Unicorns in India: Basics and Statistics
Unicorns in India: Basics and Statistics
Introduction
Did you know that there can be over 200+ unicorns in India by 2025? This is the prediction by Iron Pillar, a proprietary data analysis of venture growth investors, in its Tech Unicorn Market Landscape Report IV declared. While the world holds over 1,100 unicorns by this year including companies like Airbnb, Facebook, and Google. There are other acing companies and startups too that have made up to $100 billion and entered the hectocorn club and the ones hitting the valuation of $10 billion got into decacorn club.
Interesting! But quite unfathomable right?
Meaning
So, where did these unfathomable terms like unicorn, hectocorn, and such come from? And didn’t unicorns just exist in mythologies? Well, since 2013 the term “unicorn” did not just get recognized as some mythological creature but it also got a legit term in the world of business. Now, the most obvious question is, what is a unicorn and why is it getting popular these days in the business world? Here’s the answer to it, the term “unicorn” was first termed in 2013 by a venture capitalist and a seed investor “Aileen Lee”. She took all of the US-based software companies that were started in or before 2003 and which achieved a valuation of $1 billion through either public or private market investors and then she put them in a club called “The Unicorn Club” and interestingly, the unicorn was going to be the Godzilla Club almost as she said, “So I basically have this very long-phrase ‘Billion dollars companies founded in the last ten years that are either public or private venture backed’ and you can’t really write that many times in there and then say, it’s not very readable. I did this finer replace, I was substituting like monsterhead… or like godzilla… or like umm.. Homerun and I would reread the piece with the different phrases, now I put in “unicorn”. So I wanted to like... that it was more fun and more mystical and made it seem more magical, more lucid. A unicorn just made the whole thing much easier to read, that’s what I posted and that’s kinda… and I honestly did not expect anyone to read it”. The term, apparently, got quite popular after that and got defined as, “A unicorn is a startup company founded in or before 2003 which has a current valuation of more than $1 billion in the market”. Aileen Lee chose this mythical creature to represent the statistical rarity of such successful startups. Since, the invention of the term, its definition has been evolving. Today a unicorn company is not just counted under the criteria of necessarily being from a US-based software company, but, any startup, be it a software company or not or whether it is from U.S or not, it is entitled to become a unicorn if its valuation hits $1 billion. So basically any startup from any corner around the world.
Listed down below are the top 3 startup companies worldwide that have made up to the unicorn club by 2022:
Bytedance- The biggest company in the unicorn club with a valuation of $140 billion dollars.
SpaceX- Elon Musk’s spacecraft manufacturer startup company which has a valuation of $100 billion.
Stripe- Top 10 successful startups in Fintech Industry.
Unicorn startups in India
Talking about India, according to the reports, India is becoming the world’s fastest-growing startup ecosystem with over 100+ unicorn startups like Paytm, Oyo, Swiggy, and many more. It is not that easy to become a unicorn company as you could make out by the amount of the valuation it holds at this stage. The entrepreneurs have to go through a lot of ventures and require a lot of hard work, commitment, and perseverance to climb up the ladders of a unicorn. India has made it up to the 3rd position in the top 10 counties of unicorn startups beating the UK which was at the 3rd position in 2021 as India witnessed 33 startups turn unicorn, whereas, the UK witnessed just 15 in 2021. The leading countries are the US which witnessed 254 unicorns, followed by China which witnessed 74 of it. Seeing this, everybody is adjusting their predictions now as Nasscom report says, “India Will Have 200 Unicorns By 2025” and Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Union Minister of State for Entrepreneurship, Skill Development, Electronics & Technology, said, being hopeful and supportive of the increasing culture of unicorns in the country that, India will see 10x increment (which is about more than 1000) in the number of unicorns in the next 2-3 years of time. The Indian government also expects the next wave of startups to come from the tier 2 and tier 3 cities of India.
Startups that entered the unicorn club of India by 2021 were Flipkart, Moglix, BharatPe, CoinDCX, upGrad, Groww, BlackBuck, Droom, OfBusiness, Meesho, Chargebee, CRED, Digit, Gupshup, Infra.Market, MindTickle, Innovaccer, Pharmeasy, Sharechat, Urban Company, Zeta, Eruditus, Zetwerk and BrowserStack, Apna, Vedantu, Licious, CoinSwitch Kuber, Rebel Foods, CarDekho, MobiKwik, Acko, The Good Glamm Group, CureFit, Mensa, NoBroker, Spinny, Upstox, Slice, Pristyn Care, GlobalBees, Mamaearthh and more. The country has seen a total of 44 companies turn unicorns in 2021.
The Indian startups have reportedly raised around $42+ Bn in funding across 1584 deals in 2021. Since 2016, the startup ecosystem of India has established 60,000+ new startups in 56+ different sectors in the country, creating 6+ lakhs job opportunities in the country.
Ghazal Alagh’s Mamaearth has bagged the title of the first unicorn of 2022, followed by Fractal Analytics, LEAD School, Darwinbox, DealShare, ElasticRun, Livspace, Xpressbees, Uniphore, Hasura, CredAvenue, Amagi, CommerceIQ, Oxyzo, Games 24x7, Open, PhysicsWallah, Purplle, Leadsqared, Onecard, and 5ire.
India has been a country of 100+ unicorns witnessing the very first unicorn in 2011, which was InMobi, which featured among key milestones in the nation’s innovation history by the government of India. However, foundation-wise, the financial service company, “Five Star Business Finance” was founded in May of 1984, and made its first entry into the unicorn club of India in 2021. Almost 37 years of time to achieve this stage, however, back then in the 90s, there was no existence of any such milestone to achieve.
Below is the list of unicorn startup club of India entry-wise:
By Sonali Munda
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