In 2022, India will have 100 unicorn startups in India and the startup ecosystem will become the fastest-growing in the world.
There are fewer unicorn startups around these days than there were five years ago; however, building a unicorn startup is not the easiest thing to do.
In order to reach the status of a unicorn, a startup has to put a great deal of hard work, dedication, and Perseverance into their product, and the companies that have achieved this status are discussed in this article. Essentially, Unicorn Startup is made up of two words, the first being "Unicorn" and the second being "Startup".
This is a business term that refers to a startup company that has a valuation of over $1 Billion that is considered to be a unicorn. Aileen Lee is a venture capitalist and seed investor who coined the term venture capitalist.
The South African startup scene differs from that of large public companies in that startups are typically privately owned and at an early stage of development.
A recent study has revealed that Serbia is the third-best country to host unicorns for the upcoming year 2021. It has been reported that 33 Indian startups have now joined the unicorn club, dislodging the UK from the third position, which managed to witness only 15 unicorn startups in the same year.
According to the report, the United States added 254 unicorns while China added 74 unicorns in 2021, bringing their tally to 487 and 301 startups valued at over $1 billion, respectively.
In this guide, we ranked and reviewed the 34 best unicorn startups in india, along with our top 3 choices, so that you can pick the best one for you.
Swiggy
(Best XYZ)
Overall Rating: 4/5
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OLA Cabs
(Best XYZ)
Overall Rating: 4
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua minim veniam, quis nostrud.
PhonePe
(Best XYZ)
Overall Rating: 4/5
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List of unicorn startups in India
Want to jump straight to my top picks? My favorite unicorn startups in india is Swiggy and PhonePe .
1. Oxyzo
Oxyzo is a credit solutions provider. We work as the lending arm of Of Business, the unicorn platform for industrial goods and services procurement.
Oxyzo is the brainchild of Asish Mohapatra and Ruchi Kalra, who has a deep understanding of the business trends affecting small and
medium-sized enterprises, with a goal of transforming them into something bigger in terms of operations, revenue, and profit margins.
Oxyzo became a unicorn on March 23, 2022, when it was heavily funded by a host of investors including Alpha Wave Global,
Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, and Norwest Venture Partners. At the event, $200 million was received from a clutch of investors including Alpha Wave Global, Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, and Norwest Venture Partners, among others.
The round of external investment was the first time that Oxyzo has obtained unicorn status as a result of an external round of investment.
Oxyzo is a unicorn that belongs to Of Business and is the second unicorn in the group. It has also been noted that Oxyzo has raised such a large amount in the Series A round, making it the first Indian startup to do so.
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2. Games24x7
Games 24x7 is the Indian unicorns scientific gaming company in India.
The company was founded in June 2006 by Bhavin Pandya and Trivikraman Thampy and is based in Mumbai, Maharashtra.
The company offers players real money skill games, daily sports fantasy games, and casual gaming.
This leading games platform recently became a unicorn by raising $75 million in funding led by the Malabar India Fund on March 30, 2022, and now has a valuation of up to $2.5 billion.
This round of funding was also participated in by Tiger Global, who had been an existing investor since the start of the company.
The reports of 30th March 2022 confirm that Games 24x7 is currently India's 99th unicorn company, as per the reports.
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3. Amagi
Based in Bengaluru, Amagi is a media-tech and broadcasting startup that offers a geotargeting feature in its TV advertisements.
Created by Baskar Subramanian, Srinivasan KA, and Srividhya Srinivasan in 2009, Amagi is a startup that allows its users to target TV advertisements according to their location.
It is a growing company that specializes in Cloud SaaS technology to bring services that are powerful, effective, cost-effective, and
result-focused, so as to pave the way for a new TV channel where digital media ad ops would be highly enticing.
On March 16, 2022, Amagi raised $95 million in funding, led by Accel and a clutch of existing investors along the way, including Norwest Venture Partners and Avataar Ventures.
The deal pushed Amagi to a unicorn valuation. In 2022, Amagi will become the 12th Indian startup to join the unicorn club after this funding round.
In addition to this, it is currently regarded as one of the most valuable media tech companies in the world.
