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India has been established as the world’s fastest-growing startup ecosystem, with 100 Unicorn Startups in India, as of 2022. An established company needs a lot of hard work, commitment, and perseverance throughout the journey to climb the ladder of unicorns.
Unicorn is a business term to state a startup with a valuation of over $1 Billion. The time was forged by a venture capitalist and a stone investor, Aileen Lee.
Startups are privately owned companies struggling at the early stages of their growth. India has been declared the 3rd top country hosting unicorn companies for 2021. It replaced the UK from the 3rd position in 2021. The developed countries – the US added 254 unicorns, whereas China saw 74 unicorns reported in 2021.
The unicorn culture of India, the Union Minister of State for Entrepreneurship, Skill Development, Electronics & Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar stated that India would prove a 10X increase in its unicorn count in the next 2-3 years, which will top more than 1,000. The Indian government also expects the next wave of startup founders to come from the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities of India.
Top 100 Unicorn Startups in India
1. Shiprocket
In 2017 Saahil Goel, Vishesh Khurana, Gautam Kapoor, and Akshay Gulati founded Shiprocket. It is a Gurugram-based third-party logistics service provider supported by Zomato.
2. 5ire
Mr Pratik Gauri, Prateek Dwivedi, and Vilma Mattila created this company in 2022. 5ire is a fifth-generation Layer-1 (L1) blockchain network. The startup joined India’s unicorn club in July 2022 after raising $100 Mn in a funding round led by a UK-based conglomerate.
3. OneCard
Anurag Sinha, Rupesh Kumar, and Vaibhav Hathi founded the company in 2018. OneCard is a Pune-based fintech startup that provides Visa credit cards.
4. LeadSquared
Nilesh Patel, Sudhakar Gorti, and Prashant Singh, LeadSquared deliver CRM, marketing, and sales software solutions. The India and US-based startup acted as India’s 103rd unicorn in June after it raised $153 Mn from WestBridge Capital, taking it to unicorn valuation.
5. Purple
Manish Taneja and Rahul Dash were created in 2012. Purplle is a Mumbai-based e-commerce startup of beauty-oriented products and appliances.
6. PhysicsWallah (PW)
Physics aimed competition prep YouTube channel by Alakh Pandey and Prateek Maheshwari, PhysicsWallah pivoted to being a full-fledged edtech platform in 2020.
7. Open
It is the 100th Indian unicorn and is a neo-banking fintech startup founded by Anish Achuthan, Ajeesh Achuthan, Mabel Chacko, and Deena Jacob.
8. Games24x7
Established by Bhavin Pandya and Trivikraman Thampy. Games24x7 is a gaming startup that includes brands like RummyCircle, an online card game, and sports fantasy game My11 Circle.
9. Oxyzo
Asish Mohapatra and Ruchi Kalra introduced Oxyzo, the financial arm of B2B commerce unicorn Of Business.
10. Amagi
Baskar Subramanian, Srinivasan KA, and Srividhya Srinivasan, Amagi create creation, distribution, and monetisation tools for live, linear, and on-demand channels across cable, OTT, and free ad-supported streaming TV platforms.
11. CredAvenue
CredAvenue joined the unicorn club with $137 Mn funding from Partners, B Capital, and Dragoneer Investment Group in March 2022.
12. Hasura
Tanmai Gopal and, Rajoshi Ghosh, Hasura created this company in 2018. The company’s technology automatically develops real-time GraphQL APIs, granting customers instant permits to access their data via security APIs.
13. Uniphore
Conversational automation startup Uniphore claimed the eighth unicorn of 2022 after raising a record $400 Mn in funding at a valuation of $2.5 B
14. Xpressbees
Logistics startup Xpreesbees was one of the early competitors to the unicorn club this year. The startup, which started its operations under Supam Maheswari’s FirstCry, later operated independently in 2015.
15. Livspace
Anuj Srivastava and Ramakant Sharma, established in 2014. Livspace is an organised marketplace that offers an end-to-end home design experience.
The startup’s online marketplace also delivers software tools to support designer’s and homeowners’ design interiors.
16. ElasticRun
Established this idea in 2016 by Sandeep Deshmukh, Saurabh Nigam and Shitiz Bansal. ElasticRun’s tech platform is an extended branch of FMCG companies’ direct distribution networks in rural areas.
17. DealShare
Created in September 2018 by Vineet Rao, Sourjyendu Medda, Sankar Bora and Rajat Shikhar. DealShare is a social eCommerce marketplace. Moreover, it allows first-time internet users to shop online.
