India is crossing boundaries when considering a rising economy in the world. For the last few years, the country has mothered start-ups that are changing the face of development and businesses around here. These are not rumors or stories but the reality that start-ups in Delhi and all over the country are thriving in their specific ecosystem and turning out to be unicorns.
Did you know that India is now the third-largest economy for unicorns in the world? This means that the government and the people of India are shaping their country to carve their names amongst the best companies in the world. Where do you think these unicorns have started from? They all are the result of the small startups in Delhi and also from the rest of the country who have worked day and night to be at the place they are now. You must be wondering what a start-up is. Also (What Exactly is a Unicorn?)
Business Outreach Magazine will try to give you a simple answer to your curiosity. A start-up can be considered as a project or an idea, which an entrepreneur works towards making it a scalable business. A start-up is basically a business model by an entrepreneur which has plans to grow larger than its founder. Initially, any startup does not have a stable profit margin or is burdened by several uncertainties. But if the strategy and planning is proper, start-ups do get successful and even reach the status of unicorn. According to data, there are about 5,400 delhi based startups that have been established between 2019 to 2021. Well! That is a lot and comes with it are a lot of dreams and aspirations.
Startups that have Promising Business Planning
1. Zomato
Zomato is a food delivery unicorn startup in Delhi founded by Deepinder Goyal, Pankaj Chaddah and Gaurav Gupta back in 2008. The start-up was initially called ‘Foodiebay’ which was an online platform for searching restaurants nearby and giving reviews about it. Currently, Zomato is one of the largest and most popular restaurant aggregators out there in India and the globe. The services of Zomato are impressive for any food bloggers or enthusiasts who are looking to fulfill their desires for appetite.
The company raised a funding of about $ 16.7 million from InfoEdge India between the year 2012 and 2013. This amount of funding made InfoEdge hold about 57.9% stake in the start-up. Around November 2013, an additional funding of about $ 37 million were raised from Sequoia and InfoEdge. Zomato is present in almost 20 countries and is also getting added to new places. The company has also started outsourcing to several restaurants with groceries and events.
In 2019, according to HSBC, Zomato is supported by huge funding and has a net valuation of about $ 3.6 billion. The idea of the start-up was introduced by Deepinder when he noticed that his peers and colleagues were checking menu leaflets of restaurants made out of paper. He thought of digitizing these systems where a person can check out the items from a mobile phone or the internet. A great idea indeed!
Watch their Youtube channel for more info:
2. Inshorts
Inshorts is a news providing platform which collaborates with popular websites like The Hindu, Times of India and The Economic Times. This start-up shares news that are trending from these websites and reaches the audience with a 60 word brief content of the specific trending news. The idea behind the start-up is to encourage people to stay updated in their busy schedules and save more time. Inshorts has the feature to recognize personalized content from its users and the AI efficiently delivers those types of news in the user’s feed. In 2013, Azhar Iqubal, Anunay Arunav and Deepit Puryakshatha founded Inshorts. Arunay is an alumnus of IIT Delhi who studied M.Tech. Deepit studied his Masters from IIT Kharagpur and Azhar is a dropout from IIT Delhi. The company has been funded with $ 20 million by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, who are the founders of Flipkart.
Here is link to their Youtube channel:
3. Snapdeal
Snapdeal is an online platform founded in 2010 by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal who studied at The Wharton School and the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi respectively. It was one of the biggest projects in Delhi that started as an initiative in delivering deals and coupons. Snapdeal had sellers providing good quality products at a price which is competitive with the local markets. There are customers from about 3,700 towns who shop on the platform. The company witnessed enormous success and the founder expanded Snapdeal in selling e-commerce products from 2011. Snapdeal has acquired several companies over the years. In January, 2015, Snapdeal bought a stake in a website called ‘Smartprix.com’ which does business comparing products in the platform. In March, 2015, a company dealing with logistics, Gojavas.com gave about 20% stake and was acquired by Snapdeal. The company received their first rounds of funding of about $ 12 million from Nexus Venture Partners and Indo-US Venture Partners. The company also has investors like Blackrock, SoftBank and Tybourne Capital Management.
