Zomato-backed SaaS-based logistics startup Shiprocket has become the latest entrant to the country’s unicorn club. Shiprocket raised $33.5 Mn in a Series E2 round fresh funding round led by Lightrock India. 

As per the startup’s regulatory filing, Singapore’s sovereign fund Temasek, Bertelsmann, Moore Strategic Ventures, PayPal, March Capital, and Huddle also participated in the funding round. 

In the fresh round, which seems to be a bridge funding round, Shiprocket allotted a total of 59,793 Series E2 compulsory convertible preference shares (CCPS) at an issue price of INR 43,394.13 each. 

While Lightrock invested INR 78 Cr, Temasek infused INR 75 Cr in the logistics startup.
Bertelsmann and Moore Strategic Ventures pumped in INR 38.9 Cr each. To raise this round, individual promoters of Shiprocket diluted around 2.7% stake.

As per Inc42’s calculations, Shiprocket was valued at $1.2 Bn in the latest funding round, joining Delhivery, Xpressbees, and BlackBuck in the list of logistics startups to turn unicorn. 

The investment round came almost 10 months after Shiprocket raised $185 Mn led by food delivery giant Zomato and Lightrock India. The last funding round saw participation from Moore Strategic Ventures, March Capital, 9 Unicorns, and InfoEdge Ventures, and valued Shiprocket at around $950 Mn. 

Of late, Shiprocket has been on an acquisition spree to expand its product offering and increase its dominance in the logistics sector. The Delhi NCR-based startup acquired Wigzo, Rocketbox, Glaucus, Pickrr and Omuni in the past ten months. As per media reports, Shiprocket is also in talks to acquire the Indian business of Shyplite.

Apart from the acquisition, Shiprocket has also been doling out cheques to startups in the logistics space. It has invested in startups such as Woovly, Eat better, BoldCare, EvenFlow, and Logibricks, among others. 

Founded in 2017 by Saahil Goel, Vishesh Khurana, Gautam Kapoor, and Akshay Gulati, Shiprocket claims to serve the logistics demands of 2.5 Lakh sellers. The startup states that it ships to more than 70 Mn consumers annually.

The development was first reported by news portal Entrackr.

Update | 17th August, 19:20 IST

Shiprocket has officially announced raising of $33.5 Mn funding in Series E2 round and the same has been updated to reflect in the story.

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With the rise in the number of startups in the country, there has also been an increase in the consolidation of the country’s startup ecosystem. According to Inc42’s ‘The State of Indian Startup Ecosystem Report, 2022’, there have been 1,100 mergers and acquisition (M&A) deals in the Indian startup ecosystem since 2015, with the number of deals increasing at a CAGR of 10% between 2015 and 2021.

The year 2021 saw a record consolidation, with 210 M&A deals being completed, an average of almost 18 deals per month. It should also be noted that the startup ecosystem was flush with cash in 2021, with Indian startups raising $42 Bn during the year.

The trend indicates that consolidation numbers are directly proportional to the funding growth in the Indian startup ecosystem. For instance, the number of M&A deals peaked in 2021 with the rise in funding. On the other hand, 2020 saw the M&A activity at its lowest since 2015 as funding slowed down in the pandemic-ridden year.

The year 2022 also started with the announcement of a high number of M&A deals, with the first half alone seeing 175 deals. The M&A deals in H1 2022 were higher than the number of deals in any year since 2015, except 2021.

Download The State Of Indian Startup Ecosystem Report, 2022

Sector-Wise Trends

In terms of sectors, enterprisetech has seen the highest consolidation over the past seven years, accounting for almost a quarter of all M&A deals at 247.

Highly-funded sectors such as ecommerce, consumer services, fintech and edtech have also recorded 100 or more M&A transactions. Together, the top five sectors account for around two-thirds of all the M&A activity that has taken place in the Indian startup ecosystem since 2015.

However, consolidation activity follows different trends for different sectors.

It is reasonable to assume that since funding activity was at its peak last year, many startups, flush with cash, went for the acquisition of other startups for inorganic growth.

For instance, fintech, ecommerce and edtech followed this trend. Consolidation in each of these sectors was at its highest last year. However, the enterprisetech sector saw peak M&A activity in 2015, while the same took place in 2016 for the consumer services sector. 

