List of Top Unicorn Startups in India | 2021 Updated

India is becoming the world's fastest-growing startup ecosystem with over 60 Unicorn Startups, as of 2021. In today's world, unicorn startups are not as uncommon as before; however, building a unicorn startup is not easy. It takes a lot of hard work, commitment, and perseverance throughout the startup's journey to climb the ladder of unicorns. And the ones that have bagged the title of unicorns are discussed in this article.

Unicorn Startup consists of two words, "Unicorn" and "Startup". Unicorn is a business term used to define a startup with a valuation of over $1 Billion. The term was coined by a venture capitalist and a seed investor, Aileen Lee. On the other hand, Startups are privately owned companies typically at the early stages of their development. On this note, know in detail - What Makes A Unicorn Startup & How To Build One.

India has witnessed 30+ Startups entering the Unicorn Club in 2021 till now and the list awaits more. Startups that entered the Indian unicorn club in 2021 are BharatPe, CoinDCX, upGrad, MindTickle, Droom, OfBusiness, BlackBuck, Chargebee, CRED, Digit, Groww, Gupshup, Infra.Market, Five Star Business Finance, Innovaccer, Meesho, Pharmeasy, Sharechat, Urban Company, Moglix, Zeta, Eruditus, Zetwerk and BrowserStack, Apna, Vedantu, Licious, CoinSwitch Kuber, Rebel Foods, CarDekho, MobiKwik and more. Know more about these Indian Unicorn Startups in the article ahead.

Here we have listed the Top 70 Unicorn Companies to date! Don't miss out on the regular updates in this list by bookmarking the article.

Top Unicorn Startups in India as of 2021

1. BharatPe
2. Mindtickle
3. upGrad
4. coinDCX
5. Zetwerk
6. Blackbuck
7. Droom
8. OfBusiness
9. ShareChat
10. PharmEasy
11. CRED
12. Meesho
13. Urban Company
14. Infra Market
15. Digit Insurance
16. Innovaccer
17. Five Star Business Finance
18. Groww
19. Gupshup
20. Eruditus
21. Chargebee
22. Zeta
23. Moglix
24. BrowserStack
25. Paytm
26. OYO Rooms
27. BYJU'S
28. OLA Cabs
29. Swiggy
30. Zomato
31. Paytm Mall
32. Zerodha
33. ReNew Power
34. BigBasket
35. Udaan
36. Ola Electric
37. Mohalla Tech
38. MakeMyTrip
39. Nykaa
40. Policybazaar
41. FirstCry
42. Lenskart
43. Grofers
44. Glance, Inmobi
45. InMobi
46. Dailyhunt
47. Zenoti
48. PhonePe
49. Cars24
50. RazorPay
51. Unacademy
52. Postman
53. Pine Labs
54. CitiusTech
55. Icertis
56. Druva
57. Rivigo
58. Dream11
59. Delhivery
60. Billdesk
61. Freshworks
62. Mu Sigma
63. MPL
64. Apna
65. Vedantu
66. Licious
67. CoinSwitch Kuber
68. Rebel Foods
69. CarDekho
70. MobiKwik

FAQs

BharatPe

BharatPe is an Indian digital payments app, merchant aggregator, and payments platform that encourages digital payments via QR and POS. It is not a government company but a private limited company that goes by the name, Resilient Innovations Private Limited. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company tripled its valuation to $2.85 billion and joined the unicorn club on August 4, 2021.

Mindtickle

Mindtickle is a sales readiness platform founded in 2011, which helps in onboarding, product training, coaching, and ongoing readiness. The company offers a vital sales solution to the fast-growing startups to prepare their sales team in a scalable and effective way. Mindtickle was founded in 2011 and turned a unicorn on August 6, 2021, with the influx of $100 mn in Series E funding led by Softbank Vision Fund II.

upGrad

upGrad is an online coaching program for all students opting for higher education. Partnering with some of the top universities of the world, upGrad brings a wide range of industry-ready courses including Bachelor's degrees, MBA, Data Science, and Machine Learning courses, and more. The company has grown to attain unicorn status on August 6, 2021, with the help of a $185 million fundraise.

CoinDCX

CoinDCX is an Indian cryptocurrency exchange aggregator based in Mumbai. The company specializes in crypto-enabled financial services. CoinDCX aims to develop financial services without any borders to enable a simpler and seamless flow of capital powered by impregnable security. CoinDCX raised $90 million in Series C funding to emerge as a unicorn. Thus, the company became India’s first cryptocurrency unicorn.