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4. Hasura
Hasura is a Bengaluru-based GraphQL development platform, whose goal is to boost web application development by leveraging GraphQL on top of its platform.
By removing the roadblocks that stand in the way of data access, the business founded by Rajoshi Ghosh and
Tanmay Gopal aims to make it easier for frontend and full-stack developers to access data.
In July 2018, Hasura became an open-source platform, allowing developers around the world to use it to help them build the data layer for modern applications.
As the 10th Indian company to enter the coveted unicorns in India club in 2022, this developer-focused tooling product platform has become the first unicorn on February 22, 2022, thus turning it into the 10th unicorn in the world.
With the money raised in its Series C funding round, the company achieved unicorn status by raising $100 million.
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5. CredAvenue
Credit Avenue is a fin-tech unicorn companies in India founded in 2017 by Gaurav Kumar.
It aims to provide investors with a fully unified and fully integrated digital platform, which enables them to discover, trade, execute, and fulfill debt opportunities.
CredAvenue was established in October 2020 by Vineet Sukumar who is also the Founder and Director of the company.
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6. Xpressbees
Amitava Saha and Spam Maheshwari are two of the founders of Xpressbees, a company that provides e-commerce logistics solutions for its clients along with personalized solutions for their delivery needs.
The company is headquartered in Pune, India, and offers many logistics-based services, such as last-mile delivery, reverse logistics, and
Payment collection, as well as vendor management, cross-border services, and fulfillment.
Xpressbees also provides clients with customized software solutions. A unicorn company (the 8th of its kind in the country), Xpressbees is the recipient of $300 million worth of funding from Blackstone Growth, TPG Growth
And ChrysCapital in its Series F funding round on February 9, 2022. A similar round of funding was also run by its existing investors, which included Investcorp and Norwest Venture Partners.
These investments will be crucial to the growth of Xpressbees in the next phase of its business.
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7. Livspace
This startup was built with the goal of connecting individuals with interior designers, products, and services.
As an omnichannel platform for the interior design of homes, LivSpace aims to connect individuals with designers, products and services.
Livspace, with its headquarters in Bengaluru, is one of the largest platforms that helps homeowners choose pre-created looks for their rooms, kitchens, and storage areas.
The more you know about Livspace, the more you realize that the company offers its customers a wide range of designs to choose from along with further customization options.
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8. Uniphore
Founded in 2008 by Ravi Saraogi and Umesh Sachdev, Uniphore is a Conversational Automation Platform that enables interaction between two parties.
Uniphore's customer service platform is powered by AI and
enables artificial intelligence-based automation, which is a voice-enabled technology whose vision is to bridge the gap between human and machine interaction.
Based in Silicon Valley, Uniphore's mission is to provide globally connected businesses with first-class customer service and
to help them utilise Uniphore's integrated suite of software products that include conversational analytics, assistance, and security.
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9. ElasticRun
Founded in Pune, Maharashtra, elasticRun LLC is an online e-commerce logistics and
Distribution company that was created to provide a system that would allow e-commerce and
Distribution operators across India to better serve their customers by receiving orders more quickly and dispatching delivery drivers more accurately.
A recent round of funding dated February 8, 2022, has seen ElasticRun raise over $300 mn from investors including SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Goldman Sachs with some of the company's existing investors, including Prosus Ventures.
Following the closing of the fresh round of financing, the company posted a value of $1.44 billion after the round of funding had concluded.
At the time of the last funding round that ElasticRun had in April 2021, the company was valued at $400 million, implying that its value had seen a 3X increase.
The Kirana commerce platform has become India's sixth unicorn startup in 2022 due to this investment round.
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10. Darwinbox
Chaitanya Peddi, Jayant Paleti, and Rohit Chennamaneni are the founders of Darwinbox, a cloud-based human resource management technology solution that automates the entire employee life cycle and
offers enterprises a single point of control for all of their HR processes.
As part of their employee lifecycle solution, the company provides organizations with a suite of HR software that will help them manage all of their HR requirements including recruitment, payroll, employee engagement, talent management, and
people analytics across the employee lifecycle from the start to finish.