Download The State Of Indian Startup Ecosystem Report, 2022

Biggest Deals & Most Prolific Buyers

Ecommerce dominates the charts when it comes to the most prolific acquirers. The likes of Flipkart, Mensa Brands, GlobalBees and Upscalio are on the list of the top 10 most prolific buyers in India’s startup ecosystem.

Flipkart, which itself was acquired in a mega deal by Walmart in 2018, has acquired 18 startups over the years, including Myntra, PhonePe and Live.ai. Further in ecommerce, Thrasio-style ecommerce rollup startups Mensa Brands, GlobalBees and Upscalio have acquired a combined 42 startups to date.

Edtech majors BYJU’S and upGrad have also been making the moves, with BYJU’S spending $2.5 Bn on acquisitions alone since the start of 2021. Recently, upGrad has also upped the ante, picking up five startups in 2022 alone.

Foodtech startups Zomato and Curefoods have also acquired a number of startups over the last few years. 

While Curefoods’ business model is based on having multiple food brands under its umbrella, which has seen it make 14 acquisitions so far, Zomato has been involved in 15 deals on its own.

Zomato was also recently involved in the third-largest acquisition deal ever in India’s startup ecosystem when it picked up quick commerce unicorn Blinkit for $568 Mn in June this year.

The largest-ever M&A deal in India’s startup ecosystem took place in 2018 when the US-based retail giant Walmart acquired a 77% stake in ecommerce major Flipkart in a deal worth $16 Bn.

Why Consolidation Now?

The slowdown in the equities market this year in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine also translated into a slowdown in the private equity market. This led to a decline in funding across the world, including in India. 

Besides, the Indian government has been taking steps to regulate the emerging sectors and the startup ecosystem, which has also made stakeholders anxious and risk-averse.

With increased focus on unit economics and profitability amid a funding winter, which many investors expect to last for 18-24 months, many startups are worried about a cash crunch in the near future. These factors have thus propelled the Indian startup ecosystem towards consolidation.

While there are multiple other underlying factors which have an effect on the consolidation trends, funding trends and investor focus mostly dictate which way the wind blows.

According to Inc42’s estimates, the total M&A deals in India’s startup ecosystem will rise to 1,200 by the end of 2022, and reach 1,400 by the end of 2023. Besides, 2022 is set to see 279 M&A deals, the highest ever in the Indian startup ecosystem.

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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday released a discussion paper on “Charges in Payment Systems”. The central bank has sought inputs from the general public on the paper till October 3, 2022.

With the paper, the RBI aims to ensure that India has ‘state-of-the-art’ payment and settlement systems that are not just safe and secure but also efficient, fast, and affordable.

In its Payments Vision 2025, which aims to strengthen India’s e-payments ecosystem, the RBI had said that providing digital payment services entails costs, like switching fees, interchange fees, among others, that one or more of the payment system participants have to bear. Either the cost gets passed on to the merchant as merchant discount rate (MDR) or to the customer as customer charges.

The paper seems to be a step in taking the discussion forward.

“Frictions in payment systems may arise, inter-alia, from infrastructure, procedures or charges related to payment transactions. Easing such frictions, while also ensuring compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements, has been the focus of RBI’s intervention in the realm of payment systems,” the discussion paper said.

It has categorised the payment system in India in two categories:

• Funds Transfer Payment Systems: System facilitating transfer from one account to another account identified by originator customer (Person-to-Person (P2P) transaction). This includes Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) and Immediate Payment Service (IMPS)
• Merchant Payment Systems: System facilitating payments for availing goods or services (Person-to-Merchant (P2M) transaction). This includes card networks and prepaid payment issuers (PPI).

It also covers Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and talks about areas such as ownership of payment systems, participants and service providers in payment flow, e PSPs and intermediaries, and the typical role they play in payment transactions, MDR, among others.

The document explained the structure of levying charges in the existing payments system, and the central bank has asked for feedback across different areas. For instance, feedback has been sought on whether the RBI should prescribe the charges to be levied on customers or members for RTGS/NEFT transactions or they be market driven; should charges for IMPS transactions be regulated by RBI; among others.

