NEWS

Indian Startups Are Becoming

Unicorn One Year Faster In 2021
Debarghya Sil 2 days ago

2021

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The Indian startup ecosystem has come a long

way.

Having seen the launch of 55K+ startups to

date, India is home to more than 38K+ active
startups, making it the third-largest startup
ecosystem in the world after China and the US.
The ecosystem which mostly began in the year
2007-2008 with the launch of Flipkart and
Zomato later gained momentum in 2014-2015,
crossing the $100 Bn mark in total funding in
October 2021.

With increasing cash inflow, it’s a no-brainer

that India started seeing the rise of unicorns,
startups with or more than $1 Bn valuation. The
ecosystem celebrated its first unicorn with
Naveen Tewari’s InMobi in 2011, followed by the
country’s indigenous built ecommerce platform
Flipkart in 2012.

Since then, there has been no looking back.

India at present has 82 startups that have ever
entered the unicorn club (of which few are
currently under-$1 Bn, got acquired or listed)
about 50% or say 40 were produced in 2021
itself.

Let’s look at how over the years India produced

unicorns!

From a single startup entering the unicorn club

in 2011, 2012 and 2013 with InMobi, Flipkart and
Mu Sigma respectively, the Indian startup
ecosystem saw three startups entering the
unicorn club in 2014 with Kunal Bahl’s
ecommerce giant Snapdeal and Bhavesh
Agarwal’s Uber rival – Ola.

The first major boom came in 2018 when 10

startups entered the coveted club. The year saw
the entry of the country’s first edtech startup
BYJU’s, along with the first policy aggregator
Policybazaar entering the club. SaaS startup
Freshworks, PhonePe, Rivigo, B2B ecommerce
platform Udaan along with four also entered the
unicorn club.

Until 2021, the year 2020 recorded the highest

number of unicorns being born. The year saw
the rise of 11 unicorns with Unacademy,
Zerodha, Razorpay, Postman, Pine Labs, Nykaa,
Glance, FirstCry, DailyHunt, Cars24, and Zenoti.

Much has been spoken about 2021 as the

country broke the record of 2020 within the first
four months itself. The year started with Digit
Insurance entering the club, followed by
Innovaccer. The second week of April saw the
rise of 6 unicorns. The ecosystem didn’t lose
the momentum as, as of 9th December, we have
40 unicorns and still a few weeks to go to wind
up the year.

Checkout The Indian Unicorn Tracker

Starting Up To Unicorn: How

Long Do Indian Startups
Take?
Not only has the number of startups entering
the celebrated unicorn club has increased, but
also the time-taken to achieve this feat has also
dropped drastically over the course of years.

Recommended Article

Here Are The 40 Indian

Startups That Entered The
Unicorn Club In 2021

In our earlier analysis in 2019, we had found the

average time taken by startups to enter the
unicorn club was seven years. But over the
years, the average time to turn a unicorn has
reduced.

It is clearly evident that the new-age tech

startups have been hitting the billion-dollar
valuation mark at a faster pace than their older
counterparts. For instance, almost 44 startups
in the Indian unicorn club have taken less than 6
years to attain unicorn status.

Overall, if we look at the startups founded

before 2011, the time taken to enter the unicorn
club stands at 9.3 years. For instance, Druva,
Icertis, Dailyhunt, BYJU’s, BrowserStack,
Chargebee, Rebel Foods, Mindtickle, all took
around 10 years to become unicorns.

However, it has been found that the startup

founded in and after 2012 took an average of
4.8 years to cross a billion-dollar valuation.

The Inc42 team dug deeper to find out that the

startup which entered the unicorn club between
2012 and 2020 took an average of 7.5 years. For
example, Zomato, BigBasket, IPO-bound
Delhivery, and Lenskart have taken an average
of 8 years.

Here, interesting to note is that startups are

taking an average time of only 6.6 years to
become unicorns in 2021, meaning that the
2021 startups becoming unicorns one year
faster than their peers.

Interestingly, 14 out of the 39 startups that

entered the unicorn club in 2021 were founded
between 2016 and 2021 and took less than six
years to achieve unicorn status. Interestingly,
Mensa Brands entered the unicorn club within
six months of its launch.

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Inc4.

One of the reasons behind the rise of unicorns

and the drop in time taken to cross a billion-
dollar valuation is the rise in digitisation
bolstered by the rise of internet penetration
across the country. Investors are placing high
bets on these startups to help them capture the
market, build products and grow. Once the
startup matures, it goes for a public listing,
giving a grand return on investment to their
investors.

Checkout The Indian Unicorn Tracker

UNICORNS

Note: We at Inc42 take our ethics very seriously.

More information about it can be found here.

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