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11. DealShare
DealShare is an e-commerce startup based in Bengaluru that offers a social shopping platform.
DealShare is a multi-platform platform that provides a number of consumer products in a variety of categories at affordable prices, and
was founded in 2018 by Rajat Shikhar, Sankar Bora, Sourjyendu Medda, and Vineet Rao.
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12. LEAD
The LEAD School is a Mumbai-based educational technology company that helps educational institutions transform their school education in India by providing improved marketing and
academic solution to them. As a result of LEAD School being founded in 2012 by Smita Deorah and
Sumeet Mehta, private schools are better able to serve students with varying economic backgrounds through digitisation and transformation.
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13. Acko Insurance
As the first insurance unicorn company in India to handle auto, bike, and
health insurance efficiently without the need to comply with paperwork, Acko is a digital insurance provider in India.
It is also worth mentioning that Acko is also in possession of a license, which enables the company to underwrite and distribute bite-sized insurance products.
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14. Fractal
The Fractal Intelligence team consists of Ramakrishna Reddy, Pranay Agrawal, Srikanth Velamakanni, Nirmal Palaparthi, and
Pradeep Suryanarayan, and was founded in 2000 in Mumbai, India. Currently, the firm is headquartered in New York, USA.
With Fractal, you will be able to empower every human decision by bringing in analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and
Cutting-edge technology to make your decision-making process more efficient.
Fractal helps Fortune 500 companies succeed by providing them with strategic analytics solutions.
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15. BharatPe
India's BharatPe is an e-commerce marketplace that offers no-fee digital payment apps, merchant aggregators, and
Payments platforms that allow users to pay with QRs, or point of sale (POS) systems.
It is a private limited company that goes by the name Resilient Innovations Private Limited and doesn't belong to the government.
A Fortune 500 company with headquarters in New Delhi, India, the company tripled its valuation to $2.85 billion in August 2021, which enabled it to join the unicorn club.
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16. Apna
Apna is the largest professional networking platform in India, which enables the developing workforce in India to keep updated in terms of recruitment requirements and
opportunities and to grab them whenever, wherever they are.
Students and blue and gray-colored professionals are able to access Apna in 28 cities in India currently to find work communities and landing jobs.
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17. Blackbuck
A great many Indians suffer from transportation and logistics problems related to their transportation and logistics.
Blackbuck is a truck aggregator that aims to help solve many of these problems.
As of today, Blackbuck boasts of having the largest fleet of trucks in India, as well as the most advanced technology platforms to manage freight and fleets.
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18. Browserstack
There are over two million developers across a hundred thirty-five countries who use BrowserStack, a cloud-based network and mobile testing platform.
A major advantage of the product is its ability to help groups speed up launch cycles and
Develop mobile applications and websites that run smoothly on any platform.
The purpose of this project is to make testing less time-consuming, more affordable, and more protected.
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19. Blinkit (Grofers)
Grofers is an online supermarket in India that enables customers to order and receive food, groceries, and
other essential items at the convenience of their homes.
The Grofers shopping platform started with groceries in 2013 and
Has gradually expanded to include a whole range of categories, including household care, baby care, beauty products, and much more.
In the wake of a $120 million fundraising round led by food aggregator Zomato, the company has now become a unicorn.
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20. CarDekho
There are a lot of brands out there that deal in used vehicles. CarDekho is one of them.
The company was founded in Gurugram, Haryana, and is based in Gurugram.
Users can browse through a wide variety of cars to find one that suits them in every aspect.
Besides the relevant details about the car that can be found on CarDekho, the platform also provides experts' reviews, comparisons, and
Other relevant information about the car. It is all of these factors that further aid in the choice of the car model and lead to the increasing popularity of this company because they enable the selection process to be made easier.
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21. Dream11
In India, Dream11 is a fantasy sports platform that provides a vast selection of sports including, but not limited to, cricket, football, hockey, volleyball, handball, futsal, and
Rugby, so that Indian sports enthusiasts can be immersed in their favorite games.
The Dream 11 platform, created in India to meet the needs of Indian sports enthusiasts, aims to help them showcase their sports knowledge and help them expand their network.