“While there are many intermediaries in the payments transaction chain, consumer complaints are generally about high and non-transparent charges. Charges for payment services should be reasonable and competitively determined for users while also providing optimal revenue stream for the intermediaries,” said Sharat Chandra, Vice President – Research & Strategy, EarthID in a LinkedIn post.

MDR In Focus

Debit cards, credit cards and PPIs constitute a significant share of the payment instruments available in India for merchant payments. India is heavily a debit card market as seen from the number of such cards issued – about 92 crore vis-a-vis about 7.5 crore credit cards, as of May 31, 2022.

In terms of usage, the turnover of debit and credit card is almost the same. This trend is specific to India and is in line with the mindset of the citizens in terms of lower dependency on credit for regular requirements. Further, the fact that Indians prefer to pay their credit card dues ahead of time often, rather than waiting for the due date, does not get reflected in lower MDR or in their CIBIL score, the paper said.

The present MDR regime for debit cards has been in force for more than four years. The turnover of INR 20 Lakh for small merchants for MDR charges was kept as per the Goods and Services Tax (GST) turnover requirements at that time. The cost to small merchants for accepting debit card transactions has come down substantially. However, the RBI continues to receive complaints from merchants on their cost of accepting digital transactions. Many of these complaints arise due to the role played by intermediaries in the acquiring process.

The RBI is now looking to seek feedback on whether regulatory intervention is needed in this scenario in terms of mandating pre-transaction fees or to regulate interchange.

Also, the central bank has so far not issued any regulatory mandate or intervened on MDR for credit card transactions and charges for PPI-based merchant payments or funds transfer transactions. The discussion paper has sought feedback from the industry on this as well.

Will UPI Transactions Will Also Come Under Scanner?

It seems so. While the RBI has so far not issued instructions regarding charges for UPI transactions, the government has mandated a zero-charge framework for such transactions with effect from January 1, 2020.

The discussion paper looks at “general feedback” such as in the context of zero charges, is subsidising costs a more effective alternative; if UPI transactions are charged, should MDR for them be a percentage of transaction value or should a fixed amount irrespective of the transaction value be levied; or if charges are introduced, should they be administered (say, by the RBI) or be market determined; among others.

The discussion paper also looks at payment intermediaries including payment aggregators, payment gateways as well as areas such as surcharge, convenience fees, charges on a digital transaction vs the value of the transaction, manner of recovery of charges, among others.

Last week, the RBI also released the much-awaited guidelines for digital lending based on the recommendations of a working group to mitigate the concerns surrounding the evolving lending ecosystem.

Prior to that, the RBI came out with a notification for non-bank PPIs that restricted them from loading credits to users’ ewallets, affecting fintech startups such as Jupiter, EarlySalary and KreditBee who had to halt transactions on their prepaid cards.

The post RBI Floats Discussion Paper On Charges For UPI, Other Payments System  appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Creator economy-focused data infra provider Phyllo has raised INR 120 Cr ($15.1 Mn) in its Series A funding round led by RTP Global along with Nexus Venture Partners, Better Capital, and iSeed. 

Angel investor Sima Gandhi, former head of business development and strategy at Plaid, Pat Shah from Audible, Ankur Nagpal from Teachable and Nakul Gupta from Coinbase also participated in the funding round. 

Phyllo, founded in May 2021 by Akhil Bhiwal, Achintya Gupta and Mohit Kumar, acts as a data gateway platform for the creator economy. It helps creator economy-focussed businesses gather data of creators or influencers, like name, number of followers, type of content, through a single application programming interface (API).

Explaining the startup’s model, Phyllo cofounder Bhiwal told Inc42 that it is a difficult task for creators to access data from different platforms. If a creator has to manage financials, then he/she has to compute revenue generated on Youtube, Shopify, Substack, and other platforms.

“We realised that creators can’t automate all information on a single platform and that’s why we thought of building an account aggregator platform like framework,” he added. 

Adding to this, Gupta said, “There are over 100 Mn creators across the globe, whose professional identity, work, income and other allied details are locked inside the creator economy platforms. They need to share this information to get better services.”

In essence, Phyllo helps creators share their data in a secured manner where they have control over what data they are sharing. It also facilitates creator economy-focused businesses by offering them a single API to gather creators’ data rather than integrating with multiple platforms. 