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Zetwerk

Zetwerk emerges as a B2B marketplace for manufacturing items. The online marketplace based out of Bengaluru connects large manufacturing companies with the vendors and suppliers, who help them get various components of industrial tools and machinery that they require from time to time. The company joined the unicorn club on August 20, 2021, and became India’s youngest billion-dollar company.

Blackbuck

Blackbuck is a truck aggregator and one of the largest truck aggregators operating in India that aims to solve the transportation and logistics problems of countless Indians. Today, Blackbuck boasts of being the largest trucking network in India that is equipped with freight and fleet management technology platforms.

The company currently has a collection of 12,00,000+ trucks and extends its services to over 2000 locations with 15,000+ happy clients.

Droom

Droom is a marketplace for used cars, bikes, scooters, and other automotive, along with other products and merchandise. Powered by cutting-edge data science technology, the company helps its customers to buy and sell automobiles and other products seamlessly.

Droom has around 600K automobiles and dominating with a massive 80% market share of the automobile transactions online, Droom is India’s largest automobile platform online and is counted among the biggest E-Commerce companies of the country.

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OfBusiness

OfBusiness or OFB Tech, as it is often referred to, is a raw material procurement and credit platform for SMEs. The company focuses primarily on the manufacturing and construction industries. OfBusiness leverages state-of-the-art technology to integrate the same to the buying behaviors of the SMEs. This way it makes better products available at better prices and in the right timelines.

ShareChat

ShareChat is an Indian video-sharing Social networking service, developed via Mohalla Tech Private Limited in the year 2015 established by Ankush Sachdeva, Bhanu Pratap Singh, and Farid Ahsan. The company is headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka.

ShareChat App acts as a content consumption and sharing platform solely in Indian vernacular languages to cater to over 1.17 billion wi-fi customers of India. The company offers features such as messaging, sharing different kinds of media, tagging, etc. ShareChat enabled user-generated content creation on its platform, permitting customers to share their very own posters and innovative content. The company also has 400 plus employees and more than 50 million creator communities. The company went on to raise $500 million from investors that increased its valuation to $3 billion.

PharmEasy

PharmEasy is an online healthcare delivery platform that was founded by Mikhil Innani, Dharmil Sheth, and Dhaval Shah in 2015. The company has its headquarters in Mumbai Maharashtra and is currently is the leading online healthcare aggregator in India. Besides selling medicines online, the platform also helps connect patients with the closest local pharmacy and diagnostic center based on their medical needs. It delivers medicines in over 1000 plus cities and across 22,000 pin codes. PharmEasy claims to have delivered more than 1.5 crore orders and has over one lakh medicines available on its website.

CRED

CRED is an upcoming Fintech startup that was started by Kunal Shah in 2018. The company has its headquarters in Bengaluru, Karnataka, and is known for its app that allows users to make credit card payments and even get rewarded. Besides rewards, CRED also gives its customers access to a wide range of additional services such as credit and a premium catalog of products from top brands. So far the platform has over 5.9 million users and has processed about 20% of all credit card bill payments in the country. CRED services are divided into five major products which are CRED RentPay, CRED Cash, CRED Pay, CRED Store and CRED Travel Store. Know the Business Model and Revenue Model of this unicorn company, CRED in detail.

Meesho

Meesho is a popular Indian social E-commerce company that was founded in 2015 by batch mates, Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal.  The company has its headquarters in Bengaluru Karnataka, while it became a Unicorn company because it helps small and medium businesses or even individuals to start their online stores through social media apps like Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. Meesho also has an online reselling website and app that allows people to sell their products without investments. So far it is known to have 2.6 million resellers across the country. Know more about Meesho Business Model & Revenue Model.

Urban Company

Urban Company is said to be Asia’s largest home services company as it is an all-in-one platform that helps users find professionals for different home services. The platform has its headquarters in Gurgaon and offers professional home cleaning services to beauticians, masseurs, and even carpenters. Urban Company was founded in 2014 by Abhiraj Bhal, Varun Khaitan, and Raghav Chandra, while the platform currently has served over 5 million customers across India, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sydney, and Singapore. As of 2021, it is also known to be the UAE's largest home services company.

Infra Market

Infra Market is one of the best construction solutions companies and an online procurement marketplace that uses technology to provide an enhanced procurement experience. The company provides its services to the real estate and construction materials industry. The company was started by Souvik Sengupta in 2016 with its headquarters based in Thane, Maharashtra. Infra Market specializes in manufacturing Construction Materials, Infrastructure, and Heavy Equipment Rental for all the sectors of a construction ecosystem. They cater to both institutional customers and the construction materials sector to build their projects.

