India is becoming the world's fastest-growing startup ecosystem with around 59 unicorn startups, as per August 12, 2021. In today's world, unicorn startups are not as uncommon as before; however, building a unicorn startup is not easy. It takes a lot of hard work, commitment, and perseverance throughout the startup's journey to climb the ladder of unicorns. And the ones that have bagged the title of unicorns are discussed in this article.
What is a Unicorn Startup?
Unicorn Startup is the consists of two words, "Unicorn" and "Startup". Unicorn is a business term used to define a startup with a valuation of over $1 Billion. The term was coined by a venture capitalist and a seed investor, Aileen Lee. On the other hand, Startups are privately owned companies typically at the early stages of their development.
Top Unicorn Startups in India 2021
- Paytm
- OYO Rooms
- BYJU'S
- OLA Cabs
- Swiggy
- Zomato
- Paytm Mall
- Zerodha
- ReNew Power
- Big Basket
- Udaan
- BrowserStack
- Zeta
- Moglix
- ShareChat
FAQs
Paytm
Paytm is one of the biggest unicorn startups in India. It is among the largest digital payment service providers in India with a market share of 11.63% and is currently in the third position in the list of top UPI apps in India, as recorded in June 2021. The fintech startup is famous for its payment gateway service, which helps consumers to make seamless payments to the seller from their bank accounts. Paytm entered the unicorn club in 2015. Paytm's valuation was over $7 billion, and it has now increased to $16 billion in 2020.
| Startup Name | Paytm |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India |
| Industry | E-commerce Finance |
| Founder | Vijay Shekhar Sharma |
| Founded | August 2010 |
| Investors | Alibaba, Ant Group, AGH Holdings, SAIF Partners, T Rowe Price, Discovery Capital, and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway |
| Products and Services | Paytm Mall, Paytm Payments Bank, Paytm Money, Gamepind, Paytm Smart Retail, Payment system, Mobile payments, Online shopping |
| Valuation | $16 billion (June 2021) |
OYO Rooms
OYO is among the top travel startups in India. Founded by 21-year-old Ritesh Agarwal in 2013, India’s largest hospitality startup comprises budget hotels. The startup works in liaison with existing hotels and offers travelers vacant rooms at a cheaper price. OYO rooms start at a nominal price of Rs. 999. Besides bulk renting hotels, they have also invested in their own properties as well.
| Startup Name | OYO Rooms |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Gurgaon, Haryana, India |
| Industry | Hospitality |
| Founder | Ritesh Agarwal |
| Founded | 2013 |
| Investors | SoftBank Group, Didi Chuxing, Greenoaks Capital, Sequoia India, Lightspeed India, Hero Enterprise, Airbnb, and China Lodging Group. |
| Products and Services | OYO Rooms, OYO Hotels & Homes |
| Valuation | $9 billion (July 2021) |
BYJU'S
Byju’s is a Bangalore-based edtech platform. It is an online tutoring and coaching firm that started in 2011 and runs on a freemium model. Launched by Byju Raveendran, Byju's is used by more than 15 million students all over the world and has over 900,000 paid subscribers. Byju's Current valuation has reached 16.5 Billion USD.
| Startup Name | BYJUS |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Bangalore, Karnataka, India |
| Industry | Edtech, Distance education, M-learning |
| Founder | Byju Raveendran & Divya Gokulnath |
| Founded | 2011 |
| Investors | Aarin Capital, BOND |
| Products and Services | BYJU’S - The Learning App |
| Valuation | $16.5 Billion (July 2021) |
OLA Cabs
Ola Cabs is an Indian ride-sharing company that was launched on 3rd December 2010. As of 2019, Ola has expanded over 1.5 million drivers across 250 cities. Ola has also expanded its network into its first overseas market, Australia, and in New Zealand in September 2018. Ola began its operations in the UK introducing auto rickshaws.