Phyllo plans to use the fresh capital for R&D and product development, ramping up sales and marketing activities, and expanding business. 

With the latest round, the amount of funding raised by Phyllo from investors has reached $17.75 Mn. It had bagged $2.5 Mn in seed funding from Nexus Venture Partners and other investors in 2021. 

India To Become An Export-Led Creator Economy 

India’s digital economy, which is estimated to touch the $800-Bn mark by 2030, is also playing a crucial role in shoring up the creator’s economy. 

Highlighting the importance of the digital economy, Bhiwal said, “The country’s digital infrastructure is advanced and thus, holds the potential to build an export-led creator economy. In some years, people will be creating digital assets in the form of NFTs and other allied assets, and exporting heavily across the globe.” 

To enable this, Phyllo is building APIs for creator economy-focussed brands. For accessing them, businesses need to pay for the number of APIs they use. 

“Essentially, Phyllo charges a brand when it subscribes to a creator’s data. The brand pays a certain amount of money to get that creator’s data across all platforms that he/she has subscribed to,” Gupta said, explaining the startup’s business model. 

Phyllo is looking to expand its coverage (accessing data from social media platforms) in the coming years. It currently has coverage over 20 platforms such as Youtube, Instagram, Tiktok, among others. 

Phyllo offers its services to fintech platforms Jelly and Unacademy’s Graphy in India. Globally, its clients include Beacon, Karot, and Kofluence, among others.

It claims to have connected accounts of over 1,00,000 creators on its platform. Phyllo is seeing 5X quarter-on-quarter growth and 75% month-on-month growth, the startup said, adding that it aims to grow 90X in the next two years.

According to a report, India’s creator economy was pegged at $13.8 Bn in 2021. Moj, MX TakaTak, Josh and Roposo are among the prominent creator platforms in India. These platforms offer video content, audio content and other allied content creation services. 

The post Creator Economy-Focused Data Platform Phyllo Raises $15 Mn For Product Development appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Cracking the whip on Flipkart, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) on Wednesday (August 17) imposed a fine of INR 1 Lakh on the ecommerce portal for selling sub-standard pressure cookers. 

The chief commissioner of CCPA, Nidhi Khare, in an order, directed Flipkart to recall all 598 sub-standard pressure cookers sold on its platform and notify all aggrieved customers. 

The consumer watchdog also directed the ecommerce major to reimburse the affected consumers and file a compliance report within 45 days. 

The fine was imposed for violation of rights of customers and for flouting the Domestic Pressure Cooker (Quality Control) Order of 2021.

Flipkart told the CCPA that it earned INR 1,84,263 through sale of such pressure cookers. 

Citing commercial gains from the sale of sub-standard pressure cookers, the CCPA said that Flipkart cannot alienate itself from the ‘role and responsibility’ arising out of the sale to consumers.

The consumer watchdog also observed that provisions in the ‘Flipkart Terms of Use’ mandate the use of the words ‘Powered by Flipkart’ on every invoice of the product, indicating the role played by Flipkart in the sale of such pressure cookers.

Ecommerce Platforms Under CCPA Lens

This comes barely a few weeks after CCPA also fined ecommerce major Amazon INR 1 Lakh for allowing sale of sub-standard pressure cookers on its platform.

The crackdown is part of a country-wide campaign launched by the CCPA to prevent the sale of counterfeit goods that violate quality control norms. 

As part of this, the CCPA has also written to chief secretaries of all states and union territories as well as district collectors across the country to investigate unfair trade practices, violation of consumer rights and submit reports on the matter. 

Under the campaign, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has so far seized 1,435 pressure cookers and 1,088 helmets for not conforming to set standards. Besides, short code ‘1915’ has also been allocated for the National Consumer Helpline (NCH) to allow customers to file their grievances.

In a statement, the CCPA said that ecommerce platforms accounted for the highest proportion of grievances registered on the helpline in July . 

“In the month of July 2022, 38% of all grievances on NCH pertained to e-commerce. Major categories of consumer grievances in ecommerce include delivery of defective product, failure to refund of paid amount, delay in delivery of product etc,” the CCPA said.