Digit Insurance

Digit Insurance is one of the top general insurance companies offering health, car, bike, and travel insurance. The company was founded in 2016 by Kamesh Goyal and has its headquarters in Bengaluru, Karnataka. The company is popular for Go Digit Mobile Insurance is tailor-made mobile insurance that covers damages related to different mobiles or Smartphones such as accidental damage, etc. Digit Insurance was the first Indian Unicorn of 2021 and has been successful in less than 4 years.

Innovaccer

Innovacer is one of the top Healthcare companies that is known for its top-notch healthcare services and products that are done through pioneering analytics and accurate data. Innovacer was founded in 2014 by Sandeep Gupta and has its headquarters in San Francisco and has head offices in India and America. Innovacer products are available in over 500 locations and it also has more than 10,000 providers. The company has helped thousands of institutions, governmental organizations, hospitals, clinics, and healthcare organizations such as Mercy ACO, StratiFi Health, Catalyst Health Network, and Osler Health Network.

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Five Star Business Finance

Five Star Business Finance (FSBF) is one of the oldest Indian investment firms that was started by V.K Ranganathan in 1984. The company provides different kinds of loans like Small Business Loans, Mortgage Loans, Home Loans, Property Loans, among others. The company has been making strides in the financial industry over the last three decades. Five Star Housing Finance Private Limited which is the company’s subsidiary is designed to help their clients with small housing loans.

Groww

Groww is one of the most popular online investments platforms in India. The company was started in 2017 by Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Ishan Bansal, and Neeraj Singh. The company has its headquarters in Bengaluru, Karnataka and has so far raised over $14 million as of April 2021. This mutual fund investments platform started out by offering wealth management and currently offers direct investments in mutual funds, stocks, digital gold, and exchange-traded funds, among others. The parent company of Groww is Nextbillion Technology.

Gupshup

Gupshup is an upcoming Software company that provides services such as SMS, email, voice, IP messaging. Gupshup company operates in India, America and UK and is known for its chatbox development services to retail and eCommerce companies. The company developed a smart messaging app called Teamchat and handles over 6 million messages every month. Gupchut is one of the first companies to launch the chatbot building platforms known as gupshup.io which currently offers its services to over 30,000 developers. The platform also has 30,000 chatbots across 22 different social media channels.

Eruditus

Eruditus is an Edtech platform headquartered in Mumbai. Founded in 2010, the company collaborates with the leading universities from across the globe in order to make executive education accessible globally. Eruditus Executive Education boasts of partnering with over 30 universities with a collection of more than 100 courses that extends to the students of around 80 countries. The company has recently turned into a unicorn with a $650 million fundraise as part of its series E funding round!

Chargebee

Chargebee is a SaaS Company with its headquarters in San Francisco, California. The company specializes in providing subscription and recurring billing based SaaS and E-commerce services like invoicing, taxes, SaaS metrics, accounting and customer management. The company also supports over 100 currencies and numerous well-known payment gateways such as Stripe, Braintree, WorldPay and PayPal. The SaaS startup has gathered 3,000 customers most of whom are from America, Europe, and India.

Zeta

Zeta is a financial technology company that provides a full-stack, cloud and API first neo banking services. The Fintech Company was founded in 2015 by Bhavin Turakhia and Ramki Gaddipati with its headquarters based in Los Angeles, California, and has head offices in India. It is known for its Omni stack that includes modern credit and debit processing, BNPL, banking, and mobile experiences. The company products are used by banks like RBL Bank, IDFC First Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank, along with 14000 corporates. So far Zeta has over 2 million users with over one million transactions per day.

Zeta is a budgeting app for couples. It integrates personal and shared accounts, which includes banks accounts, loans, and credit cards. Connect your account immediately for automated updates or manually add an account to manage it yourself.

You can see your joint incomes, expenses, and financial savings in one place. It lets you create more than one budget for private and shared expenses. Plus, you can set precise monetary goals for you and your partner, such as saving for a holiday or placing up an emergency fund.

Moglix

Moglix is an Asia-based B2B E-commerce company that was founded by Rahul Garg in 2017. The company has its headquarters in Singapore and head offices in India. The startup ambitions to digitally change the chain of manufacturing areas in India. Moglix wants to digitize and seriously change every component of the delivery chain, and B2B commerce which is unorganized and increases options to seriously change the grant chain via technology.

Moglix, presently serves the manufacturing sector,  institutional clients (B2B), and private clients (B2C). The automotive sector, metals and mining, and FMCDs are the best three sectors they cater to. The platform provides Industrial products and services such industrial products and services such as Safety equipment, Electrical and Lighting products, Cleaning and Laundry products, Office Supplies, Industrial Tools, among others. Moglix is one of the most trusted eCommerce sites for industries as it is known to deliver world-class services worldwide. So far the company has 150,000 industry essential products from 30 different categories and 25,000 SME clients.