| Startup Name | Ola Cabs |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Bangalore, India |
| Industry | Transportation |
| Founder | Bhavish Aggarwal & Ankit Bhati |
| Founded | 3 December 2010 |
| Investors | SoftBank Group, Tiger Global, Tencent, Matrix Partners, and DST Global |
| Products and Services | Mobile app, website, Vehicle for hire, Goods and food delivery, Mobile payment and digital wallet |
| Valuation | $6.5 billion (FY20) |
Swiggy
Swiggy is one of the most valuable online food ordering and delivery platforms. Swiggy was founded by Nandan Reddy, Sriharsha Majety, and Rahul Jaimini in 2014. In early 2019, Swiggy expanded into general product deliveries, under the brand name Swiggy Stores. Swiggy today has more than 5,000,000 mobile application installations.
| Startup Name | Swiggy |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Bangalore, India |
| Industry | Retail |
| Founder | Nandan Reddy, Sriharsha Majety, and Rahul Jaimini |
| Founded | 2014 |
| Investors | Norwest Venture Partners, Naspers, Accel, SAIF Partners, Meituan-Dianping |
| Products and Services | Food delivery |
| Valuation | $5.5 billion (July 2021) |
Arbaaz sayed
Zomato
Zomato is an Indian food delivery startup restaurant aggregator. Zomato was founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah in 2008. Zomato primarily provides concrete information, menus, and user reviews of the restaurants. Along with this, Zomato also has food delivery options from partnered restaurants of the selected cities.
| Startup Name | Zomato |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Gurgaon, Haryana, India |
| Industry | Online food ordering and Retail |
| Founder | Deepinder Goyal, Pankaj Chaddah |
| Founded | 2008 |
| Investors | Info Edge, Sequoia Capital, Vy Capital, Ant Financial, Baillie Gifford |
| Products and Services | Restaurant Search & Discovery, Online Ordering, Table Reservations & Management, POS Systems, Subscription Services |
| Valuation | $8 billion (July 2021) |
Devashish Shrivastava
Paytm Mall
PaytmMall is a B2C model inspired by China's largest B2C retail platform TMall. PaytmMall was launched by Paytm in 2017.
| Startup Name | Paytm Mall |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Gurgaon, Haryana, India |
| Industry | E-commerce Finance |
| Founder | Vijay Shekhar Sharma |
| Founded | 2017 |
| Investors | Alibaba, Elevation Capital, SoftBank, eBay |
| Products and Services | Online Shopping |
| Valuation | $3 billion (July 2019) |
Zerodha
Zerodha is an Indian fintech startup that offers retail and institutional broking, currencies and commodities trading, mutual funds, and bonds. The Company was founded in the year 2010 in order to achieve the goal of breaking all the barriers traders and investors face in India. Zerodha is headquartered in Bangalore and has a physical presence in several major Indian cities.
In Dec 2020, Zerodha was the largest retail stockbroker in India by active client base and contributes upwards of 15% of daily retail volumes across Indian Stock Exchanges. Zerodha entered the unicorn club in July 2020 with a self-assessed valuation of about $1 billion. This valuation was based on the ESOP buyback exercise the company undertook valuing each share at more than four times the book value of ₹700 per share.
Disruptive pricing models and in-house technology have made Zerodha the biggest stockbroker in India in terms of active retail clients. Over 5+ million clients place millions of orders every day through our powerful ecosystem of investment platforms, contributing over 15% of all Indian retail trading volumes.
| Startup Name | Zerodha |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Bangalore, India |
| Industry | Stockbroker |
| Founder | Nithin Kamath and Nikhil Kamath |
| Founded | 2010 |
| Investors | Bootstrapped |
| Products and Services | Kite, Coin, Console, Varsity, Equity Trading, Currencies and Commodities Trading, Mutual Funds and Bonds |
| Valuation | $2 billion (June 2021) |
ReNew Power
ReNew Power Limited is an Indian renewable energy company. It is an independent power producer which was founded by Sumant Sinha in 2011. ReNew Power has a pipeline of close to 1400 MW solar and wind projects. It has a current valuation of $8 billion, which makes it one of the most valuable startups in India of 2021.
