Neobanking platform ‘Open’ marks India’s century unicorn, shattering all predictions
In 2020, a total of 11 startups entered the unicorn club, followed by 2021 where 44 unicorns were added and 2022 is also predicted to be a stellar year for India!
India has crossed a century unicorns with Open, a neobanking platform for Small and Medium Enterprises (SME), raising $50 million at a valuation of $1 billion. Apart from being the 100th unicorn of India, Open is also the 20th unicorn from the fintech sector and the 16th unicorn of 2022 alone.
Open was founded in 2017 by former PayU and Citrus Pay executives Anish Achuthan, Mabel Chacko and Ajeesh Achuthan, along with Deena Jacob and aims to offer a business current account to small and medium-sized businesses. The account includes services like digital banking, payments, invoicing, and automated bookkeeping services.
India has shattered all predictions and the 100th unicorn has come well before expectation. According to a report by Inc42, India expected 100 unicorns by 2025 and according to a NASSCOM study, India was expected to see over unicorns by 2024, but India has been well ahead of all predications.
Recently, in an interaction with Indian startups, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said,” With 42 unicorn start-ups being created last year and India racing to the milestone of one billion internet users, the country will soon make a century of unicorns.”
“Even during the good days earlier, only a few companies would become big. But in the past one year 42 unicorns have been made. These billion dollar startups are proof of India becoming Aatmanirbhar (self-dependent) and our country’s Aatmavishwas,” he added.
It is pertinent to note that in 2014, India only had five unicorns and just within 8 years, India has reached its century. He also added that India had progressed to a much better global innovation index ranking of top 50 in the world even as the number of patents granted increased from around 4,000 in 2013-14 to more than 28,000 last year, while the number of trademarks registered rose from 70,000 to more than 250,000 in the same period.
According to the latest report from investment fund Iron Pillar, India is expected to have more than 250 unicorns with $1 billion valuation or above by 2025. India continues to be the third largest startup ecosystem in the world after the US and China.
