2018 became a striking gold to the Indian companies which experienced a Midas touch. The successful startups in India made themselves Unicorns with the billion dollar market showing the new facet in startups and become the face of many evolving companies.
Here is the list of Unicorn startups of India who set a trademark with the blend of technology and innovation and became unstoppable with the valuation of $1 billion and above.
1.BYJU’S
BYJU’S became the Fifth most valued unicorn which touched $4 Billion marks with a whopping amount of $328 Million in funding.
BYJU’S is India’s edtech learning application and online tutoring firm founded by Byju Raveendran in 2011. The app serves educational content to students from classes 4 to 12. Interestingly, the first investment to the firm is from CZI, co-founded by Mark and Priscilla Chan Zuckerberg. BYJU’S is reported to hold over 15 million users, and about 9L paid subscribers on an annual basis.
The edtech startup set a different version in making subjects interest among school students by bringing the concepts of Mathematics and Science visually explained and in context.
Revenue: $219.3M
Funding: $784M
Valuation: $4B
Investors: Chan Zuckerberg, Times Internet, Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Tencent Holdings, Verlinvest
2.Swiggy
Major food tech business Swiggy entered into the unicorn club market with a rise of $210 million in funding.
Swiggy is India’s leading online food order, and delivery platform is founded in August 2014 by Nandan Reddy, Sriharsha Majety, and Rahul Jaimini. It operates in 25 cities with fastest food delivery operations at a reasonable price. Swiggy collaborated with over 40,000 restaurants in India to feed lakhs of bellies with scrumptious cuisines. The startup was recognized as the Startup of The Year by Outlook Magazine and also listed in Forbes 30 under 30.
Leading food tech startup swiggy is considered the second most online food business among the other existing online food delivery platforms like Zomato, Food Panda, and Uber Eats
Revenue: $71.9M
Funding: $1.5B
Valuation: $3.3B
Investors: Naspers, DST Global, SAIF Partners, Accel, RB investments are among the other investors
3.Zomato
Zomato is the leading online application and became the first Indian e-commerce unicorn with a significant milestone in the Indian market. It raised around $1B from the fundings.
Zomato is India’s restaurant search and discovery service portal founded in July 2008 by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah. Zomato operates in 24 countries and has acquired 12 startups globally with 191 million monthly visits by users across the globe.
Revenue: $46.6M
Funding: $653.8M
Valuation: $2.5B
Investors: Sequoia Capital, Temasek Holdings, Vy Capital, Alipay Singapore, and Ant Financial
4.Paytm
Paytm became the e-commerce pioneer in the startup firms by raising $200 Million from Alibaba group.
Paytm is Indian digital wallet and e-commerce payment system founded in 2010 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma. It is available in 10 Indian Languages offering utility bill payments, travel, movies, and event bookings and as well as in-store payments. It is claimed that over 7 million merchants in India to use a QR code to accept payments from their bank accounts and has over 104 million user base registered.
Revenue: $50.6M
Funding: $2.2B
Valuation: $10B
Investors: Alibaba, One97 Communications, and Vijay Shekhar Sharma
5.OYO
OYO is the harbinger to many startups in India. It entered into the unicorn club with $1B funds raised.
OYO aka OYO Rooms is India’s largest hospitality company comprises of many budget-friendly hotels founded by Ritesh Agarwal in 2013. The company operates in India, Nepal, China, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, England Singapore, UAE. The company has over more than 125,000 rooms in India, and about 87,000 in China across 171 cites. It operates in more than 350 cities.
Revenue: $400M
Funding: $1.6B
Valuation: $5B
Investors: Alibaba, One97 Communications, and Vijay Shekhar Sharma
6.PolicyBazaar
Policy Bazaar became a unicorn in the market with $200 million in funding.
PolicyBazaar is an insurance aggregator portal that collates with other major insurance companies. It is India’s leading insurance aggregator platform with the famous tagline “Insurance Compare Kiya?” The company is started in June 2008 by Yashish Dahiya, Alok Bansal and Avaneesh Nirjar.
Revenue: $61.6M
Funding: $34.6M
Valuation: $1B
Investors: SoftBank Vision Fund, Wellington Management, Temasek Holdings, PremjiInvest
7.Udaan
Udaan is a proud Indian startup to be a Unicorn in the market as it is claimed to be the fastest Indian startup and raised a total of $225M.
Udaan is a B2B online marketplace started by three ex-flipkartians Amod Malviya, Vaibhav Gupta, and Sujeet Kumar in the year 2016. The e-commerce platform connects small businesses with manufacturers and wholesalers, traders and retailers. The company has a seller base in over 80 cities and delivers to more than 500 cities. The portal currently has mobile accessories and fashion products as its categories and is looking to expand its portal base.
Revenue: $4M
Funding: $284.9M
Valuation: $1B
Investors: Lightspeed Venture Partners, DST Global, Yuri Milner
8.FreshWorks
FreshWorks clocked $100 million and joined the Unicorn club.
Started in 2010 as Freshdesk and rebranded as Freshwork in 2017 by Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy. The company creates solutions for support and sales, to engage with both customers and employees.
Revenue: $14.5M
Funding: $249M
Valuation: $1.5B
Investors: Sequoia Capital, Accel, Tiger Global Management, Capital G
