India’s tech startup ecosystem is about 15-year-old with the likes of JustDial and Naukri.com amongst its early lot of web enterprises. It took about a different 15 years for the nation to get its initial unicorn – MakeMyTrip in 2010. Since then, the ecosystem has churned out 44 such one-horned digital entities that have cumulatively made about $106 billion worth so far and more than 1.4 million direct and indirect employment annually, according to venture capital fund Orios Venture Partners. Among prominent early-stage VCs, Orios was linked with startups which includes Ola, Druva, Zostel, Pretty Secrets, PharmEasy, and more.
InMobi, Flipkart, Ola, Paytm, Byju’s, OYO, Swiggy, Zomato, PhonePe, Lenskart, and more had added to the unicorn list more than the previous decade which includes the current ones such as Unacademy, Glance, Nykaa, Zerodha, FirstCry, and so on. The ecosystem has currently gone by way of cycles of boom, bust, and funding winter in the final 10 years fueled by valuation bubble, investors’ optimism due to the fact of worry-of-missing-out (FOMO) syndrome, failure of a number of emerging startups, and more. Post-2015 correction in how investors look at startup valuations, the concentrate has been progressively shifting to profitability even as a lot of major startups continue to burn considerable capital annually.
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Importantly, the typical time taken by startups to hit the $1-billion valuation mark stood at 8 years. However, this is declining. From 8.7 years taken by startups founded in the course of 2007-09 period to turn out to be a unicorn, the duration lowered to 2.4 years for startups launched in the course of 2016-17, the report by Orios titled Indian Tech Unicorn noted. While fintech segment saw the maximum number of unicorns (11), retail and computer software-as-a-service posted six and 5 unicorns respectively. Data analytics, on-line classifieds, logistics, travel, meals, and education have been other segments churning out more than one unicorn.
“Most of these (unicorns) are backed by technology and that is the key differentiating factor between unicorns of the 21st century vs the prior era. We are proud to be associated with 3 unicorns – Ola, Druva, Pharmeasy since their early days and look forward to being part of another 3-5 unicorns over the next few years,” mentioned Rehan Yar Khan, Managing Partner, Orios Venture Partners. Bengaluru had a majority – 41 per cent of these unicorns whilst 34 per cent have been based in Delhi NCR, 14 per cent in Mumbai, and the rest in Pune, Chennai, and Hyderabad.