Earlier this year, the Centre informed the Parliament that 15 notices have been issued against ecommerce entities and sellers for selling non-standard pressure cookers online. So far, 305 cases have been registered against ecommerce companies for flouting various norms and a penalty of INR 49.95 Lakh has been imposed on 90 companies.

The post Consumer Watchdog CCPA Imposes Penalty On Flipkart appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Edtech platform PhysicsWallah on Wednesday (August 17) announced the acquisition of another edtech startup FreeCo. However, it didn’t disclose the financial details of the deal.

The acquisition will enable PhysicsWallah to strengthen its existing services and enhance the learning experience for students. Both teams will work together in domains such as content library, faculty management and efficient utilisation of resources across two startups. 

PhysicsWallah will also deploy FreeCo team’s experience to streamline its current doubt-solving offerings and upgrade its existing set of products and services.

“With FreeCo’s expertise in the ed-tech space, we are confident in innovating our existing learning pedagogies and offering enhanced learning solutions to aspirants. We aim to simplify learning for students using advanced tools and technologies, making it more accessible and learner-oriented,” PhysicsWallah CEO and cofounder Alakh Pandey said.

As part of the deal, PhysicsWallah will onboard 15 employees of FreeCo on its rolls. 

Founded in 2020 by Pandey and Prateek Maheshwari, PhysicsWallah primarily targets students preparing for competitive exams such as NEET and JEE. It has also forayed into the offline space with the launch of ‘PW Vidyapeeths’ across six locations including Kota and Delhi.

Besides, the unicorn also operates hybrid classes in 22 cities across India, covering 10 Lakh students. PhysicsWallah aims to reach more than 250 Mn students by 2025. 

This is PhysicsWallah’s first acquisition since its mega $100 Mn fundraise in June this year. It was this fundraise that led the startup into the unicorn club, making it the 101st startup to do so. 

On the other hand, FreeCo was founded in 2020 by Prashant Soni and Nikhil Chaudhary. It is a doubt-solving and resource management startup that caters to both B2B and B2C clients. It offers content services, online tutoring, pen tab video solutions, among other services.

The Jaipur-based startup claims to have worked with 28 B2B clients including big edtech firms such as BYJU’S, Unacademy, Brainly, and Doubtnut. 

Even as India boasts of six unicorns in the edtech space, PhysicsWallah is the online profitable unicorn, posting a profit of INR 6.92 Cr in financial year 2020-21 (FY21) and generating a revenue of INR 350 Cr in FY22.

Meanwhile, the edtech space continues to be gripped by the purported funding winter. Amid apprehensions of recession and tightening monetary policies, edtech space has been the worst hit. 

While two edtech startups – Crejo and Udayy – shut shop in 2022, nine edtech companies, including Unacademy, Vedantu, have laid off almost 4,100 employees so far in the year.

According to an Inc42 report, the Indian edtech sector is anticipated to reach a market size of $10.4 Bn by 2025. 

The post PhysicsWallah Acquires Edtech Startup FreeCo To Enhance Learning Solutions appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The Pune Police on Tuesday (August 16) reportedly launched a probe in an alleged multi-crore cryptocurrency fraud and booked crypto platform BitConnect founder Satish Kumbhani in the matter.

The investigation comes after a Pune-based lawyer filed a first information report (FIR) at a local police station, alleging that he lost close to 220 Bitcoins worth INR 42 Cr through multiple crypto platforms. 

Naming Kumbhani and six others for the alleged fraud, the FIR stated that the complainant invested INR 49 Lakh in 54 Bitcoins in 2016 and was allegedly assured of 166 Bitcoins in return. The lawyer was allegedly also made to reinvest into various other Ponzi schemes between 2016 and June 2021. 

No arrests have so far been made in the case.

The probe comes nearly six months after a US Court indicted Kumbhani for ‘orchestrating’ a global crypto ponzi scheme worth $2.4 Bn. He was also charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, price manipulation and conspiracy to commit international money laundering. 

Kumbhani duped people into investing in his fraudulent cryptocurrency platform, promising high returns. The 36-year old mastermind reportedly misled investors by touting BitConnect’s supposed proprietary software and then took money from new investors to pay earlier ones.

