No, not just Ambani/Adani/Tata, but It‘s raining Unicorns in India: 10 startups have already crossed $1Billion this year
Despite the pandemic and its hard hit on the Indian economy, startups in India are becoming unicorns at a record pace. For the uninitiated, unicorns are start-ups with a valuation of $1 billion and above. In 2020, India added 11 new unicorns and it’s just been 4 months into 2021, but India has bagged 9 more unicorns. “India will have at least 12 unicorns (privately-held firms with a valuation of $1 billion and more) this year,” a joint report by Nasscom and global management and strategy consultancy Zinnov boldly predicted in the first week of January this year. In 2014, there were only five Unicorns in India. The number increased significantly to 32 in 2019, making India the third-largest ecosystem of unicorns in the world after the USA and China. More importantly, disclosed overall start-up funding saw a mind-boggling rise from $1.6 Bn in 2013 to $ 13 Bn in 2017. The factor, though, that has triggered a surge in unicorns is the pandemic. Covid-19 has expanded the total addressable market for the internet across many categories such as e-commerce and education playing major roles. In fact, a NASSCOM study estimated that India will see over 100 unicorns by 2024, with a total valuation in excess of ₹27 lakh crore. What is seen as the reason for the growth of start ups in India is the many reforms, such as formulating a sectoral policy, giving rebates for start-ups, easing the process of patent filings among others, introduced by the central government. This comes at a time when political opposition of BJP especially Rahul Gandhi has been attacking them for only serving 'Crony Businessmen' and helping them grow while the reality seems to be pretty different when we see it from an unbiased Point of View.
Despite the pandemic and its hard hit on the Indian economy, startups in India are becoming unicorns at a record pace.
For the uninitiated, unicorns are start-ups with a valuation of $1 billion and above.
In 2020, India added 11 new unicorns and it’s just been 4 months into 2021, but India has bagged 9 more unicorns.
“India will have at least 12 unicorns (privately-held firms with a valuation of $1 billion and more) this year,” a joint report by Nasscom and global management and strategy consultancy Zinnov boldly predicted in the first week of January this year.
In 2014, there were only five Unicorns in India. The number increased significantly to 32 in 2019, making India the third-largest ecosystem of unicorns in the world after the USA and China. More importantly, disclosed overall start-up funding saw a mind-boggling rise from $1.6 Bn in 2013 to $ 13 Bn in 2017.
The factor, though, that has triggered a surge in unicorns is the pandemic. Covid-19 has expanded the total addressable market for the internet across many categories such as e-commerce and education playing major roles.
In fact, a NASSCOM study estimated that India will see over 100 unicorns by 2024, with a total valuation in excess of ₹27 lakh crore.
What is seen as the reason for the growth of start ups in India is the many reforms, such as formulating a sectoral policy, giving rebates for start-ups, easing the process of patent filings among others, introduced by the central government.
This comes at a time when political opposition of BJP especially Rahul Gandhi has been attacking them for only serving ‘Crony Businessmen’ and helping them grow while the reality seems to be pretty different when we see it from an unbiased Point of View.
