We need to celebrate “Indicorns” not unicorns, says Kunal Bahl

India’s burgeoning startup ecosystem should celebrate companies that have profitably scaled revenues beyond Rs 100 crore, said Kunal Bahl, Co-founder of Titan Capital and Snapdeal, as he formally introduced the term “Indicorn” for such ventures.

Indicorn is defined as a company founded in the last 15 years and one that was profitable and had a minimum revenue of Rs 100 crore at the end of FY23.

“It is sad that the definition of success in the startup ecosystem has become unicorn, which is a mythical creature and a terminology defined by someone in the West, in a currency that’s not ours, of an amount that has no relevance in our ecosystem. So why unicorn, why $1 billion or Rs 8,300 crore? No one knows,” Bahl, the Co-founder of Snapdeal told YourStory Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma in a fireside chat.

“Why is it a valuation number and not a revenue number?” Bahl questioned. “Why shouldn’t we have our own terminology or label? I think labels are important. Labels give those who don’t know much about this world a certain aspiration to shoot for... It’s time we have a new name in our country that represents our startup ecosystem’s reality. So, we have coined the term “Indicorn” or a profitable startup with over Rs 100 crore revenue,” Bahl explained.

Bahl went on to showcase a website that lists all of India’s “Indicorns”, including PhysicsWallah, Nykaa, OfBusiness, Infra.Market, and Unicommerce, among others. Titan Capital unveiled this website in partnership with data-intelligence platform Tracxn and YourStory as its launch partner.

India has 187 companies that can be termed Indicorns and, cumulatively, they have revenues of more than a billion dollars, Bahl revealed. He also added that these companies have generated over 92,000 jobs so far.

Is creating an Indicorn easier than building a unicorn? "You just don't know what it will take, what the framework of creating a billion-dollar company is. But the framework of creating a Rs 100 crore revenue company, which is profit making, is still fathomable,” Bahl shared.

“If you achieve that, I can assure you that you have built a lasting, enduring company. A company that is no longer fragile... not based on the whims and fancies of third-party people or investors, who are telling you whether your business is good... bad... worth that much. Your business will be very valuable if you get to that point,” he added.

Bahl's comments come at a time when India's startup ecosystem—the third-largest globally—is slowly recovering from a funding winter that lasted over two years. While funding gradually returns, the inflated valuations from the pandemic times are yet to reappear in some cases.

Many startups that aggressively raised funds during the pandemic have since faced difficulties in scaling and growing sustainably amid the downturn. Investors' focus, thus, has been on companies that have managed to scale frugally over the past 18-24 months. The CapTable had done a detailed story on this earlier this year.

Bahl, one of the poster boys of India’s startup ecosystem in the previous decade, founded Snapdeal almost 15 years ago along with Rohit Bansal. The ecommerce company achieved unicorn status or reached a valuation of $1 billion in 2014.

A year later, Bansal and Bahl founded Titan Capital, a domestic early-stage venture capital firm, through which the two have invested in close to 300 firms to date. Titan Capital has invested in some of India's biggest firms such as Ola, Urban Company, Razorpay, and Uni Cards, among others.

Bahl said that through Titan Capital, the co-founders want to be associated with companies for the long term, emphasising how VC investing is a long-term game. In fact, he advised founders to build slow but solid businesses.

“If I could change the name of Titan Capital, I would make it Slow Capital because I feel this is the problem where we are trying to move too fast, all the time. You don't need to. We need to have a certain pace in what we do. We can't be sluggish and just not moving. But, this desire for extraordinary speed tends to cause companies to fall on their faces oftentimes,” Bahl said.

“You have to be thoughtful about where you want to play, how you want to play, and then move fast in that lane. But otherwise, I see founders, and I have been guilty of doing the same in the past of trying to get things too fast... You have to learn to pull back and be thoughtful,” he added.