It’s been only four and a half months in 2021 and India has already seen 13 unicorns!
The number of unicorns has been rapidly increasing as investors believe in the accelerated growth opportunity digital in India offers.Covid-19 has expanded the total addressable market for the internet across many categories like e-commerce, SaaS, education, and health care. There was a peak demand for high-quality companies and the best startups have utilized the opportunities in the crises.
During the coronavirus pandemic and the stringent lockdowns of last year, more than 1,600 new startups were founded, taking the total in the country to over 12,500, and more than 55 of them were potential unicorns according to a January report by Nasscom.
A sharp increase in the birth of unicorns is due to, apart from traditional investors, the new crop of entrants like global private equity, Venture capitalists, and hedge funds that take part in the Indian unicorn growth story.
The total value of deals in 2020 was $11.8 billion and expected to be more in 2021
| Name | Sector | Valuation billion $ | INVESTORS |
| Cred | Payments – Credit Card Rewards | 2.2 | Sequoia Capital India, Ribbit Capital, DST Global, Falcon Edge Capital |
| Meesho | Social commerce | 2.1 | Sequoia Capital India, Elevation Capital, SoftBank, Naspers |
| Firstcry | e-commerce | 2.1 | Chiratae Ventures, Elevation Capital, Vertex, SoftBank |
| ShareChat | Social Media | 2.1 | India Quotient, Elevation Capital, Lightspeed Ventures, Tiger Global, Twitter |
| Urban Company | Marketplace- Handyman services | 2 | Tiger Global, Steadview Capital, Accel India, Elevation Capital, Vy Capital |
| Digit | General Insurance | 1.9 | Fairfax Holdings, A91 Partners, Faering Capital, TVS Capital |
| Pharmeay | E- Pharmacies | 1.5 | Orios VP, Eight Roads Ventures, Temasek, Naspers |
| ChargeBee | SaaS – Subscription Billing Solution | 1.4 | Tiger Global, Steadview Capital, Sapphire Ventures, Accel India, Insight Venture Partners |
Other unicorns include Gupshup ( conversational messaging), Groww (personal finance- Mutual Funds), Five-star business finance (NBFC), Infra. Market ( Market place- Construction materials), Innovaccer ( Data Analytics-Healthcare).
Such momentum in startup culture is expected for the next few quarters, hope founders manage the huge flow of capital to build fundamentally strong business.
Reference
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