India has 100 unicorns. Now what?

The unicorn may be a mythical creature, but in the startup ecosystem, it is becoming commonplace. In fact, data suggest the Indian startup ecosystem births a new unicorn every two weeks.

Tuesday May 03, 2022 , 3 min Read

The unicorn may be a mythical creature, but in the startup ecosystem, it is becoming commonplace. In fact, data suggest the Indian startup ecosystem births a new unicorn every two weeks.

Anand Prasanna, Managing Partner at growth-stage fund Iron Pillar, says:

“The unicorn tag is a milestone. As an investor, we look at it as more long-lasting, and while these startups may not last or even have a drop in valuation, the idea of a unicorn as a concept has lasted long (for maybe 16 centuries), and we believe, looking at the growth trajectory and other factors, this particular startup may be lasting.”

As per YourStory Research, India currently has 92 active unicorns.

Open — the latest addition to the list — takes the count to 100 when we consider Flipkart and Bigbasket, which were acquired by Walmart and Tata Group, respectively; Info Edge (India) and MakeMyTrip that got listed in the past, and Hike, Shopclues, Snapdeal, and Quikr that lost their unicorn tags due to an eventual drop in valuation.

The 15 unicorns of 2022 account for 34.09 percent of the 44 unicorns created in 2021. Clearly, 2022 is a bumper year for startups, especially, the growth-stage ones. But, what next? Read more.

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In an insight-packed conversation, four leading technologists — Krishnan Parameswaran, CTO and Co-founder, Namaste Credit; Anil Bhat, Co-founder of Siply; Srivaths Varadharajan, COO, Spice Money; Prasanna Ranganathan, Founding member, Epifi; and Radhesh Shankaranarayanan, Director and GM - Medium Business India, Dell Technologies — discuss how businesses can future-proof themselves and unlock the true power of data by leveraging the cloud.

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Startup Spotlight

From a pet tracker to a full-fledged petcare startup

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News & Updates

Bodhi Tree Systems announced a $600 million investment and strategic partnership with 34-year-old Kota, Rajasthan based education company ALLEN Career Institute. The announcement comes days after a similar release, indicating Bodhi Tree's $1.78 billion investment in Reliance Viacom18.

ISMC will invest $3 billion to set up a chip manufacturing plant in Karnataka. ISMC is a joint venture between Abu Dhabi-based Next Orbit Ventures and Israel's Tower Semiconductor. Intel has announced plans to acquire the latter.

Logistics startup Delhivery had a board meeting over the weekend, where it discussed its plans for going public. The consensus at the end of the meeting was reportedly to launch the IPO at a smaller than previously declared number, and after LIC's IPO subscription period ends on May 9.

The GST collection in April touched the highest-ever level of about Rs 1.68 lakh crore, up 20 percent from the year-ago period, on improved compliance and recovery in business activity, the Finance Ministry has said. During the month, 1.06 crore GST returns from GSTR-3B were filed, of which 97 lakh pertained to March 2022.