| Startup Name | ReNew Power |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Gurgaon, Haryana, India |
| Industry | Renewable energy |
| Founder | Sumant Sinha |
| Founded | 2011 |
| Investors | Sylebra Capital and Goldman Sachs |
| Products and Services | Wind Power, Solar Power, Solar Rooftop Power |
| Valuation | $8 billion (March 2021) |
Big Basket
BigBasket is India's largest online grocery store which was founded by Hari Menon, V.S. Sudhakar, Vipul Parekh, Abhinay Choudhari, and V.S. Ramesh in 2011. It has gained popularity among the Indians and receives over 100,000 orders per day. BigBasket has also launched 3 new businesses BB Daily, BB Instant, and BB Beauty.
| Startup Name | BigBasket |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Bangalore, India |
| Industry | Retail |
| Founder | Hari Menon, V.S. Sudhakar, Vipul Parekh, Abhinay Choudhari and V.S. Ramesh |
| Founded | 2011 |
| Investors | Alibaba, CDC Group, Ant Financial, Intel Capital, and Berkshire Hathaway |
| Products and Services | Grocery Delivery |
| Valuation | $1.85 billion (March 2021) |
Udaan
Udaan is a B2B e-commerce platform that provides a wholesale product solution to different vendors in all categories. It was founded by Sujeet Kumar, Amod Malviya, and Vaibhav Gupta in 2016. Udaan is a B2B (Business to Business) marketplace for trade that is working for connecting retailers, wholesalers, traders, and manufacturers using technology as the main tool.
| Startup Name | Udaan |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | India |
| Industry | E-commerce Supply chain management Business-to-business B2B |
| Founder | Sujeet Kumar, Amod Malviya, and Vaibhav Gupta |
| Founded | 2016 |
| Investors | Tencent Holdings, Altimeter Capital, Octahedron Capital, GGV Capital, Moonstone Capital, DST Global, and Lightspeed Venture Partners |
| Products and Services | B2B trade platform |
| Valuation | $3.1 billion (Jan 2021) |
Yash Gupta
BrowserStack
| Startup Name | BrowserStack |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Mumbai, India |
| Industry | Cloud Infrastructure and Software |
| Founder | Ritesh Arora & Nakul Aggarwal |
| Founded | 2011 |
| Investors | Insight Partners, Accel and Bond |
| Products and Services | Cloud Web and Software Testing |
| Valuation | $4 Billion (June 2021) |
BrowserStack is a cloud net and mobile testing platform, which is used by two million developers around a hundred thirty-five countries. The product's price proposition is to assist groups to fasten up launch cycles and develop websites and mobile app that work seamlessly on any user interface.
The aim is to limit the time, price, and protection overhead related to testing.
More than 25,000 world corporations use BrowserStack, which includes Microsoft, ING, MasterCard, Dow Jones, Garmin, National Geographic, Volvo, NRK, HubSpot, Walt Disney, and AngularJS. BrowserStack has offices work in San Francisco, Mumbai, Dublin, and is privately held and backed by Accel.
Zeta
| Startup Name | Zeta |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | San Francisco |
| Industry | Fintech |
| Founder | Bhavin Turakhia and Ramki Gaddipati |
| Founded | 2015 |
| Investors | Sodexo and SoftBank Vision Fund |
| Products and Services | Banking and Financial Services, |
| Valuation | $1.45 Billion (May 2021) |
Zeta is a budgeting app for couples. It integrates personal and shared accounts, which includes banks accounts, loans, and credit cards. Connect your account immediately for automated updates or manually add an account to manage it yourself.