Check out their Youtube space here:
4. MobiKwik
MobiKwik is one of the most successful fintech companies in Delhi that makes business out of mobile payments. In 2009, MobiKwik was founded by Bipin Singh, Upasana Taku and Chandan Joshi. The headquarters is based at Gurgaon, Haryana. The company provides a digital wallet which has a user count of about 2,50,000 both in online and offline services. The Reserve Bank of India gave authorization to the company to use the wallet feature. MobiKwik further expanded their business by starting a service where they provided loans to their consumers. Around November 2016, there were about 1.5 million businesses using the services and about 55 million consumers enrolled with the features and services of the company. In 2015, the company collaborated with Uber where the drivers and the customers could process debit and credit card transactions using MobiKwik. In November, 2016, the start-up also launched a lite version of their app for users who lived in areas with poor internet connectivity and for those who used 2G enabled devices. There are several investors for MobiKwik like Sequoia Capital, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Hindustan Media Ventures. MobiKwik received about $ 116 million in funding from several rounds and currently has a net valuation of about $ 1 billion.
Watch their Youtube channel for detail information:
5. Green Cure Wellness
Green Cure Wellness is a health care start-up in Delhi which manufactures wellness products with impeccable quality. The company specializes in herbal and ayurveda personal products which go through several checks before it reaches the market. Green Cure Wellness was founded by Sanchit Garg in the year 2015. There are expert German scientists who create top-notch formulas as per European standards. Those formulas are then further checked by Indian ayurveda experts who make sure that these products are aligned with the needs of the Indian market. Green Cure Wellness started as a bootstrapped project. The company gets their raw materials from companies in Germany and Australia where technology helps predominantly in the process. The ingredients provided by the start-up have certifications from around the globe like ISO, NPA, Kosher, NOP and many more.
Check out the Youtube channel of Green Cure Wellness:
6. Hike
Hike is a messaging and social networking platform formed in 2008 by Kavin Mittal. The company also has offline support via SMS and several platform services. Hike can be simply registered using a one time password (OTP) authentication process. Hike’s founder Kavin Bharti Mittal is an alumni of Imperial College, London and also the son of Sunil Mittal, who is the founder and chairman of Bharti Enterprises. The start-up has a net worth of about $ 1.4 billion with about 100 million users. There are about 350 employees working for the company. Few months after its inception, Hike provided features like themes, stickers, free texting services and privatized chatting options. The company also provided the app with capabilities like voice calls with the help of WiFi or mobile network all around the world and that too free of charge. The start-up introduced such awesome features before its competitors and also optimized the network by packing more call time in each Megabyte. In late 2015, Hike acquired TinyMogul and Hoppr. In 2017, Hike bought InstaLively Streaming platform which were expats in fast audio and digitization of videos with the help of less bandwidth which was cost efficient for several enterprises. Hike was able to get its first funding of about $ 7 million from investors like SoftBank and Bharti. The start-up also raised another funding of about $ 14 million from the same investors. Around May, 2019, the company also joined hands with Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi for research and development in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Learning (ML), link prediction and many more areas. Hike also partnered with Yes Bank and introduced a digital wallet. Some of the major investors of the company are Tiger Global, Tencent and Foxconn which have invested around $ 200 million in the company.
Go to the official Youtube channel for an in-depth information:
7. Collegedunia
Collegedunia is an edtech startup in Delhi that was founded by Sahil Chalana in the year 2014. The company is a search engine platform for students and parents to find details about universities in India and abroad. The website has information of about 20,000 colleges across the globe and 6,000 courses based on a broad spectrum of streams like Arts, Medical, Engineering, Management and many more. Collegedunia pledges to provide brief and factual data about these educational institutions which will help students and parents with an overall understanding. The edtech platform also provides insights of about one million fees structure from these educational institutions. Sahil Chalana proceeded with the idea of the project back in 2014 after graduating from BITS Pilani. The company was bootstrapped in its initial approach but later got a funding of about Rs. 1 crore from Umang Kumar, who is the CEO and co-founder of Gaadi.com.