18. Darwinbox
Chaitanya Peddi, Jayant Paleti and Rohit Chennamaneni launched in 2015. Darwinbox is a cloud-based HRtech company that serves companies’ HR requirements across recruitment, onboarding, core transaction, payroll, travel etc.
19. LEAD
Sumeet Mehta and Smita Deorah started in 2012. LEAD is a Mumbai-based ed-tech startup focusing on improving school education using technology.
20. Fractal
Fractal Analytics startup started up in 2000 by IIM Ahmedabad alumni Srikanth Velamakanni and Pranay Agrawal, along with Nirmal Palaparthi, Pradeep Suryanarayan, and Ramakrishna Reddy.
21. Acko Insurance
Insurance provider Acko, a Mumbai-based company, entered the unicorn club in 2021 after it raised $255 million in its series D funding round led by private equity firms General Atlantic and Multiples Private Equity.
22. Apna
Founded in 2019 by Nirmit Parikh, Apna offers a job marketplace for India’s blue-collar workers and skilled professionals such as painters, carpenters, sales agents etc.
23. Blackbuck
Rajesh Yabaji, Chanakya Hridaya, and Rama Subramaniam founded Blackbuck in 2015. The Bengaluru-based logistics startup links businesses with truck owners and freight operators.
24. Blinkit (Grofers)
Grofers, now renamed Blinkit, was founded in 2013 by Saurabh Kumar and Albinder Dhindsa. It entered the unicorn club in 2021, getting investment from Zomato.
25. BrowserStack
Browserstack is a software and mobile app testing cloud plan. This platform is used by 4 Mn developers spread across 50,000 companies and tech giants such as Google, Microsoft and Twitter.
26. CarDekho
CarDekho is an Indian eCommerce platform for new and used cars. It also has an insurance vertical.
27. Chargebee
Chargebee is a revenue management startup that powers revenue operations of over 4,000 high-growth subscription-based businesses.
28. CoinDCX
Created in 2018 by Sumit Gupta and Neeraj Khandelwal, CoinDCX became the first Indian cryptocurrency exchange to appear in unicorn status last year.
27. CoinSwitch Kuber
CoinSwitch launched its India-exclusive cryptocurrency platform.
29. CRED
CRED provides premium credit card users rewards and advantages for paying credit card bills. It has also been working on additional services developed around its primary ecosystem of credit card-centric services.
30. Cure.Fit
Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori started CureFit. It uses an online-offline model to provide physical fitness, mental and nutrition.
31. Digit Insurance
Bengaluru-based insurance business Digit Insurance was one of the first unicorn startups in India in 2021.
32. Droom
In 2014 Sandeep Agarwal and Droom started offering an online platform for users can buy and sell used and new automobiles in India.
33. EaseMyTrip
Nishant Pitti, Rikant Pitti and Prashant Pitti, EaseMyTrip enable its customers to book air, rail and bus tickets, hotel and holiday packages.
34. Eruditus
Mumbai-based Eruditus became India’s fourth Edu tech startup to appear in the unicorn club.
35. GlobalBees
Thrasio-style company GlobalBees fused the unicorn club in December 2021. The funding raised from GlobalBees at $1.1 Bn.
36. Good Glamm Group
MyGlamm turned a unicorn last year after it raised $150 million. The Good Glamm Group’s CEO created the consumer makeup brand MyGlamm.
37. Groww
Ex-Flipkart employees Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Neeraj Singh, and Ishan Bansal, created Groww. It offers a platform to invest in stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, IPOs, and gold.
38. Gupshup
Beerud Sheth introduced Gupshup in 2004. It is a conversational messaging app that allows businesses from multiple sectors
39. Infra.Market
Aaditya Sharda and Souvik Sengupta created the Infa.market to perform B2B online procurement for real estate and construction materials.
40. Innovaccer
Innovaccer is a health tech SaaS startup based out of Delhi-NCR. It allows its customers and partners to build interoperable applications to upgrade patient outcomes.
41. Licious
Licious is a D2C food tech brand focused on cold-chain food deliveries. It performs on the farm-to-fork business model.
42. Mamaearth
Ghazal and Varun Alagh created Mamaearth, which started selling baby care products but now moved to a complete personal care brand.
43. MapmyIndia
MapmyIndia is a digital mapping app that provides geospatial data services to other companies.
44. Meesho
Meesho is an online selling network for individuals and small and medium businesses.
45. Mensa Brands
Mensa Brands includes brands like Karagiri, Jewellery Priyaasi, Hubberholme, Dennis Lingo, Ishin, Helea, Anubhutee, and clothing Villain.