The development comes at a time when an increasing number of reports are emerging about crypto frauds. A report by cybersecurity company CloudSEK in June estimated that Indian victims have lost up to INR 1,000 Cr in various cryptocurrency scams so far.

According to Inc42 analysis, investors across the globe lost more than INR 72,000 Cr in 12 crypto scams that involved Indians or had Indian-origin founders.

The post Pune Police Books BitConnect Founder Satish Kumbhani In Cryptocurrency Fraud Case appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Reliance Jio has strengthened its lead at the top of India’s telecom sector by adding 4.2 Mn new subscribers over the month of June 2022, according to the latest Telecom Subscription Data report by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

Rival Bharti Airtel joined the Akash Ambani-led telco in recording growth during June 2022, adding 7.9 Lakh new subscribers to its user base. On the other end, Vodafone Idea (Vi) ceded more ground to its two rivals, losing 1.8 Mn subscribers in June.

State-owned telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) also lost about a million subscribers in June, while MTNL lost a marginal amount of subscribers and Reliance Communications showed the same figure as May 2022.

Interestingly, Jio is on a winning streak that stretches all the way to March 2022. However, Airtel’s winning streak stretches further back; the Sunil Mittal-led telco has not seen red since October 2021.

At the same time, Vi has been haemorrhaging subscribers since March 2021, constantly losing subscribers over the last 15 months.

In terms of market share, Jio comfortably leads with a 36% market share. Airtel’s market share improved slightly to reach 31.63%, while Vi’s market share decreased to 22.37%. In all, private telecom players accounted for 90% of the market share in India’s telecom industry in June 2022.

In June 2022, Reliance Jio had 413 Mn subscribers, Bharti Airtel had around 363 Mn subscribers and Vodafone Idea had 256 Mn subscribers.

Bharti Airtel, however, stands on top as the telco with the best active subscribers ratio of 98.41%. After closing millions of inactive connections, Jio rallied to a second spot, with more than 92% of its subscribers being active. Vi had 85% active subscribers, finishing in the third spot.

Overall, India’s telecom industry had around 1,147.39 Mn wireless subscribers at the end of June 2022, growing 0.16% month-on-month. Of these, 625.49 Mn were urban subscribers while 521.90 Mn were rural subscribers. As such, 54.51% of the country’s total telecom users live in urban areas and 45.49% live in rural areas.

The growth in rural subscribers continues to outpace that of the urban subscribers; the number of rural telecom users increased by 0.18% while the urban users increased by 0.15%. The country’s total teledensity reached 83.27%. In urban areas, the teledensity dropped slightly to reach 129.82%, while in rural areas, teledensity increased to 58.24%.

The TRAI report also noted that in June 2022, over 9 Mn mobile number portability (MNP) requests were submitted, with the total MNP count reaching 714.56 Mn since the implementation of the system.

Wireline subscribers also increased from 25.23 Mn at the end of May 2022 to 25.57 Mn at the end of June 2022, registering a monthly growth rate of 1.32%.

BSNL remains the top dog in holding wireline subscribers’ market share with a 28.17% market share. However, it is a much closer fight as compared to the wireless subscribers’ market. Reliance Jio has a 27.29% market share and Bharti Airtel has a 23.58% market share in wireline.

With Jio gaining wireline subscribers along with Vodafone Idea and Airtel and with BSNL losing subscribers, it is a matter of time before Jio becomes the market leader in both wireless and wireline markets.

According to TRAI’s figures, India reached 800.94 Mn broadband subscribers in total, with a vast majority of them (771.13 Mn) being wireless broadband subscribers. Out of India’s 1.15 Bn telecom users, around 67% are internet users.

In terms of market share here, Reliance Jio dominates with a 52.33% market share, almost twice that of Airtel at 27.39%. Vi finished third with a total market share of 15.35%, less than a third that of Jio’s.

The TRAI report on telecom data comes days after India concluded its first 5G spectrum auction, receiving 40 bids worth INR 1.5 Lakh Cr. 

Jio’s continued market dominance was evident at the spectrum auction, as the telco bought spectrum worth in excess of INR 84,000 Cr, with Airtel being a distant second having bought spectrum worth 43,000 Cr.

