Rapidly emerging as the third largest startup ecosystem in the world after the US and China and no signs of slowing down its pace. India has over the past year, added three unicorns every month taking the total count to 51, ahead of the UK (32) and Germany (18).
India, often having been described as “the poster child of emerging markets” for its vast commercial potential in its rapidly expanding startup ecosystem opportunities, and with a population of nearly 1.3 billion people, has enormous market potential, both nationally and internationally.
The Indian startup ecosystem has evolved dynamically over the last two decades. Startups founded in the 2000s were faced with the task of taking on a system still in its days of infancy, lack of investors and support organisations such as incubators, accelerators, and co-working spaces culled real growth opportunities in the industry.
In the later years, the industry newcomers having gained the necessary learnings and experiences, progressively manoeuvred the ecosystem and the industry has steadily expanded ever since, eventually transpiring into the behemoth that it has become today, Overall, the Indian ecosystem has increased significantly in all dimensions with 10-12% of growth being observed year on year.
Bangalore, has emerged as India’s primary startup hub, along with significant activity taking place in Mumbai and the National Capital Region (NCR), as well as some other smaller cities too, with its ever-increasing numbers, the nation is on track to develop 3-4 startups daily and generate up to 40,000 Jobs every year, priming India’s startup ecosystem for further growth.
On September 22, LinkedIn released its 4th annual LinkedIn Top Startups list.
The rankings were reached upon after analysing data gathered from LinkedIn across four pillars namely:- employee growth; jobseeker interest; member engagement with the company and their employees; and how well these startups pulled talent from the flagship LinkedIn Top Companies list. To be eligible, companies must be 7 years old or younger, have at least 50 employees, be privately held, and be headquartered in India.
1. Unacademy
Founded in 2015 in Bengaluru, E-Learning Platform Unacademy provides Educational Technology services to its users in both free & subscription-based models with educational content in the form of live classes ranging from school levels (class 6-12th) to preparation material for several professional and educational entrance exams like UPSC, SSC, CAT, IIT JEE among many others. . Having billed itself as the “Netflix of education” with eyes on new courses like upskilling and creator-led courses. The company has seen its valuation rise to $3.44 billion
Founded by Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, and Hemesh Singh, the company has a network of 50,000 registered teachers.
2. Udaan
Founded in 2016 in Bengaluru, Udaan is a B2B eCommerce platform that helps to enable its users to make eCommerce sales and purchases with secure payments and organized logistics for small and medium businesses in India. The platform allows users to gain access to new markets in India with a low-cost and reliable shipping and delivery service. A network-centric platform, having cornered 80 per cent of India’s B2B e-commerce market. Udaan has a roster of three million retailers, 30,000 sellers in over 900 cities and is currently valued at over $3 billion.
Founded by Amod Malviya, Vaibhav Gupta, Sujeet Kumar.
3. CRED
Founded in 2018 in Bengaluru, CRED is an Indian fintech company. CRED’s main feature is allowing users to make credit card payments through its app for which they get rewarded. Known for having featured famous cricketers in quirky advertisements, CRED claims to be a members-only credit card bill payment platform that rewards its members for paying bills on time. CRED is known for the flexibility it offers to its employees including unlimited offs, currently, CRED is valued at $2.2 billion.
Founded by Kunal Shah.
4. upGrad
Founded in 2015 in Mumbai, E-learning platform upGrad is an Indian online higher education company serving online programs to working professionals, college students, and corporates in the fields of IT, Data Science, Management and Technology for upskilling. It is also the official education partner for the Government of India – Startup India program. The Ronnie Screwvala-led startup is a recent entrant into the unicorn club, upping its merger and acquisitions game and is pushing for international expansion. upGrad hit a valuation of $1.2 billion in August 2021.
Founded by Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, Phalgun Kompalli, Ravijot Chugh.