Check out their Youtube channel for more details:
8. Zostel
Zostel is a hospitality and tourism management start-up in Delhi that was started by Akhil Malik, Dharmveer Singh Chouhan, Paavan Nanda, Varun Tiwari, Chethan Singh Chouhan and Abhishek Bhutra in 2013. Zostel is a backpackers chain of hostels and homes that offers inexpensive, clean and hygienic accommodations for wanderers and nomads. Zostel introduced their first stays in Jodhpur, Rajasthan back in 2013. Since then, the company has won about 14 business strategy awards like WIEF, Richard Ivey and Eureka based at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. In 2015, the business started to expand when Zostel introduced Entrepreneurship Development Program (EDP) where people themselves can start hostels under the brand as a franchisee. Zostel currently operates in 44 cities throughout India and Nepal.
Check their Youtube channel for awesome contents:
9. GoldSeat
GoldSeat is a technology driven entertainment platform founded by Gaurav Kapahi and Nishchal Khetarpal in 2016. This Delhi based startup provides facilities while traveling by a bus and giving it WiFi connectivities. GoldSeat has two types of offers where one includes delivering free WiFi to the passengers traveling in the bus and the other includes a variety of movies that are pre-installed in the GoldSeat screens in the bus or one can even access the movies via GoldSeat mobile application. In 2018, around June, the company raised a funding of about $ 3 million and also recently collaborated with Railyatri.in which has several smart buses traveling intercity. The startup delivers its services to many privately held companies in North and Western regions like Lucknow, Delhi, some cities based in Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Punjab and many more.
10. Chaayos
Chaayos is an online platform for selling and delivering tea. This impressive concept was introduced by Nitin Saluja and Raghav Verma back in 2012. The legacy of tea in India has its roots for generations. It is a drink which almost every Indian family admires and starts their day with and by sipping it makes almost every Indian rejuvenating and refreshing. ‘Chai’ or tea is a must have with every snack and pakoras which makes the appetite complete. Every chai has a different blend of flavor and attracts a wide number of enthusiasts. It is a mandatory beverage for a family to stay motivated throughout the day. But a specific chain of chai outlets were unheard. This is because cafes and food joints mainly concentrate on coffee. People had to rely on unhygienic roadside stalls with dirty cups to satisfy their chai break or dive into a flask of chai made from homes. This led to the inception of Chaayos. ‘Starbucks’ and ‘Cafe Coffee Day’ are expensive when considering having tea or coffee. But Chaayos offers products which are affordable and pocket friendly. Since 2012, Chaayos has been operational in 6 cities across India. Nitin Saluja and Raghav Verma are two tech professionals, where Nitin studied in IIT Delhi and Raghav graduated from IIT Bombay. Both of them were working in a US firm, Opera Solution where Nitin was crazy about chai. Nitin met Raghav through a mutual friend who was working at the same consulting firm. The idea was discussed between the two individuals and they left their high paying jobs for their exciting venture. Nitin and Raghav like any other startup owners put all their efforts towards their project. In November, 2012, the first outlet of Chaayos was opened in Gurugram. Nitin handles areas like supply chain and product development and Raghav looks after marketing and business development. At Chaayos, customers have the option to choose from 25 types of tea which can be further catered to 12,000 ways based on personal preferences and taste. The firm also designed their outlets with a chai adda vibe where there were kettles, chai tasting tubes and lamps decorated from chai glass cuttings. Presently, Chaayos has more than 50 outlets in Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi. The company also employees more than 200 people and every day they fulfill more than 500 orders from each of their outlets. The company received an investment of about $ 5 million from Tiger Global Management. Chaayos is planning to expand an on demand service where the company will deliver chai within 15 mins to the customers. They are collaborating with several logistics companies to fulfill this strategy and also plan to sell about three million chai cups in the next 18 months.
