Unicorn Club to Witness the rising startups to step up as $1 billion companies. The startup rainy season is flooded with an unexpected rise for small startups to scale heights meritoriously. The rapid movement at which Indian startups are growing in unicorns may soon turn into a dash.
India’s startup marketplace has flourished on the stern of an escalating number of businesses turning to work-from-home patterns and users’ grown faith in the internet. The Covid-19 pandemic resembles the acceleration of the pace of start-ups entering the ‘unicorn’ club. The quickened enactment of mobile and internet-enabled devices used in modern times is thoughtful of the expanding desire of Indians for digital technologies. In the investment capital industry, a startup having an evaluation that estimates at $1 billion or more is considered a unicorn company. Aileen Lee, the founder of Cowboy Ventures, minted the word when she attributed the 39 startups with a valuation of over $1 billion as unicorns. The startups with a valuation of more than $10 billion are ascribed to as Decacorns- a gigantic unicorn. Companies like Dropbox, SpaceX, and WeWork are Decacorns.
India will have a notable accretion and development in the abundance of unicorns by 2021, following a report by research firms and industry experts. The Indian startup ecosystem has already appended eight new companies to the desired $1 billion valuation club, in the first four months of 2021. As per a report by NASSCOM report, India is close to 40 unicorns and there will be 50 unicorns by the end of 2021. Considering the current rate, startups may soon exceed that number.
Startups that have become unicorns in 2021 include infrastructure technology provider Infra. Market; health-tech provider InnovAccer; non-bank lender Five Star Business Finance; e-pharmacy API Holdings; social commerce startup Meesho; and fintech companies Digit Insurance, Groww and Cred.
The Covid-19 pandemic seems to have accelerated the pace of start-ups joining the ‘unicorn’ club, with as many as 10 companies crossing the $1-billion valuation mark this year. Six of them have become unicorns this week only.
According to venture capital investors and experts, India is presumed to have 150 unicorns by 2025. Presently, there are 47 Indian start-ups appraised at $1 billion or more. Paytm is the most costly start-up at $16 billion, as per the Venture Intelligence data. With the rise of the covid 19 pandemics, it has clearly resembled that the digital expedition has occurred, influencing strengthened investments in new-age realities which perform services throughout technology-first models. Several players have emerged as gigantic startups in each sector as a function of market development amongst Indian startups.
1.Digit Insurance
Bengaluru-based insurance startup Digit Insurance became the first Indian startup to enter the unicorn club in 2021, after boosting INR 135 Cr ($18 Million) from existing investors at a valuation of $1.9 Billion. Following a 31.9% increase in the last nine months, it has boosted the funding as growth capital to satisfy the stability margin necessity.
2.InnovAccer
Innovaccer, based in Noida and San Francisco, has become the first Indian unicorn after raising $105 million in a Series D round led by Tiger Global Management. After the current round, the health-tech startup is valued at $1.3 billion. By the end of 2021, Innovaccer anticipates having reached a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 100%.
3Meesho
SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund 2 led a $300 million round of funding for Bangalore-based social commerce startup named Meesho Inc., evaluating the company at $2.1 billion. Meesho, an online sales stage for micro, small, and medium businesses in India, proposes to use the stocks to expand its expertise in all sectors, including technology, product, and business.
4. CRED
Cred is a company that operates with financial institutions and consumer brands to remunerate customers for paying their credit card bills on time. Cred, a financial technology company, has achieved a $2.2 billion fundraising round, presenting it as another unicorn to appear from India’s magnificent startup exhibition.
5. Pharmeasy
API Holdings, the parent company of PharmEasy, has raised $350 million in new funding from Proses Ventures and TPG Growth. Temasek, CDPQ, LGT Light rock, Eight Roads, and Think Investments were among the existing investors who took part in the round. The round would also include secondary transactions, according to an ET report.
6. Sharechat and Gupshup
Sharechat
The most current members of the unicorn club are Sharechat and Moj. The company following these apps, Mohalla Tech, has cultivated $502 million in its most current funding round, which was begun by venture capital firms Lightspeed Ventures and Tiger Global.
Gupshup
Gupshup, a messaging startup, became the tenth unicorn this year after raising $100 million in funding from Tiger Global Management, promoting its valuation ten-fold to $1.4 billion, as stated by the company.