5. Razorpay
Founded in Bengaluru in 2014, Razorpay is a payment gateway service, facilitating a converged high-quality payments solution in India that allows your business to accept, process, and disburse payments via its product suite. Razorpay gives you access to all payment modes, including credit and debit cards, UPI, and popular mobile wallets for easy online transactions. the company also provides payment solutions that allow businesses to accept, process and disburse payments. Throughout 2020, the platform processed payments worth $40 billion with month-on-month revenue growth of 40-45 per cent, the company has already hit $3 billion in valuation and is now on track to achieve a $4 billion valuation.
Founded by Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar.
6. Meesho
Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Bengaluru, Messho is an Indian e-commerce reseller company, which allows small businesses and individual entrepreneurs to start their online stores via social networking platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, having successfully raised $300 million from SoftBank Vision Fund in April 2021, the company hit $2.1 billion in valuation.
Founded by IIT Delhi graduates Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal.
7. Skyroot Aerospace
Founded in 2018 in the South Indian city of Hyderabad, Skyroot Aerospace Private Limited is an Indian private aerospace manufacturer and commercial launch service, provider. Skyroot Aerospace is constructing technologies that offer responsive, reliable and economic access to space. Initially, the start-up is testing a cryogenic engine that will run on cleaner-burning liquid natural gas. Skyroot Aerospace raised $11 million in Series-A funding round in May 2021.
Founded by ISRO engineers Pawan Kumar Chandana and Naga Bharath Daka.
8. boAt
Founded in New Delhi in 2016. India’s homegrown electronics brand boAt is a consumer electronics brand that markets earphones, headphones stereos, travel chargers and premium rugged cables. The company took the audio market by storm with its budget offerings and innovative marketing tactics. boAt earphones and speakers have captured a third of India’s audio market while merging as the fifth largest wearables brand in the world. The company is currently valued at $1.4 billion.
Founded by Sameer Mehta and Aman Gupta.
9. Urban Company
Founded in Gurugram in 2014, Urban Company helps customers book reliable & high-quality services – beauty treatments, massages, haircuts, home cleaning, handymen, appliance repair, painting, pest control and more – delivered by trained professionals conveniently at home.
The Company made quite the waves over the last two years. Urban Company offered safe and affordable services to major Indian cities. The current valuation is at $2.1 billion.
Founded by Varun Khaitan, Raghav Chandra, and Abhiraj Singh Bhal.
10. AgniKul Cosmos
Founded in Chennai in 2017, a defence and space start-up, AgniKul Cosmos Private Limited is an Indian aerospace manufacturer, the startup aims to design, develop manufacture, test and launch orbital-class rockets for micro and nanosatellites such as the Agnibaan, capable of placing 100 kg payload into a 700 km orbit. Having raised $14.58 million in total funding over 4 rounds, with the latest funding being raised on May 19, 2021, through a Series A round.
Founded by Srinath Ravichandran, Moin SPM, Satyanaryan Chakravarthy, and Janardhana Raju.
11. ShareChat
Founded in 2014 in Bengaluru, ShareChat is an Indian social media and social networking service which operates exclusively in Indic languages. ShareChat has over 250 million monthly active users across 15 Indic languages. The company launched its short-video app Moj after TikTok was banned in India. The current valuation of the company is at $2.88 billion
Founded by Ankush Sachdeva.
12. Pristyn Care
Founded in 2018 in Gurgaon, Pristyn Care is a health-tech company that deals with minimally invasive medical and surgical interventions, the organization has a network of 250 hospitals and 80 clinics. Pristyn Care offers the most advanced medical technology and equipment, which is completely owned by the company. Patients are treated at the hands of super specialist surgeons who have been conducting surgeries for over 15-20 years.
The Company offers minimally invasive surgeries by renting idle infrastructure in hospitals. That approach has helped the company achieve scale, it now offers services in over 30 cities and aims to grow the business five-fold in the next two years. The company is currently valued at $550 million
Founded by Dr Vaibhav Kapoor, Harsimarbar Singh, and Dr. Garima Sawhney.