Watch the official Youtube channel for more insightful contents:
11. Revfin
Revfin is a fintech startup in Delhi established by Sameer Aggarwal in 2018. The company is on a mission to develop an advanced lending platform driven by technology and digitization. Revfin aims to underwrite loans for the consumers and plans to manage it. These loans will be invested towards eco-efficient technologies with the help of Revfins’s NBFC. There are two types of loans provided by the company. Firstly, there is the personal loan, which can be availed for different purposes and shall be repaid equally in monthly installments. Secondly, the company offers RevLoan which is a credit limit that is unsecured and can be used as per necessity. The borrower can withdraw any amount of money based on the credit limit in 1000 rupees denominations. Revfin’s usual clientele are from tier 2 or 3 cities who are not well educated and are not accustomed with banking transaction systems. These customers typically lack a credit history. Using psychometrics, biometrics and processes like gamification, Revfin undergoes such loans with the help of a mobile application. Thus, it can be understood that the process is fully digitized and has less margin of errors due to the presence of technology. The startup has a motive to promote financing of electric powered vehicles for regular individuals who are willing to be drivers. These drivers are engaged in transporting passengers, delivering cargos and also working in ecommerce deliveries. The telematics system helps drivers evaluate and track their productivity and also ensures the safety of the vehicle. Revfin has partnered with manufacturers, ecommerce platforms and fleet operators to attract customers and provide them with a loan. Some of the prominent investors of Revfin are Anil K Goyal, who is the founder of Anil K Goyal and Associates, Krishna B Singh, an investor from New York, Anil Lanba, a senior level tech executive from EVP Pyramid Consulting and Harash Jain, who is the CEO of Litejoy International which is a UK-centered business.
Here is a link to the Youtube channel:
12. Dogspot
Dogspot is an online ecommerce platform dedicated to serving the dog lovers of the country. It is a digital space that offers around 4,000 products like pet treats, toys, animal accessories, grooming packages, bowls and many more. The ecommerce startup in Delhi started in 2007 by Rana Atheya who is a dog and an animal lover. The company makes a seamless experience for dog and animal lovers to order online food and other pet related items. Rana loved dogs and he wanted to show his compassion towards humanity’s best friend by making a place where dog care will be easy and hassle-free. He wanted a single place where every possible item related to pet care was available. Rana studied electronics engineering from MJP Rohilkhand University and did his MBA from Coventry University in the UK. He invested a huge portion of his savings of about Rs. 3 lakh to the website designing. On building dogspot.in, hundreds of people started visiting the space to gather information about dog food and care. The revenue which was generated through ad clicks were just about sufficient to sustain the portal. In 2009, Rana left his job in Aircel and concentrated on his business. Meanwhile, Rana’s wife Vizal was handling the household expenses. After gathering about Rs. 1.5 lakh from his friends, Rana leased a small space in Gurgaon and started to join hands with several shop owners. By then, the business had already built a beautiful community of customers. Within three months, Dogspot had made about 400 clients. Rana’s wife Vizal also joined the business and they expanded their products for birds and cats. The first year which is 2009 to 2010 had a revenue of about Rs. 10 lakh. Dogspot only had 5 employees including Atheya and Vizal. Around 2012, the company further expanded dealing with products for animals like squirrels, rabbits and some other smaller animals. Dogspot teamed up with several logistics companies for safe and secure delivery of their products. The company received about Rs. 1 crore funding and also got invested by eminent personalities like Ratan Tata and Ronnie Screwvala. The total revenue in the year 2013-2014 was about Rs. 4 crore. This surely proves that success is imperative if the vision is true and the hard work will define the rest of the journey.
