5 Popular Startups That Made To The Unicorn Club In Past 5 Years
The Indian startup ecosystem is claimed to be the third-largest in the world. India attracts a large number of investors from all over the world. A lot of startups have made through the struggling economy of India and stand as evidences of successful startup stories. Unlike the first age entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs now don’t see any shortage or lack of finance. India has been home to a lot of successful startup stories.
And the impact of India’s most successful startups is not just limited to our country, but also is felt across the world, as Indian startup products and services cross over to global markets. Investors and international companies look for investments and injecting funds in Indian startups.
A unicorn company is a startup which is valued over $1 billion. India has seen a large surge in the list of companies who’ve joined the unicorn club in the past five years. While 2018 saw the addition of ten start-ups to the coveted unicorn club, 2019 saw seven and with this growing pace, tons more inclusion of startups is predicted in Unicorn Club in 2020.
According to Nasscom, now, the average time taken by a startup to touch a billion-dollar valuation in India has come down to between five and seven years, lower than the seven to eight years in the US.
Here is a list of popular startups who’ve made it to the unicorn club over the past five years.
Swiggy- Food Delivery
Food-delivery startup Swiggy entered the unicorn club when it raised $210 million in a funding round led by Naspers and DST Global. The company was reportedly valued at $1.3 billion at that time.
This investment made the four-year-old startup the fastest Indian startup to achieve the status at the time.
Swiggy is India's largest and most valuable online food ordering and delivery platform. Founded in 2014, Swiggy is based out of Bangalore, India and, is currently operating in 500+ cites and has onboarded around 15,000 restaurants.
Founded in: 2014
Founders: Nandan Reddy, Sriharsha Majety, Rahul Jaimini
Headquarters: Bengaluru
Revenue: ₹875 crore (US$120 million) (November 2019)
Unicorn Since: 2018
Paytm - Payments & Commerce
Online retailer Paytm Mall, which was dragged out of India’s largest digital payments firm, its parent firm, Paytm in 2016, has been a unicorn since March 2018.
In April, it raised $450 million in a deal that reportedly valued the corporate at over $1 billion. The company used these funds to improve technology for its sellers and buyers. It has also launched other initiatives, including a QR-code model to allow customers to walk into an offline store, scan the product, browse information, and make purchases online via the Paytm Mall app. Paytm is currently in talks with state governments for ‘contactless-in store ordering.’
Founded in 2016, Paytm mall is a dedicated app only for online shopping just like any other e-commerce app/website.
Founded in: 2016
Founders: Vijay Shekhar Sharma
Headquarters: Noida
Revenue: ₹3,579 crore (US$500 million) (FY 2019)
Unicorn Since: 2018
Dream 11- Fantasy Gaming
The completion of a secondary investment by Steadview Capital, an Asia-focused alternative asset manager in April 2019 took the fantasy gaming startup to a valuation of over $1 billion making it first Indian gaming company to enter the unicorn club.
The brainchild of fantasy gamers, football fans and childhood buddies, Dream 11, provides a fantasy gaming platform for multiple sports such as cricket, football, basketball, kabaddi, hockey, volleyball, and baseball. It is an online game where users create a virtual team of real-life players and earn points supported the performances of those players in real matches. The startup claims to have over 50 Mn users and allows them to demonstrate their sporting expertise through fantasy gaming. Today, it is seen as a leader in the fantasy gaming industry— according to KPMG, the number of fantasy sports users in India rose from just 2 million users in June 2016 to over 50 million users in 2018.
Founded in: 2008
Founders: Harsh Jain and Bhavit Sheth
Headquarters: Mumbai
Revenue: $650 million (FY19)
Unicorn Since: 2019
Big Basket - Online Grocery
Big Basket was the first grocery delivery Unicorn of India. Bigbasket entered the club when it closed its Series F round of funding with an investment of $150 million led by the company’s existing investor Alibaba along with South Korea’s Mirae Asset Global Investments, valuing the company at a little over $1.2 billion.
The funding had given the company the push to aggressively venture into new cities and categories such as micro-delivery.
Founded in 2011 by VS Sudhakar, Hari Menon, Vipul Parekh, V S Ramesh, and Abhinay Choudhari, BigBasket is a grocery start-up that has extended its product range to include but is not limited to, household basic items and cosmetics.
Founded in: 2011
Founders: Hari Menon, VS Sudhakar, V S Ramesh, Vipul Parekh and Abhinay Choudhari.
Headquarters: Bengaluru
Revenue: 3200 crore (FY19)
Unicorn Since: 2019
OYO - Booking Hotels
The hotel aggregator became a unicorn in September when it said it had been raising $1 billion from existing investors SoftBank Vision Fund, Sequoia Capital, and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
The funding gave the company the firepower to implement its global expansion plans outside India into China, west Asia, and other markets. It is investing close to $600 million in China alone.
Oyo Rooms is one of the largest and fastest-growing hospitality chains of leased and franchised hotels, homes and living spaces.
Founded in: 2013
Founders: Ritesh Agarwal
Headquarters: Gurugram
Revenue: US($951 million)
Unicorn Since: 2018
The Indian startup ecosystem is expected to grow in the coming years. According to a Nasscom report, India has the potential to create 100 startups to enter unicorn club by 2025. Some of the potential unicorn startups to look out for in 2020 include software and robotics platform GreyOrange, payments provider Pine Labs, online car marketplace CarDekho, health tech platform Practo, online furniture company UrbanLadder, online grocer Grofers, fintech start-up LendingKart and online truck aggregator Blackbuck.
