The 18-year-old global technology venture capital fund, Chiratae Ventures, announced the Chiratae Ventures Patrick J. McGovern Awards for 2024.

Narayana Murthy, Founder of Infosys Limited, was awarded the India Lifetime Achievement Award, while Shantanu Narayen, Chair and CEO at Adobe, won the Global Lifetime Achievement Award. Abhinav Asthana, CEO and Founder at Postman received the Exceptional Entrepreneurial Achievement Award.

Chiratae Ventures is one of India’s largest homegrown VC funds.

Established in 2016, the awards commemorate Patrick J. McGovern, anchor investor of Chiratae’s first fund and the founder of International Data Group (IDG).

“The influence of Patrick J. McGovern cannot be overstated; he was not only the anchor investor for this venture firm but also a pivotal figure in India’s technology ecosystem,” said Sudhir Sethi, Founder and Chairman of Chiratae Ventures.

“We are honoured to recognize the extraordinary contributions of Narayana Murthy, Shantanu, and Abhinav with the Chiratae Ventures Patrick J. McGovern awards. These leaders exemplify a unique combination of technology vision, business acumen, world-class engineering, ethical stewardship, and entrepreneurial talent.”

The India Lifetime Achievement Award honours leaders in India who have built and scaled organizations that have had a substantial impact on their respective industries.

“Infosys was the first Indian company to be listed on NASDAQ in 1999. Under Murthy’s leadership, Infosys has led the largest experiment in the democratization of wealth in India by distributing over 19% of Infosys equity to its employees,” said a release from Chiratae Ventures.

“I am very grateful to Chiratae Ventures, to Sudhir and his team for this kindness, generosity, and affection in awarding me the Lifetime Achievement Award named after Patrick J. McGovern. I am doubly happy that I am in the company of some extraordinary personalities like John Chambers, Indra Nooyi, Azim Premji, late Ratan Tata, Nandan Nilekani, and Kris Gopalakrishnan, among many other distinguished people,” said Narayana Murthy.

The past winners of the award include John Chambers, Kris Gopalakrishnan, Uday Kotak, Indra Nooyi, Azim Premji, and Ratan Tata among others.

The Global Lifetime Achievement Award celebrates the impact of global leaders on India’s tech entrepreneurial ecosystem. According to the release from the fund, Shantanu Narayen has successfully led the transformation of the company from desktop to the cloud world, and its venture into the digital experiences category.

“The Chiratae McGovern Award is really about Adobe and the work of our 30,000 employees. We’ve always believed that innovation is at our core; customers are at the centre of everything that we do and are central to our success. This award is really a testament in many ways to the power of technology to drive change and drive change for good,” said Narayen.

The funds advised by Chiratae Ventures India have investments across sectors such as ConsumerTech, SaaS, FinTech, and HealthTech and have been early backers of companies such as Flipkart, Lenskart, Myntra, Pixis, PolicyBazaar, Uniphore, Curefoods, Cult.fit, Fibe, and FirstCry, among many others.