NewsReach co-founder Darshan Shah has secured the Entrepreneur of the Year 2026 title within the Media and Entertainment sector. The PR-tech leader was presented with the accolade at the Economic Times Entrepreneur Awards 2026, held at Mumbai’s Sahara Star Hotel, where he stood alongside a cohort of notable industry figures.
Mumbai, May 18, 2026: During the third annual ET Entrepreneur Awards, which took place on March 25, 2026, at the Sahara Star Hotel in Mumbai, NewsReach Co-Founder and CEO Darshan Shah was honored with the Entrepreneur of the Year award for the Media & Entertainment category.
The NewsReach chief executive claimed the top spot in the Media & Entertainment division at the third iteration of the Economic Times Entrepreneur Awards 2026. The gathering at the Sahara Star Hotel served as a platform for leading Indian business figures to celebrate major entrepreneurial achievements and advancements in industry innovation.
"Visibility is the new currency for businesses in the digital age. We built NewsReach to be the infrastructure layer through which brands, startups, and enterprises access every PR opportunity in India, and eventually across the Global South. " — Darshan Shah, Co-Founder & CEO, NewsReach Media Pvt. Ltd.
Hailing from Gujarat, Shah is a first-generation entrepreneur who established NewsReach alongside co-founder Soniya Kundnani. Their shared vision and the firm’s swift initial expansion earned them a spot on the 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list for Media, Marketing & Advertising. Additionally, the company has attracted investment from industry giants HT Media and Zee Media, signaling robust institutional confidence in their PR-tech model.
Organized by the B2B arm of Times Internet Limited, the Economic Times Entrepreneur Awards act as a standard for entrepreneurial success throughout India. For the 2026 edition, the judging panel evaluated candidates on a range of metrics, such as business model innovation, revenue expansion, market reach, team growth, and their broader influence on the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Winning the Media & Entertainment category award represents more than just a milestone in the company’s recent trajectory; it serves as validation of their distinct structural strategy. By evolving public relations from a disjointed service industry into a technology-led infrastructure, the business has cultivated network effects, steady revenue channels, and a competitive edge backed by 18 months of visibility graph data.
NewsReach is currently transitioning into what Shah describes as a scaling phase. The organization is evolving beyond its origins in PR distribution to serve as the core visibility infrastructure for India’s 1 crore addressable SMBs. Looking forward, the firm is preparing for international expansion, with plans to penetrate the Global South, MENA, and APAC regions.
This accolade from the ET Entrepreneur Awards provides additional external endorsement for a platform that is actively transforming India’s media infrastructure, one visibility graph node at a time.
Hosted by the B2B division of the Economic Times (Times Internet Limited), the ET Entrepreneur Awards honor outstanding entrepreneurial accomplishments across diverse sectors in India and the Asia-Pacific region. The 2026 event (Edition III) took place on March 25, 2026, at the Sahara Star Hotel in Mumbai.
Full winners list: b2b.economictimes.indiatimes.com/entrepreneur-awards/winners-list
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