Wizikey’s Hottest Startups of 2020 Report: Fintech, e-commerce, SaaS, logistics and edtech lead the pack
The Indian startup ecosystem has seen a tumultuous 2020 with a raging pandemic, a national economic crisis and fast-plummeting consumer confidence. There were budget cuts across the board, expansion plans were put on hold and the worst of all - job losses were prevalent across the spectrum. Amidst these dark clouds, the silver lining was that nearly all major startups survived to fight another day with a stronger resolve. These startups led the way in drawing up a narrative that the ecosystem is prepared for the worst and can fight back under any circumstances. This was accentuated by the fact that all of them maintained a positive buzz and visibility with the media, some more than the others.
As the year wraps up, Wizikey, Asia’s fastest-growing PR- SaaS startup, has launched The Hottest Startups of 2020 Report to identify the top 100 most influential startups in India and the leading categories in each segment.
“Pairing the right brand narrative with an optimal platform is key to the positioning of any startup in the country. Fintech is clearly doing it right and is leading the ranks, having found maximum prominence in our list. Furthermore, as we deep dive into sectors, while the top players continue to lead the way, it is exciting to see some new names surface to the list,” said Anshul Sushil, CEO & Co-Founder, Wizikey, when asked about the key parameters startups should keep in mind when crafting their communication strategy.
Sharing his views on the importance of news analytics for brands, he added, “At Wizikey, we leverage Big Data technologies, including predictive analytics and Machine Learning to analyse millions of news data points and create meaningful and actionable insights for companies. This includes identifying patterns and trends in the industry and sentiment analysis of the news, thus helping companies dig deeper into topics which are contributing to low trust for them with consumers.”
Download the report or read more here.
According to The Hottest Startups of 2020 Report, , , , , , , , , , and are the top 10 hottest startups of 2020 (mentioned according to rank). All 10 startups hold the title of unicorns. Paytm tops the list in terms of creating the most consistent buzz throughout the year, while Dream11 bags the title for the maximum headline mentions. Zomato surpasses Swiggy in the popularity score and finds more visibility in the ecosystem.
In terms of hot sectors, due to a strong wave of digitisation and cashless transactions, this year can be called the year of fintech. According to the report, 19 of the top 100 startups are from the fintech industry with Paytm ranking at number 1. A fairly new entrant in the startup world CRED, in 11th place, has become one of the hottest startups in a very short period of time. It is also the youngest player in the list of hottest startups.
The B2C e-commerce industry, especially the beauty segment, also saw some activity in 2020 from players like and . Companies in this sector transformed overnight to match the demand and supply for 1.3 billion Indians. Big Basket found itself leading the sectoral list but overall ranked at number 6, way above , which is ranked at 15.
With essentials and supply chains becoming the drivers of the economy, especially during the lockdown period, the logistics sector was close behind. Two unicorns featured in this category are and , buoyed by the sentiment they brought to the market, with creating more buzz than all players put together in the category.
Having witnessed a boom in investments and consumer interest, the edtech sector reimagined itself to match up to the demand for education via the digital medium. Byjus and Unacademy at 8th and 10th rank took the hotspots in the category. There was a buzz around both the unicorns for diverse reasons - from funding to expansions and acquisitions.
Wizikey, which is a media intelligence and outreach company has created this report with its proprietary AI and ML technology, data mining and analysis within startups and unicorns in the ecosystem. A total of 5 million news articles crawled over the year, were used for analysis in this report.
Download the top 100 list with media insights from this link.