46. Mindtickle
Mindtickle is a Pune-based sales platform that aims to develop the sales function in businesses by analysing ideal sales behaviours.
47. MobiKwik
It started its journey as a digital wallet and then revolved into a dimension fintech platform presenting numerous financial services, including credit, insurance, and gold loans.
48. Mobile Premier League
MPL is an esports gaming startup presenting various gaming options, from skill-based games like daily fantasy sports to casual games.
49. Moglix
Moglix is an eCommerce platform for industrial tools such as power, hand, adhesives, safety and security, and electricals.
50. NoBroker
NoBroker is a Bengaluru-based real estate app. It offers verified listings from property owners without any brokerage fees for intermediaries.
51. OfBusiness
Asish Mohapatra, Ruchi Kalra, and Bhuvan Gupta were Founded in 2015. OfBusiness is generally a B2B eCommerce marketplace.
52. PharmEasy
Dharmil Sheth, Dr Dhaval Shah, and Mikhail Innani created PharmEasy. It is a health-tech startup that provides an online pharmacy on its platform.
53. Pristyn Care
Pristyn Care is a Gurugram-based health tech startup. It gives affordable advanced surgical care to patients through innovative surgical techniques.
54. Rebel Foods
Rebel Foods is a Mumbai-based food-tech company. Its brands cover Faasos, Behrouz Biryani, Ovenstory Pizza, Mandarin Oak, The Good Bowl, SLAY Coffee, Sweet Truth, and Wendy’s.
55. ShareChat
ShareChat is a Bengaluru-based social media company. It presents as an Indic language social media platform, with an average daily user time of 31 minutes.
56. Slice Unicorn Startups
Rajan Bajaj started Slice, a fintech startup that provides payment and credit cards to millennial and Generation Z customers.
57. Spinny
Spinny is a Delhi-NCR-based online used car marketplace like CarsTrade, Droom, Cars24 etc.
58. upGrad
Ronnie Screwala-led ed-tech startup upGrad listed the unicorn club in August 2021. It offers higher education courses in partnership with various universities.
59. Urban Company
Urban Company is a Gurugram-based hyperlocal services concept. The startup provides a range of services from beauty and spa to appliance repair in your home comfort.
60. Vedantu
This Bangalore-based startup delivers an interactive online tutoring platform.
61. Zeta
Zeta arranges a cloud-native neo-banking platform for allotting credit and debit; it also provides digitised solutions
62. Zetwerk
Amrit Acharya, Srinath Ramakkrushnan, and Vishal Chaudhary built Zetwerk, which appeared at the unicorn club in August 2021.
63. Cars24
Cars24 is an e-commerce platform for pre-owned vehicles, including cars and bikes.
64. FirstCry
FirstCry offers a variety of baby and kids products, from clothing to other essentials.
65. Glance
It is an Indian startup ecosystem, with 42 startups joining the unicorn club.
66. Nykaa
Nykaa is an online platform that offers various beauty and wellness products. After entering as an online platform, it launched offline stores.
67. Pine Labs
Pine Labs is a fintech company that allows businesses to accept online and offline digital retail transactions.
68. Postman
Postman is a San Fransico and Bengaluru-based SaaS company. It aids developers and companies build new applications through programming.
69. Razorpay
Razorpay is a Bengaluru-based fintech company that offers APIs for payment gateways to other companies.
70. Unacademy
Unacademy is presently the country’s second most valued ed-tech company. Started as a YouTube channel, founders Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, and Hemesh Singh officially enlisted Unacademy in 2015.
71. VerSE Innovation (DailyHunt)
Umesh Kulkarni and Chandrashekhar Sohoni started this company in Bengaluru. This startup was renamed as DailyHunt in 2015.
72. Zenoti
Spa and salon software startup Zenoti registered the unicorn club in December 2020. It raised $160 Mn in funding from Advent International, Sunley House Capital, Tiger Global and Steadview Partners.
73. Zerodha
Nithin Kamath and Nikhil Kamath founded Zerodha. It is one of the few Indian Unicorn startups often listed as successful businesses. It is among the handful of Indian startups to have recorded the unicorn club without raising any money from investors.
74. BigBasket
The grocery delivery startup BigBasket has redefined and witnessed rapid growth in consumer behaviour.
75. Delhivery
Delhivery registered as the first Indian logistics startup to enter the unicorn startups club in 2019 after SoftBank invested a $413 million Fund.
76. Dream11
Harsh Jain and Bhavit Sheth’s Dream11 provides its user’s fantasy gaming in categories such as cricket, football, etc.
