Unicorns Amidst the Pandemic

Despite being jolted by the pandemic, which effected various organisations across multiple dimensions and fed severe impacts, the Indian startup ecosystem has risen above all the atrocities as many startups have throttled up as unicorns in such turbulent times. Some of them being :-

Razorpay 

Payments solution provider Razorpay became India's sixth unicorn this year after it raised $100 million in a funding round co-led by Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC and Sequoia Capital India. Razorpay aids businesses revolutionise their financial infrastructure by providing intelligent automated payment and banking solutions to manage their money flow. At present, it powers payments for over 5 million businesses inclusive of Airtel, BookMyShow, Facebook, Ola, Zomato, Swiggy, Cred, ICICI Prudential. The fintech startup aims to double this to 10 million by the end of 2020.

Zerodha 

As the bootstrapped fintech startup, Zerodha turned a decade old, it formally claimed unicorn status, ‘conservatively’ valuing itself at $1 billion as it announced Rs 65 crore employee stock ownership buyback plan, which is being facilitated at around 5X the book value puts the bootstrapped fintech startup’s valuation at Rs 7,000 crore or around $1 billion.
 Nithin Kamath and Nikhil Kamath, the founders,  were recently listed in Forbes' list of India's 100 richest 2020. 

Unacademy

Gaurav Munjal's edtech startup, Unacademy which was launched as a hobby on youtube, has now turned into a unicorn after it raised raised $150 million in a funding round led by Japanese conglomerate Softbank along with participation from existing investors including Facebook. As its valuation hopped 3-fold in last six months to $1.45 billion the startup becomes the second unicorn in edtech space after Byju's. 

Nyka 

Falguni Nayar’s fashion e-tailer brand which began operations in 2012 entered the unicorn club after it secured a funding with $ 13 million from its existing backer Steadview Capital. The latest investment values the Mumbai-based beauty retailer at an estimated $1.2 billion along with the  recent investment which  takes Nykaa’s total fund tally to over $100 million.