The post Reliance Jio Continues Winning Streak, Adds 4.2 Mn New Subscribers In June 2022 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Bengaluru-based hyperlocal delivery platform Dunzo is reportedly looking to shift gears from Dunzo Daily’s quick commerce. As opposed to the 15-20 minute grocery delivery promise, the startup aims to incentivise 60-minute delivery, where multiple orders will be clubbed together as a cost-cutting measure. 

The quick commerce startup has a monthly burn rate of around $15 Mn. But as funding winter looms, Dunzo has reportedly briefed its team to pause geographical expansion, reduce long-distance deliveries and focus on unit economics.

According to an ET report, Dunzo’s hypergrowth era rests in the past. The report quoted a source who said that Dunzo went aggressive with IPL at a time when all quick commerce platforms were going crazy on acquiring consumers. “They are now cutting back on spending and aiming to bring it back to first-quarter levels.” 

As a result, Dunzo has reduced its growth targets internally and plans on fulfilling only 5.7 Mn by December 2022. The startup has told a select group of people about  its renewed focus on cutting expenses amid a slowdown in late stage funding.

To note, Dunzo is in talks to raise funds, but the details of the potential funding round are not final. In April 2022, Dunzo founder Kabir Biswas hinted at the possibility of raising $200 Mn-$300 Mn in funding, diluting a 10-15% stake in the company (at a potential valuation of $2 Bn). Meanwhile, the company is looking at a slower growth rate for the rest of the year.

The news comes six months after the startup raised $240 Mn, led by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail. At the time, Reliance Retail picked up a 25.8% stake on a fully diluted basis in Dunzo for $200 Mn, valuing the company at nearly $775 Mn. 

Besides cutting down on its quick delivery format, Dunzo’s B2B logistics arm, Dunzo for Business (D4B), has partnered with ONDC to provide last-mile delivery services to local enterprises on the ONDC network. D4B claims to have a fleet of over 75K delivery partners and connects more than 20K merchants to customers. 

It had also announced plans to use robotics in its city warehouses to cut the time taken for processing orders to 30 seconds. With the current slowdown in place, the impact on automation hangs in the balance.

The Quick Commerce Battle & Its Aftermath

The quick commerce segment currently features the likes of Swiggy Instamart, Zomato-backed Blinkit, Reliance-backed Dunzo and soonicorn Zepto. From about 30-45 minutes of Instamart to around half an hour of Dunzo to 10 minutes of Blinkit and Zepto, the race for delivering as fast as possible has been a subject of intense debate.

But convenience shopping is at the helm of consumer internet and thus, the funding inflow had been at its highest in 2021 within the segment. These startups were spoilt on funding and focussed on aggressive expansion, high customer acquisition costs and intensive incentivisation. That all came to a sudden halt as the funding inflow in such late stage startups turned stagnant.

Consumer internet startups raised a mere $9.9 Mn in the first six months of 2022, whereas consumer services such as quick commerce and service aggregators raised a mere $1.2 Bn across 19 deals. Swiggy’s $700 Mn round, Dunzo’s $240 Mn round, Livspace’s $180 Mn and Blinkit’s $100 Mn rounds were the highlights of the said funding. [Source: Inc42 Data]

While the overall funding reduced by 50% from the previous half of 2021, three of the top four quick commerce startups raised funds, in an otherwise cold ecosystem. These startups are thus cautiously using their funds. Not just that, some of these bigger players have been pressured by VCs to focus on profitability and revenue growth, forcing them to pivot away from quick commerce.

Swiggy shut down its Supr Daily business in five cities in India, allowed employees to take side gigs and started a permanent work-from-anywhere policy. Blinkit, on the other hand, has finally merged with Zomato and is looking to break even by 2025.

The post Amid Funding Winter, Dunzo To Shift Focus From Q-Commerce To Cost-Effective Group Deliveries appeared first on Inc42 Media.

SaaS startup for interior designing, Prolance has raised $2 Mn (INR 16 Cr) in its Pre-Series A funding round led by Foundamental and Axilor. 

Arali Ventures and Force Ventures also participated in the funding round.

Prolance plans to use the fresh funds to expand its geographical footprint across India and widen offerings. 