77. Druva
Druva provides enterprises with cloud data security and information management solutions using the public cloud with a blended cloud management console.
78. Icertis
Icertis is a SaaS company that offers contract management services to enterprises. The company’s flagship product, Icertis Contract Management (ICM), can analyse sell-side and buy-side across the globe.
79. Lenskart
Lenskart is a Delhi-NCR origin vertical eCommerce brand for eyewear and other eye care products and services.
80. Ola Electric
Ola Electric Mobility laid its stone as an independent entity in March 2019. The company is building electric two-wheelers and is planning to develop pilots for the country’s electric charging infrastructure, including charging stations and battery swapping stations.
81. Billdesk
Indian payments gateway startup BillDesk held almost two decades to earn unicorn status.
82. BYJU’S
BYJU was the first edtech unicorn in India. The startup has existence in 7 countries. The Learning App of BYJU has students from more than 1,700 cities.
83. Freshworks
Freshworks deliver a suite of software for customer management, which covers an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot and messaging platform for CSM.
84. OYO
OYO is one of the successful travel tech platforms in the country which offers accommodation and other solutions to users. They partner with hotels to list them on the OYO app.
85. Paytm Mall
The e-commerce marketplace provides fashion, grocery, electronics, furniture, beauty and health products, flight tickets, travel, and holidays. It has tie-ups with multiple brands for the same.
86. PhonePe
PhonePe is a fintech platform that offers multiple financial services like bank transfers, UPI-based payments, mobile recharges, and bill payments. The company has also modified to deliver digital insurance and other related services.
87. Policybazaar
Yashish Dahiya, Avaneesh Nirjar, and Alok Bansal established Policybazar in 2008. It schemes insurance policies from various providers for use-cases, covers life, automobile, health insurance, etc.
88. Rivigo
The company buys trucks and operates across multiple parts of India. Rivigo’s website states that it holds a fleet of more than 5,000 trucks and is existed in more than 4,000 cities, including around 29,765 pin codes across India.
89. Swiggy
Nandan Reddy, Rahul Jaimini and Sriharsha Majety introduced Swiggy, a food and groceries delivery startup.
90. Udaan
It links small and medium-sized businesses, manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers to sell goods and services to each other. It also provides a credit facility to select small sellers.
91. ReNew Power
ReNew Power is a Delhi-NCR-based energy tech startup. It is a sustainable energy-independent power producer (IPP).
92. Hike
Kavin Bharti Mittal, the son of billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal, founded Hike in 2012. The Hike appeared in the unicorn startups club in 2016 by raising $175 Mn in a funding round.
93. ShopClues
Sandeep Aggarwal, Sanjay Sethi, and Radhika Aggarwal were founded in 2011. ShopClues is a Delhi-NCR-based eCommerce platform, the same as Flipkart and Amazon.
94. InMobi
InMobi is a Bengaluru-based ad tech startup. The company owns different businesses, such as Glance, a mobile content unicorn, and Roposo, a reel video content platform.
95. Flipkart
It is an eCommerce giant; Flipkart was one of the youngest unicorns in India.
96. MakeMyTrip
The online travel agent (OTA) MakeMyTrip provides its customers with air tickets, customised holiday packages, hotel bookings, railway tickets, and many other travel-related services.
97. Mu Sigma
Dhiraj Rajaram, Mu Sigma was established in 2004. It is a Bengaluru-based data science and analytics firm.
98. Snapdeal
Rohit Bansal and Kunal Bahl, created in 2010. Snapdeal is a Delhi-NCR-based e-commerce platform like Amazon.
99. Info Edge
Info Edge is a Delhi NCR-based search platform that allows jobs classifieds website Naurki.com and, matrimony website Jeevansaathi.com, a real estate platform 99Acres.com.
100. Quikr
Quikr is a Bengaluru-based online classifieds marketplace. It permits its users to post classified advertisements on its online platforms.
Finale Take away
While 2021 was the year of record-breaking, 2022 has seen India record a historic landmark in the first few months, with 20 Indian startups listing the unicorn startups club. Therefore, the focus should now be on the strength of these 100+ unicorns and supporting a new set of Indian startups to turn unicorns.
FAQs
1. How many Unicorn startups are there in India?Ans: In 2022, India crossed the landmark of 100 unicorns.
2. Which five unicorns are best in India?Ans: The best five successful unicorns are Zoho, InfoEdge, Zerodha, Five Star and Dream11.
3. Which is the first unicorn in India?Ans: LEAD became the first Indian startup to appear unicorn in 2022, raising $100 Mn at a valuation of $1.1 bn.
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