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22. PhonePe
The PhonePe digital payment and merchant aggregator platform has a great deal of experience and
Knowledge in helping customers and merchants in India make digital payments simple, fast, and hassle-free.
According to the company's website, it was founded in 2015 and has its headquarters in Andheri, Maharashtra, India.
It claims to have the largest market share among the UPI apps within the country.
As a result of its huge potential for growth, the company has already been granted unicorn status before the year 2020.
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23. BYJU'S
In the world of e-learning, Byju's is an e-learning platform based in Bangalore.
The company was founded in 2011 and runs on a freemium model, which allows students to receive free tutoring and coaching.
As of this writing, Byju's is being used by over 15 million students worldwide and has over 900,000 paid subscribers.
Launched by Byju Raveendran, Byju's is used by over 15 million students worldwide.
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24. OLA Cabs
Ola, an Indian ride-sharing company, was founded on 3rd December 2010 and was launched on the market shortly afterwards.
The number of drivers using Ola in 250 city regions has risen to more than 1.5 million as of 2019.
Also, in September of this year, Ola expanded its network into both Australia and New Zealand, which was its first overseas market.
A variety of auto rickshaws was introduced by Ola in the UK when it began operations in the country.
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25. OYO Rooms
OYO is considered to be one of the most promising startups in the Indian travel sector.
In 2013, India's largest hospitality startup was founded by 21-year-old Ritesh Agarwal, which comprises of budget hotels.
Its startup works closely with existing hotels to offer travelers cheaper rates on vacant rooms by collaborating with them.
At first, OYO rooms cost Rs 999, and the price goes up from there.
The company has also invested in its own properties, in addition to renting hotels in bulk.
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26. Swiggy
In the world of online food delivery platforms, Swiggy is perhaps one of the biggest and most significant.
Founded in 2014 by Nandan Reddy, Sriharsha Majety, and Rahul Jaimini, Swiggy is a crowdsourced ride-hailing service.
With the launch of Swiggy Stores at the beginning of 2019, Swiggy has expanded into delivering general merchandise.
Currently, Swiggy has installed its mobile applications over 5,000,000 times.
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27. Zomato
There is a startup called Zomato which is a restaurant aggregator that delivers Indian food.
Founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, Zomato was founded in 2008 by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah.
A primary purpose of Zomato is to provide users with a list of restaurants, their menus, and user reviews.
It is also worth mentioning that Zomato offers food delivery services from partner restaurants in the cities that are included.
There was a very real danger for everyone when the pandemic broke out, and this danger is almost as real for food technology companies as it is for everyone else and businesses in general.
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28. Freshworks
Our company is specialized in developing innovative software that enables businesses of all sizes and
kinds to engage their customers in more meaningful ways.
Since its founding in 2010, the company has grown to be headquartered in San Mateo, USA, with its products providing a 360-degree view of its customers by providing them with a 360-degree view of their businesses.
Freshworks SaaS products are designed to be instantly usable and can be used immediately.
Moreover, they offer fast returns on investment, as well as being easy to use.
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29. Moglix
MOGLIX was founded by Rahul Garg in 2017 and is a business-to-business e-commerce company with no presence in the US or Europe.
Headquartered in Singapore, MOGLIX has offices in India, where it has its own business unit.
In order to make changes in the manufacturing sector in India, the startup intends to digitally transform the chain.
By providing a digital platform and by offering B2B commerce that is unorganized and
Allows users to easily take advantage of the increased options for improving the grant chain by using technology, Moglix aims to seriously change every component of the grant chain.
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30. upGrad
Students opting for higher education can benefit from an online coaching program known as upGrad.
As a result of our partnership with the world's best universities, upGrad offers a wide range of industry-ready courses, such as bachelor's degrees, MBA courses, Data Science, Machine Learning, and more.
With the help of a $185 million fundraising round, backed by a $185 million guarantee, the company achieved unicorn status on August 6, 2021.
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31. MakeMyTrip
In the year 2000, Deep Kalra founded MakeMyTrip, one of the top online travel companies in India that is known for its quality of service.