Head to the official Youtube channel for more info:
13. TrulyMadly
Truly Madly is a dating platform founded by Sachin Bhatia, Hitesh Dhingra and Rahul Kumar in the year 2013. This online dating space is considered one of the best out there in India. It is an Indian version of Tinder. In Tinder there are several unnecessary matches, which often can be overwhelming for an individual. The speciality of TrulyMadly is that the dating app provides up to 10 matches which is figured by the AI of the platform based on a questionnaire a person has to fill while making a profile. Sachin who also co-founded Make My Trip sat on a brainstorming session with Rahul and Hitesh who are the co-founders of Flipkart acquired company-Letsbuy. They discussed avenues available for potential growth and were inspired by the dating sector. The population between the age 18 to 26 years were lacking a proper dating space. Finally, TrulyMadly was created. Although there are some similarities with Tinder, TrulyMadly has its personalized approach. There is a facility of private chatting option available in the app if the match is mutually recognized by the app. Women often feel unsafe when the thought of chatting with unknown men and even meeting them comes to the mind. From survey and analysis, women are comfortable meeting an online date if the said profiles are verified properly and the compatibility is optimized by the platform. One major difference between TrulyMadly and Tinder is that TrulyMadly defines scores based on trust. For example, if an individual wants to sign into a social media platform, they are required to provide their phone number, a photo ID or some personal information. This helps the AI of TrulyMadly process information about the identity of an individual to ensure if they are single and regularly comes online to a social space. This entire process increases the score and more matches can be introduced between two individuals. These checks also ensure security for the women users of TrulyMadly. In Tinder, the matches depend highly on location. But TrulyMadly focuses on matchmaking quizzes and the efficacy of the scores. In India, the margin of users is slim in smaller towns. Thus, people from smaller towns can date users from bigger cities as the app is not location-centric. The dating startup in Delhi raised a funding of about $ 5.6 million which will help in the expansion of the company. The company also planned to provide premium services like the ability to check more than 10 profiles, paid stickers and nearby users.
Go to their official Youtube channel for more information:
14. 3Hcare
3Hcare is a healthcare startup in Delhi that was founded by Ruchi Gupta, Dr. Ravinder Pal Singh Malhotra and Dr. Gurdeep Singh Ratra in the year 2016. The company specializes in providing services related to healthcare and makes it accessible online. The online space delivers information about clinics and hospitals nearby when a user logs into their 3Hcare profile. These services are made available PAN India by the company. Customers are always in the search of a safe and convenient diagnostic center. 3Hcare has come up with several packages that give enough personalized options for its users. The Indian Diagnostic Services Market Outlook 2020, has data that predicts a 27.5% growth in the diagnostic services industry in the coming 5 years. The market also reached a record revenue of $ 860 billion by the end of 2020. This is due to the growing health awareness of the public, rise of health insurance among more people and the development of the healthcare industry in general. It is expected that by the end of 2022, the industry will be valued at $ 320 billion. Ruchi Gupta holds a doctorate degree in the field of Risk Management. She is also a member of the Indian Institute of Chartered Accountant in India. Ruchi Gupta has graduated with a bachelor’s degree in the field of Commerce from SRCC, University of Delhi. She did her MBA from GGSIP University. Her career spreads across a variety of interests from educationist to mentoring students in Finance and Business Management. Dr. Ruchi Gupta also holds a position on the committee of authors in the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). Dr. Ravinder Pal Singh Malhotra did MBBS, MS in General Surgery from MAMC Delhi and M.Ch. from GB. Pant Hospital, Delhi in GI and HPB Surgery and Advanced Laparoscopic Surgery. Dr. Ravinder completed a fellowship in Liver and Multi Visceral Transplant from Sir Ganga Ram Hospital based in New Delhi. Dr. Gurdeep Singh Ratra did MBBS, MS in Orthopedics and M.Ch. in Orthopedics. He completed his fellowship in the field of Joint Replacement from Endo Klinik in Germany and Joint Replacement and Sports Medicine from AKH Hospital situated in Vienna, Austria. The idea behind 3Hcare came to Ruchi’s mind when in the time of an emergency she could find a reliable diagnostic center and a hospital for her relative who was suffering from dengue. There was a lot of friction in the process of providing proper healthcare with its relevant information about several topics. Ruchi is a Ph.D. scholar and wanted to pursue her dreams of mentoring using her skills and knowledge. The incident with her relative gave her a realization that every time a reference will not be available for a basic smooth process. Discussing her idea with hundreds of people and investors and making a network with several diagnostic centers, she was finally able to build 3Hcare with Dr. Gurdeep Singh Ratra and Dr. Ravinder Pal Singh Malhotra. The online portal offers two types of services that includes, diagnostics, where 1500 labs with about 350 centers for testing are available from 50 locations across the country. These labs and test centers are NABL certified and provide charges to compare with other labs in the digital platform. The Plan My Surgery feature by the website provides information about surgeons and hospitals with the cost of surgery, which makes it easy for patients and their well-wishers to plan for any surgery oriented decisions. The company received about Rs. 65 lakh of funding in the first round and $ 1 million from the second round.
