Ola, Swiggy or Zomato–Which unicorn has created more jobs?

Any startup ecosystem needs the right milieu to flourish and the past six years have provided just that, leading to the creation of millions of jobs in India.

Sunday May 15, 2022 , 3 min Read

Even as India raises a toast to its 100 unicorns for giving jobs to millions, it’s important to recognise the role played by infrastructure developments—especially, low-cost data and the united payments interface (UPI)—in making this possible.

For their part, the 100 unicorns of India have created an average of 3,489 full-time jobs, as of date. While 34 unicorns have created under 1,000 jobs—ranging from 100 to 854—the remaining 66 have created 2.83 million out of the 2.84 million jobs.

Among the 66 unicorns, the top 10 have a lion’s share of the 2.58 million jobs, accounting for 90.5 percent of the total.

Ola, with 1.5 million drivers in its ecosystem and 12,000 employees on its rolls, accounts for 53 percent of the total jobs created. This is followed by Zomato, which has 3.5 lakh delivery partners and 4,259 employees, representing 12.4 percent of the total job creation.

Flipkart (7.85 percent), Swiggy (7.19 percent), and Delhivery (3.10 percent) complete the top 5 unicorns on the job creation league table.

But what has really helped move the needle is the 2016 launch of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the brainchild of the PM Modi-led National Democratic Alliance government.

Read the full story here.

Editor’s Pick: Guria India

Ajeet Singh, Founder; and Neha, Co-ordinator-Education Centre, Guria India, talk to HerStory about the non-profit’s efforts and challenges in rescuing girls and women from child prostitution, second-generation prostitution, and sex trafficking in North India.

The NGO’s first big rescue came in 2005 in the Varanasi red-light area when Ajeet realised that only education/charity work was not enough to prevent sex trafficking and child prostitution and that he must take the structural roots of prostitution head-on. Read more.

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Meet your favourite celebs with Celewish

Our favourite celebrities have always occupied a tiny part of our lives. From something as innocent as pasting posters in the bedroom or copying the hairstyles of their idols to extreme actions like building temples in their names–fans do it all in the hope that someday they will meet their favourite celebrities.

Enter Mumbai-based CELEWISH, a phygital meet and greet platform, that has signed up more than 1,500 influencers, actors, sportspersons, singers, and musicians–both national and international. Read more.

One-stop shop for next-gen D2C brands

A marketplace for D2C (direct-to-consumer) brands, Meolaa aims to redefine the future of shopping by curating products that resonate with the values of next-generation shoppers—millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Y consumers—who are more likely to buy sustainable, high-quality products.

Launched by 22-year-old Ishita Sawant this year, the Bengaluru-based startup has already raised a pre-seed round. Read more.