BrowserStack

BrowserStack is a cloud net and mobile testing platform, which is used by two million developers around a hundred thirty-five countries. The product's price proposition is to assist groups to fasten up launch cycles and develop websites and mobile app that work seamlessly on any user interface. The aim is to limit the time, price, and protection overhead related to testing.

More than 25,000 world corporations use BrowserStack, which includes Microsoft, ING, MasterCard, Dow Jones, Garmin, National Geographic, Volvo, NRK, HubSpot, Walt Disney, and AngularJS. BrowserStack has offices work in San Francisco, Mumbai, Dublin, and is privately held and backed by Accel.

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Paytm

Paytm is one of the biggest unicorn startups in India. It is among the largest digital payment service providers in India with a market share of 11.63% and is currently in the third position in the list of top UPI apps in India, as recorded in June 2021. The fintech startup is famous for its payment gateway service, which helps consumers to make seamless payments to the seller from their bank accounts. Paytm entered the unicorn club in 2015. Paytm's valuation was over $7 billion, and it has now increased to $16 billion in 2020.

OYO Rooms

OYO is among the top travel startups in India. Founded by 21-year-old Ritesh Agarwal in 2013, India’s largest hospitality startup comprises budget hotels. The startup works in liaison with existing hotels and offers travelers vacant rooms at a cheaper price. OYO rooms start at a nominal price of Rs. 999. Besides bulk renting hotels, they have also invested in their own properties as well.

BYJU'S

Byju’s is a Bangalore-based edtech platform. It is an online tutoring and coaching firm that started in 2011 and runs on a freemium model. Launched by Byju Raveendran, Byju's is used by more than 15 million students all over the world and has over 900,000 paid subscribers. Byju's Current valuation has reached 16.5 Billion USD. Know in detail about BYJU's business and revenue model.

OLA Cabs

Ola Cabs is an Indian ride-sharing company that was launched on 3rd December 2010. As of 2019, Ola has expanded over 1.5 million drivers across 250 cities. Ola has also expanded its network into its first overseas market, Australia, and in New Zealand in September 2018. Ola began its operations in the UK introducing auto rickshaws.

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Swiggy

Swiggy is one of the most valuable online food ordering and delivery platforms. Swiggy was founded by Nandan Reddy, Sriharsha Majety, and Rahul Jaimini in 2014. In early 2019, Swiggy expanded into general product deliveries, under the brand name Swiggy Stores. Swiggy today has more than 5,000,000 mobile application installations.

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Zomato

Zomato is an Indian food delivery startup restaurant aggregator. Zomato was founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah in 2008. Zomato primarily provides concrete information, menus, and user reviews of the restaurants. Along with this, Zomato also has food delivery options from partnered restaurants of the selected cities. Curious how this food delivery unicorn startup survived the pandemic? Read the case study here.

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Paytm Mall

PaytmMall is a B2C model inspired by China's largest B2C retail platform TMall. PaytmMall was launched by Paytm in 2017.

Zerodha

Zerodha is an Indian fintech startup that offers retail and institutional broking, currencies and commodities trading, mutual funds, and bonds. The Company was founded in the year 2010 in order to achieve the goal of breaking all the barriers traders and investors face in India. Zerodha is headquartered in Bangalore and has a physical presence in several major Indian cities.

In Dec 2020, Zerodha was the largest retail stockbroker in India by active client base and contributes upwards of 15% of daily retail volumes across Indian Stock Exchanges. Zerodha entered the unicorn club in July 2020 with a self-assessed valuation of about $1 billion. This valuation was based on the ESOP buyback exercise the company undertook valuing each share at more than four times the book value of ₹700 per share. Know why is Zerodha not raising funds for its operation?

Disruptive pricing models and in-house technology have made Zerodha the biggest stockbroker in India in terms of active retail clients. Over 5+ million clients place millions of orders every day through our powerful ecosystem of investment platforms, contributing over 15% of all Indian retail trading volumes.

ReNew Power

ReNew Power Limited is an Indian renewable energy company. It is an independent power producer which was founded by Sumant Sinha in 2011. ReNew Power has a pipeline of close to 1400 MW solar and wind projects. It has a current valuation of $8 billion, which makes it one of the most valuable startups in India of 2021.

