Award winner received ₹50,000. The ten Great Ideas winners were each awarded ₹10,000, recognizing original concepts that demonstrate strong thinking and future potential.
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