This company has its headquarters in Gurgaon and
Was founded over a decade ago to facilitate holiday package bookings, hotel reservations, movie tickets, or even to book tickets for everyday travel through flights, buses, trains, cars, etc.
MakeMyTrip has been around for more than 14 years, operating in more than 30 cities around the world, including 28 cities in India alone.
Making My Trip offers its users the option to find basic information on over one million routes across India via its route planner function.
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32. Nykaa
In 2012, Falguni Nayar, CEO and founder of Nykaa, founded an eCommerce platform focused on cosmetics.
In addition to its headquarters in Mumbai, Maharashtra, Nykaa also has a website and
App, which is known for its wide range of cosmetics, skin care products, and wellness products.
In addition to its online stores, the company also has more than 26 offline stores across India and even became a unicorn startup in 2020.
By the year 2020, the platform will feature a wide selection of 200,000 products from 2000 brands across the country and around the globe.
The brand ambassadors of Nykaa include actresses like Alia Bhatt as well as Katrina Kaif from Bollywood.
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33. Policybazaar
There are many insurance companies in India but Policybazaar is one of the most well-known and trusted ones.
Avaneesh Nirjar, Alayka Bansal, Yashish Dahiya, and Alok Bansal have been running the company since 2008.
In the beginning, the company was designed to provide insurance comparisons.
Later on, the company started to offer different types of insurance plans like life insurance, health insurance, motor insurance, and even travel insurance.
In addition to being the largest insurance company in the country right now, Policybazaar.com is also very popular in the United Arab Emirates as well.
There are two ways in which Policybazaar allows its users to compare financial services from the top insurance providers. One of them is their website and the other is their app.
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34. PharmEasy
The PharmaEasy organization was founded in 2015 by Mikhil Innani, Dharmil Sheth, and
Dhaval Shah to provide online healthcare delivery services to its customers.
Founded in the year 2000, the company is currently the leading online healthcare aggregator in India with its headquarters in Mumbai, Maharashtra.
The platform not only assists patients in finding the nearest pharmacy or diagnostic center that can meet their specific medical needs, but it also helps offer them access to the right medicines online.
Through the platform, patients have access to over a thousand cities and over 22,000 pin codes.
Over one lakh medicines are available on the website of pharmacyeasy.com, a company that claims to have delivered more than 1.5 crore orders.
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Conclusion
As per the unicorn startups in India recent surveys conducted, the chances of startups succeeding are nine out of ten, even if startups are everywhere around us right now.
As a result, it is always challenging for startups to turn their startup into a unicorn and become successful. A venture-backed startup at the seed stage has a 1 in 40 chance of reaching unicorn status.
To put that into perspective, that is a 2.5% chance of reaching unicorn status today. I hope you liked our article on unicorn startups in India, if you have any comments or suggestions do share them in the comments below.
frequently asked question
Q1. Which unicorn is profitable in India?
Zoho, InfoEdge, Zerodha, Five Star, and Dream11 were five of the most profitable unicorns during FY21. During the year, these unicorns made a profit of Rs 1,917 crores, Rs 1,409 crores, Rs 1,122 crores, Rs 359 crores, and Rs 327 crores, respectively.
Q2. Which is the fastest growing unicorn startup in India?
Mensa Brands
Within barely six months of its launch, Mensa Brands has emerged as India's fastest startup to achieve unicorn status, having reached this milestone with its recent Series B funding of $135mn handled by Alpha Wave Ventures-Falcon Edge Capital in November 2021
Q3. What is a unicorn in startup?
Startups valued at over $1 billion are known as unicorns and are privately held and venture capital backed.
Q4. Which startups become unicorns?
The following are the key takeaways. A unicorn company is a startup company that is valued at or exceeds $1 billion. The term is used by the venture capital industry to describe such companies.
According to a report by Aileen Lee, the phrase was coined by venture capitalists in 2013. SpaceX, Robinhood, and Instacart are some of the unicorn companies that have risen to prominence in recent years.
Q5. How many unicorn companies are in India?
Currently, there are in excess of 600 unicorn startups around the world, which is just under $2 trillion in value.
Here are my best picks:
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