BigBasket

BigBasket is India's largest online grocery store which was founded by Hari Menon, V.S. Sudhakar, Vipul Parekh, Abhinay Choudhari, and V.S. Ramesh in 2011. It has gained popularity among the Indians and receives over 100,000 orders per day. BigBasket has also launched 3 new businesses BB Daily, BB Instant, and BB Beauty. Here's something that might interest you - JioMart VS BigBasket: Top Contenders Of Online Grocery Market

Udaan

Udaan is a B2B e-commerce platform that provides a wholesale product solution to different vendors in all categories. It was founded by Sujeet Kumar, Amod Malviya, and Vaibhav Gupta in 2016. Udaan is a B2B (Business to Business) marketplace for trade that is working for connecting retailers, wholesalers, traders, and manufacturers using technology as the main tool.

Ola Electric

Ola Electric is a brainchild of Ola which is currently one of the largest ride-hailing companies. Ola Electric is a tech mobility startup and provides transit services. Besides that, the company also offers a platform to work with driver-partners, vehicle manufacturers, battery companies and also advancing into making future technology for daily mobility. The company was founded in 2017 by Ankit Jain and Anand Shah and has its headquarters in Bengaluru, Karnataka.  Ola Electric is also known to be the fastest unicorn after Udaan.

Mohalla Tech

Mohalla Tech is a software company that was founded by Ankush Sachdeva, Farid Ahsan and Bhanu Singh in 2015. The company has its headquarters in Bengaluru, Karnataka, and is known for its platform which is MOJ and Sharechat. Mohalla Tech designs and develops social media platforms for sharing various quotes, videos, images, and news content. Currently, Moj and Sharechat are known to have a combined user of 340 million. According to some reports, an average user will spend over 34 minutes on the MOJ platform every day, which also gets 4.5 million views every day.

MakeMyTrip

MakeMyTrip is one of the top online travel companies in India that was founded by Deep Kalra in 2000. The company has its headquarters based in Gurgaon and is known for its services such as booking holiday packages, hotel reservations, movies or even booking tickets for everyday traveling through fights, buses, trains, cars, etc. MakeMyTrip is currently operating in 14 cities around the world with over 30 franchises stores in 28 cities in India alone. The MakeMyTrip route planner feature allows its user to access basic information on over one million routes across India.

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Nykaa

Nykaa is a leading cosmetic-based ecommerce platform that was founded in 2012 by Falguni Nayar. Nykaa has its headquarters based in Mumbai, Maharashtra and is known for its app and website that sells a wide range of cosmetics, skin and wellness products. The company also has over 26 offline stores across India and became a Unicorn startup in 2020. The platform has a huge range of 200,000 products from 2000 national and international brands, as of 2020. Many Bollywood actresses like Alia Bhatt and Katrina Kaif have been the brand ambassadors of Nykaa.

Policybazaar

Policybazaar is one of the most well-known and trusted insurance companies in India. The company was started in 2008 by Yashish Dahiya, Alok Bansal, and Avaneesh Nirjar. The company initially started out as an insurance comparison website, but later on started providing different types of insurance plans like Life insurance, Health, Motor and even Travel. Policybazaar.com is currently the largest insurance company in the country and is also popular in UAE. Policybazaar has both a website and an app, which allows its users to compare financial services from the top insurance options. Know How Policybazaar Witnessed Huge Growth with these Marketing Strategies

FirstCry

FirstCry is one of the top E-commerce companies for Baby and Child products. The company was founded by Supam Maheshwari, Amitava Saha, Prashant Jadhav, and Sanket Hattimattu in 2010, with its headquarters based in Pune, Maharashtra. Currently, the company has 380 plus stores across the country and also has a hospital contact program that helps in reaching out to more than 70,000 new parents every month. Firstcry has over 100,000 plus baby, kids, and new mom products from more than 1000 international and national brands.

Lenskart

Lenskart is a leading eyewear company that was started by Peyush Bansal, Amit Chaudhary, Sumeet Kapahi in 2010. The company has its headquarters in Faridabad and has manufacturing facilities in Delhi, Zhengzhou (China). The company is known to manufacture over 300,000 eyewear every month, as it has more than 500 stores in over 70 cities across India. Besides having a huge range of eyewear it also offers its users branded contact lenses and sunglasses.

And this is not the end of the story. There are many new entrants to this unicorn club. Multiple startups strive hard to reach the top 10 unicorn startups but only a few make it to the top. India is the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world. It can be said that India is the future of great startups.

Grofers

Grofers is an Indian online supermarket that helps in the home delivery of food, grocery products, and essentials. Founded in 2013, Grofers started with groceries and gradually expanded to a whole list of categories that includes beauty products, household care, baby care, and more. The company is now a unicorn with a $120 million fundraising round from the food aggregator, Zomato.

Glance

A subsidiary company of inMobi, Glance is an artificial intelligence platform that offers customized lock screen content to the owners of the smartphones of the present. The company was founded in 2019 as a subsidiary of inMobi, a Bengaluru-based mobile ad network, and turned unicorn on December 22, 2020. Its parent company had already become a unicorn company back in 2011.