Here is a link to the Youtube channel:
15. Ikka Dukka
Ikka Dukka is a handicraft manufacturing startup founded by Enda Noone and Nilisha Kholi in 2013. The creative venture by the two goes way back to the time when they were pursuing masters in Dublin. The willingness to create something magical and artistic made them give up their corporate jobs and initiate a traditional and culturally-rich handicrafts oriented business. Ikka Dukka offers jewelry with a budget starting from about Rs. 1,800. The products are affordable and trendy which is making every effort to uphold the heritage of the country. The idea behind making India as the base of operation is due to the presence of brilliant craftsmen in the country. Coupled with skills of the labor, the country is also witnessing a surge in a wide range of industries that are supporting the digital way of doing business. The startup offers products made in India and also handmade jewelry from Europe. Architectural Digest also expressed Ikka Dukka to be one of the best curated websites present in India.
16. Imperial Knots
Imperial Knots is an online platform in India that does business by offering carpets and rugs for sale on their website. The products provided by the company expresses artistic design, aesthetically presented colors and impeccable comfort. These products promise high standards of comfort and style while covering the floors of the homes. The textile manufacturer offers about 5000 products with unique designs. The company also keeps themselves updated with the latest trends in order to provide the best quality and beautiful design to its customers. The rug with a flat woven texture and hand-tufted carpets with modern designs are some of their most popular products. Imperial Knots also collaborated with websites like Ikka Dukka, Pepperfry, Flipkart, Amazon and many more to make their products more accessible to its customers.
17. Wingify
Wingify is a software development IT startup in Delhi that was founded by Paras Chopra in 2010. The company deals with optimization of a website to make it visually more appealing. This helps professionals from the marketing sector to grow the conversion rates and sales of their websites with the help of methods like A/B testing. The IT startup offers a range of services that has multiple usage in testing that concentrates on targeting based on behaviors, tracking traffic on their online space, usability testing and many more.
Watch the company’s Youtube channel for an in-depth detail:
18. LimeTray
LimeTray is one of the small startups in Delhi that was founded in the year 2013 by Akhilesh Bali and Piyush Jain. It is one of the IT Delhi startups that has expertise in providing technology and data to restaurants that has plans to scale their business. The digital platform is a blessing for restaurants which are aiming to expand their business and needs personalized assistance with an online space where every sort of services are bundled together. LimeTray is so beautifully crafted that it forwards a customer base who has an online presence to the restaurants. Often it is seen that restaurants offering good services and delicious food shuts down due to limited reach. According to LimeTray, good food and good vibes should never be wasted. The company has implemented products that bridge the gap between the business and its consumers. The world has shifted digital and businesses should too. Limetray’s tool helps restaurants create awareness and engagement with its customers which makes it efficient to reach more people and make the process sustainable. More than 3,500 restaurants are satisfied with the services offered by LimeTray which is created by alumni of NSIT and ISB who have experience and expertise in developing digital food ordering platforms. Investors like Matrix Partners are associated with the startup.
This is a link to LimeTray’s Youtube channel:
After checking all these startups in Delhi, one can take into account that business in India has seen enormous prospects over the last few years. With technology and digitization of projects and ventures, the scope to expand has increased predominantly. Nowadays, anything we are curious about has to go through internet research. And this is a blessing to be living in such times where data is considered the ultimate truth. Data can further be promoted through the internet and create awareness amongst us who are trying to learn more and apply that knowledge to our daily lives.
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