You can see your joint incomes, expenses, and financial savings in one place. It lets you create more than one budget for private and shared expenses. Plus, you can set precise monetary goals for you and your partner, such as saving for a holiday or placing up an emergency fund.
Moglix
| Startup Name | Moglix |
|---|---|
| Headquarter | India |
| Industry | Intrnet |
| Founder | Rahul Garg |
| Founded | 2015 |
| Investors | Tiger Global Management,Composite Capital Management, Sequoia Capital India and Harvard Management Company |
| Products and Services | B2B Trade Platform, e-commerce, Mobile, Supply Chain Network |
| Valuation | $1 Billion (June 2021) |
Moglix, a B2B e-commerce startup ambitions to digitally change the chain of manufacturing areas in India. Moglix wants to digitize and seriously change every component of the delivery chain, and B2B commerce which is unorganized and increases options to seriously change the grant chain via technology.
Moglix, presently serves the manufacturing sector, institutional clients (B2B), and private clients (B2C). The automotive sector, metals and mining, and FMCDs are the best three sectors they cater to.
ShareChat
| Startup Name | ShareChat |
|---|---|
| Headquarter | Bangalore, India |
| Industry | Internet, Mobile Apps, Social Media, Social Network |
| Founder | Ankush Sachdeva, Bhanu Pratap Singh, and Faris Ahsan |
| Founded | 2015 |
| Investors | Lightspeed Venture Partners, Tiger Global Management, Twitter Ventures, SAIF Partners, Shunwei Capital, and Xiaomi |
| Products and Services | Social Networking and Regional Contents |
| Valuation | $3 Billion (July 2021) |
ShareChat is an Indian video-sharing Social networking service, developed via Mohalla Tech Private Limited in the year 2015 established by Ankush Sachdeva. The company is headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka, and nowadays employs nearly one hundred eighty employees as of 2019.
ShareChat App acts as content consumption and sharing platform solely in Indian vernacular languages to cater to over 1.17 billion wi-fi customers of India. ShareChat enabled user-generated content creation on its platform, permitting customers to share their very own posters and innovative content.
And this is not the end of the story. There are many new entrants to this unicorn club. Multiple startups strive hard to reach the top 10 unicorn startups but only a few make it to the top. India is the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world. It can be said that India is the future of great startups.
FAQs
What is the meaning of a Unicorn startup?
Startups with a valuation of over $1 Billion are known as Unicorns.
How many unicorns are there in India?
There are around 59 unicorns in India.
Which is India's first unicorn startup?
InMobi, Bangalore based multinational mobile advertising technology company, founded in 2007 is the first to enter the unicorn club. InMobi became the first unicorn in 2011.
Is Nykaa a unicorn?
Nykaa entered the unicorn club in 2020.
Which country has the most unicorns?
The United States is at the top of the list with 288 unicorns.
What is the obsession with unicorn startups?
At that instance, the value of the company is $ 1 billion.
Which are the top Indian unicorns?
- Zomato
- Nykaa
- PolicyBazaar
- Oyo
- Ola
- Paytm
- Swiggy
- Byju's
- FirstCry
- Lenskart
Is Zerodha a unicorn?
Yes, Zerodha entered the unicorn club in 2020 with a valuation of about $1 billion.
Which Indian startups became unicorns in 2020?
- Pine Labs
- FirstCry
- Nykaa
- Unacademy
- Zerodha
- Razorpay
- Postman
- Cars24
- Dailyhunt
- Glance InMobi
Which Indian startups became unicorns in 2021?
- BrowserStack
- Moglix
- PharmEasy
- CRED
- Meesho
- Urban Company
- Digit Insurance
- Groww
- Gupshup
- Chargebee
- Zeta
- Infra.Market
- Innovaccer
- Five Star Business Finance
Author: Arbaz Sayed
Source : https://startuptalky.com/top-unicorn-startups-india/
Date : 2021-08-12T11:51:00.000Z