InMobi

InMobi is a Bengaluru-based mobile advertising platform that helps in optimizing the ranks of the advertisements offered on mobile phones. InMobi was founded in January 2007 and has been the first unicorn startup of India and thus, a torchbearer of the unicorn league of Indian startups that followed. Glance, a subsidiary company of InMobi, has also turned a unicorn in 2020.

Dailyhunt

Dailyhunt is an Indian content and news aggregator services platform that helps its users access updates on trending topics along with online news, books, and magazines. The company is popular for offering content in 14 different local languages for a wide variety of Indian readers. The company raised around $100 million from Google and Microsoft and Falcon Edge’s Alpha Wave to become India’s first tech unicorn focussed on vernacular content on December 22, 2020.

Zenoti

A cloud-based software platform for spa and salon services of the country, Zenoti was founded in 2010 with its headquarters in Bellevue, Washington, United States, and Hyderabad. Zenoti has been since the day it was founded and is now used by over 10,000 customers and has already established its presence in 50+ countries. With a fundraise that amounted to $160 million, the company entered the unicorn club on December 15, 2020.

PhonePe

PhonePe is a digital payment and merchant aggregator platform that has already had a huge contribution towards making digital payments smooth, fast, and easy for Indian customers and merchants. Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Andheri, Maharashtra, India, the company boasts of having the largest market share among the UPI apps. The company showed a huge potential for growth and has already achieved unicorn status before 2020. The company was acquired by Flipkart in April 2016 and has witnessed a considerable amount of growth since then. Know-How PhonePe Earns money - PhonePe Business Model

Cars24

Cars24 is an online marketplace that encourages the buyers and sellers of used cars and helps them to buy and sell automobiles online without any hassles. Via an AI-enabled pricing algorithm, Cars24 displays the appraisal price along with the market price of the vehicles. Furthermore, it also arranges appointments for vehicle inspection, thereby making the selling process as transparent as possible.

The Gurgaon-based company, Cars24 was founded in 2015 and has already become a unicorn on November 24, 2020, with the $200 million Series E funding round led by Yuri Milner’s DST Global fund, Exor Seeds, Moore Strategic Ventures, and more. The company was valued at over $1 billion when assessed in November 2020.

RazorPay

RazorPay is a digital payment gateway that enables businesses and individuals to process, receive and disburse payments smoothly and securely. Razorpay accepts a wide range of the latest payment devices and platforms to improve the customer’s payment journeys online.

RazorPay is among the last year unicorn companies of India, which joined the unicorn club of Indian startups on October 11, 2020, when the company raised around $100 million. The company was valued at around $3 billion in April 2021.

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Unacademy

Unacademy is an Indian unicorn Edtech company based in Bangalore, which climbed to unicorn status on September 2, 2020, thereby becoming the second e-learning startup to achieve the status.

Founded in 2015, Unacademy offers educational content for competitive examinations and other video lectures, some of which are also freely accessible for students. With the latest fundraise where the company received $440 million, Unacademy is now valued at $3.44 billion, as of August 2021. Here's a List of Startups Acquired by EdTech Giant Unacademy

Postman

Postman raised $150 million in June 2020 to turn into a unicorn. The API development environment is used by around 6 million developers worldwide across 200,000 companies located globally. Postman serves as a platform that makes it easy for developers and enterprises to build, test, and debug their APIs.

With a valuation of $5.6 billion, as per the reports in August 2021, after the company received funding of around $225 million, Postman is presently acknowledged as the most valued Saas startup in India.

Pine Labs

Pine Labs is an Indian merchant platform, equipped with financing and last-mile retail transaction technology, which helps merchants and institutions receive their payments via easy and secure POS apps and devices. Pine Labs collaborated with the New-York based financial services giant, Mastercard in January 2020, and shortly after it attained unicorn status. It was the first company to have turned unicorn in 2020.

CitiusTech

CitiusTech is a major technology service and solution provider for the healthcare industry. CitiusTech boasts of having over 4000 professionals worldwide, which enables them to empower the healthcare organizations to drive clinical value chain excellence across integration and interoperability, data management, data science, performance management, and more.

CitiusTech was acquired by Hong Kong-based Baring Private Equity Asia and is currently known for its unicorn status.

Icertis

Icertis is designed as a powerful AI-enabled contract management platform that promises ultimate compliance and aims to reduce the risks involved in it. Being an enterprise contract management platform, Icertis extends easy solutions to hard contract management issues.

When the company raised $80 million in March 2021, at a valuation of $2.8 billion, Icertis was declared as the second most-valued startup unicorn of India. The company turned into a unicorn even before that in 2020.

Druva

Druva is an Indian enterprise software platform that is designed to protect and manage enterprise data across endpoints, data centers, and cloud workloads. Built on AWS, Druva offers a Saas platform that extends superior data resiliency options, which is infinitely scalable, for the companies operating across the globe.

The India-based Saas company headquartered in the US is one of the earliest companies of India that turned unicorns. Druva attained unicorn status in 2019.

Rivigo

Rivigo is a logistics platform empowered by the latest technologies that extend effective transport services for a wide range of industries including clothing, eCommerce, automotive, automobiles, and more. The company was founded in 2014 in Gurgaon, Haryana, and was valued at $1.05 billion when it turned unicorn in September 2019.

Dream11

Dream11 is an Indian fantasy sports platform, which brings a host of sports including but not limited to cricket, football, hockey, volleyball, handball, futsal, and rugby, for the Indian sports fanatics to delve into their favorite games. A homegrown sports platform, Dream 11, aims to help Indian sports enthusiasts to expand and showcase the sports knowledge they boast of!

Earlier in April 2019, Dream11 raised funding worth $60 million from Steadview Capital and others and joined the unicorn league of Indian startups.

Delhivery

Delhivery was founded in 2011 in Gurgaon, Haryana, as a logistics and supply chain startup that aims to provide seamless transportation, warehousing, freight, and order fulfillment services. Delhivery Pvt. Ltd. turned unicorn back in 2019 where it raised around $413 million and was valued at $1.5 billion.

Billdesk

Billdesk is a company conceived in 2000 as IndiaIdeas.com Ltd., which helps Indian customers pay their bills safely and easily. Powered by the latest advancements of the electronic medium, BillDesk offers its customers better ways to organize and manage their payments online. Billdesk has already achieved unicorn status in 2018 when it mopped up nearly $300 million in a fundraising round led by Visa.

The company is currently acquired by PayU, a Prosus-owned company headquartered in the Netherlands via a deal worth $4.7 billion, one of the biggest deals in the Fintech range of India.

Freshworks

Freshworks offers innovative customer engagement software for a diverse range of businesses of varying sizes and kinds. Founded in 2010 in Chennai, the company now has its headquarters in San Mateo, USA, the products of which help provide a 360-degree view of the customers.

Freshworks attained the prestigious unicorn club of the Indian companies in July 2018, thereby becoming the first Saas unicorn startup that the country has seen.

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Mu Sigma

Mu Sigma was founded in 2014 as a data analytics services platform that offers data analytics services along with developing decision support system tools and software for the Fortune 500 companies. Mu Sigma offers a range of services including market measurement, product/customer segmentation and profiling, prospecting, RFM analytics, and more. It was in 2016 when Fortune declared Mu Sigma a unicorn company.

MPL

Mobile Premier League, now if the name rings a bell, then you’re right! MPL is another fantasy gaming and esports platform from India after Dream11 that has turned unicorn. The Sequoia Capital and Moore Strategic Ventures-backed startup was founded in September 2018, just 3 years ago by Sai Srinivas Kiran G and Shubh Malhotra, which emerged as the second gaming unicorn from the subcontinent.

Apna

Apna is a leading professional networking platform that helps the rising workforce of India to be updated in terms of professional requirements and recruitments and grab them anytime and anywhere. Apna is currently available across 28 cities in India for students and blue and gray-color working professionals to get the best communities and land jobs.

The latest Series C round was on September 15, 2021, where Apna raised around $100 mn from investors like Tiger Global, Sequoia and others turned it a unicorn within just 21 months of its foundation. This makes Apna the fastest unicorn in India.

Vedantu

Vedantu is an Edtech platform that offers online e-learning courses and classes to empower real-time personalized learning experiences. Vedantu believes in bridging the gaps between a student and his/her tutor to enjoy the benefits of real-time one-to-one teaching. Vedantu can help students pursue online tuitions for Maths, Physics, Chemistry, English, French, Hindi, Social Studies, German, Computer Science, and more.

Vedantu raised $100 mn via its Series E round led by ABC World Asia, Coatue, Tiger Global, WestBridge, and others on September 29, 2021, and became the 27th Indian unicorn of 2021 and the 69th unicorn startup of the country.

Licious

Licious was founded in 2015 and headquartered in Bengaluru as a Direct-to-consumer brand that offers fresh meat, eggs, fish, and seafood, which the customers can order online to receive the same at their doorsteps. The meat industry in India is largely unorganized and Licious is born out of the sole aim of organizing this sector and delivering fresh, trustworthy, delicious meat and fish to the house of the Indians.

The company raised $52 million in its latest funding round led by IIFL AMC's Late Stage Tech Fund, emerging as the 29th Indian unicorn company of 2021 so far, and the first unicorn from the D2C segment, as of October 5, 2021.

CoinSwitch Kuber

CoinSwitch Kuber is hailed as a cryptocurrency exchange platform that encourages users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies via their platform, ensuring secure and convenient transactions. The company supports a wide list of over 100 cryptocurrencies from which the customers can buy cryptos at the best rates, through a range of payment options.

CoinSwitch Kuber turns into India's 30th unicorn startup in 2021 so far. The company raised a Series C funding round worth $260 million on October 6, 2021, led by a16z (Andreesen Horowitz) and Coinbase Ventures to join the coveted club of the unicorn companies. CoinSwitch Kuber boasts of being the second crypto unicorn of India, which crossed the 1 billion dollar mark in less than 2 months after CoinDCX was hailed as the first crypto unicorn of the country in August 2021. CoinSwitch Kuber is reportedly valued at $1.9 billion on October 2021, which is higher than what CoinDCX announced in August, which was $1.1 billion.

Rebel Foods

Rebel Foods, also termed Faasos Food Services Pvt. Ltd., is a food delivery platform of India that takes care of the food delivery requirements across the country, delivering food products at the doorsteps of the customers. Besides, the company also boasts of a huge network (over 450) of dark kitchens that operates in over 10 countries. Rebel Foods currently serves over 10,000 Indian customers, the numbers of which are jumping rapidly.

The Indian cloud kitchen and food delivery startup becomes the 31st unicorn of India in 2021. Rebel Foods has raised $175 million via its Series F funding round led by the investors like Qatar Investment Authority, Coatue and Evolvence, and more, to be valued at $1.4 bn, as of October 7, 2021.

CarDekho

CarDekho is a leading name in the used car retailing space. Headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana, CarDekho helps users browse through a wide selection of cars and select one that fits them in all aspects. The platform of CarDekho is equipped with the relevant details about the car, along with other detailed specs, experts' reviews, comparisons, and more. All of these further ease the selection process of the car models and are some of the reasons that have contributed to the rising popularity of the company.

CarDekho has turned into a unicorn following its recent Series E and Debt financing rounds dated October 13, 2021, and led by LeapFrog Investments. The company has successfully raised around $200 mn and $50 mn respectively, with the last funding rounds that it saw. With the recent funding, CarDekho becomes the 33rd unicorn and the 3rd unicorn startup in the used car retailing space in India so far in 2021.

MobiKwik

MobiKwik is a Fintech company founded in 2009 as digital payments platform that offers phone-based payment options along with the facility of a digital wallet for its users. Headquartered in Gurgaon, MobiKwik is one of the trusted names in the digital payments space that also provides payment gateway and other financial services.

MobiKwik turned unicorn on October 12, 2021, after the conclusion of its secondary ESOP sale round led by Mathew Cyriac, former Head of Blackstone India.

FAQs

What is the meaning of a Unicorn startup?

Startups with a valuation of over $1 Billion are known as Unicorns.

How many unicorns are there in India?

There are over 60 unicorns in India.

Which is India's first unicorn startup?

InMobi, Bangalore based multinational mobile advertising technology company, founded in 2007 is the first to enter the unicorn club. InMobi became the first unicorn in 2011.

Is Nykaa a unicorn?

Nykaa entered the unicorn club in 2020.

Which country has the most unicorns?

The United States is at the top of the list with 439 unicorns, as per October 2021.

What is the obsession with unicorn startups?

Unicorn startups boast of their valuation, which has covered $1 billion and are always at the edge of their gameplay. The companies grouped in as unicorns are forever in competition with each other, and always stand as inspirational figures for the rest of the startups and other budding companies.

Which are the top Indian unicorns?

• Zomato
• Nykaa
• PolicyBazaar
• Oyo
• Ola
• Paytm
• Swiggy
• Byju's
• FirstCry
• Lenskart

Is Zerodha a unicorn?

Yes, Zerodha entered the unicorn club in 2020 with a valuation of about $1 billion.

Which Indian startups became unicorns in 2020?

• Pine Labs
• FirstCry
• Nykaa
• Unacademy
• Zerodha
• Razorpay
• Postman
• Cars24
• Dailyhunt
• Glance, InMobi and more.

Which Indian startups became unicorns in 2021?

• BrowserStack
• Moglix
• PharmEasy
• CRED
• Meesho
• Urban Company
• Digit Insurance
• Groww
• Gupshup
• Chargebee
• Zeta
• Infra.Market
• Innovaccer
• Five Star Business Finance
• Licious
• Vedantu and more.