“Prolance is looking to automate the fragmented and highly complex $60 Bn interior design market in India. The team comes in with in-depth experience in the space, which gives them a unique advantage on product, distribution, and value addition to customers via its cloud manufacturing platform,” said Nandan Venkatachalam, principal and B2B Lead at Axilor.

Founded in 2020 by Rama Harinath K, Vivek Parasuram, Raghunath Gururajan, Jaisimha Sathyanarayana, and Manoj K, Prolance helps automates operations in the interior design process such as CNC file generation, installing furniture and fittings and sending quotes. It also assists in procuring materials for home renovation projects.

Prolance’s founding team holds years of experience in interior designing space. Prior to founding Prolance, Harinath K and Parasuram together founded HomeLane. Harinath K also cofounded MyHomeSpeaks while Parasuram cofounded Bello Interiors. Meanwhile, Gururajan, Sathyanarayana and Manoj K together established DeltaCADD solutions. 

“Prolance started with the mission to transform the interior design industry through technology, and our goal is to become the operating system for the Interior industry. Our growth in the last two years, along with near-universal appreciation from our clients is a testament to the strengths of our SaaS-based marketplace for interior design professionals,” Harinath K said. 

Prolance primarily offers services to interior designers and design firms, architects, contractors, materials suppliers, and panel processing factories. It claims to have saved 20% project costs and trimmed delivery timelines by nearly 40%. 

Prolance said that it has worked with prominent interior designing firms such as Godrej Interio, SquareYards, Landmark, Pepperfry and NoBroker. It further stated that over 1000 smaller interior companies are presently using its platform.  

In India’s furnishing sector, it competes with the likes of home furnishing startup Wify. 

According to a report, the country’s interior design industry, which was estimated at $23.2 Bn in 2020, is likely to grow into a $38.2 Bn market by 2027. The industry will grow at a CAGR of 7.4% during 2021-2027. 

The post Interior Designing Startup Prolance Raises Funding To Help Businesses Automate Operations appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The year 2022 has continued right off the bat from the record-breaking 2021. Seven months into 2022 and India has seen 20 startups entering the unicorn club. With this, the total count of Indian tech startups that have ever entered the unicorn club to date stands at 106. These 106 Indian unicorns have raised more than $94 Bn in funding to date and are valued at around $343 Bn combined.

The first quarter of the year has seen Indian startups raise $11.7 Bn in 506 deals. Both the funding amount and the deal count were 186%  and 64% respectively higher compared to the corresponding period last year. While January saw the entry of four startups in the unicorn club and five in February, March saw four unicorns. While April failed to mint any unicorn, May produced one and June saw three startups entering the unicorn club.

2021 was a blockbuster year for unicorns. It saw over 42 startups and 2 listed companies touching the billion-dollar valuation. With Inc42’s soonicorn tracker putting 100 startups in the soonicorn club, India is poised to have 250+ unicorns by 2025.

Indian Startups That Entered The Unicorn Club In 2022

Fractal

AI and advanced analytics solutions startup, Fractal’s latest round of funding made it the first entrant into the unicorn club in 2022. The Private Equity round saw $360 Mn raised from TPG Capital Asia and secondary share purchase from funds advised by Apax Partners.

Fractal has raised a total of $685 Mn in funding over 5 rounds. The fresh investment comes almost two years after it had raised $200 Mn from Apax Partners in 2019. Fractal had also raised $100 Mn from Malaysian sovereign fund Khazanah in 2016.

It was founded in 2000 by a five-member team including IIM Ahmedabad alumni Srikanth Velamakanni and Pranay Agrawal, along with Nirmal Palaparthi, Pradeep Suryanarayan, and Ramakrishna Reddy. The 21-year-old startup provides artificial intelligence and advanced analytics solutions to Fortune 500 companies. Fractal Analytics is among a handful of companies that have taken over two decades to enter the unicorn club at a time when Indian startups are crossing the billion-dollar valuation in 6.6 years.

LEAD

Mumbai-based startup LEAD was the first edtech startup to enter the Indian unicorn club in 2022. The company has raised $100 Mn in a round led by WestBridge Capital and GSV Ventures in January positioning it at a valuation of $1.1 Bn.

This was the company’s fifth funding round, the last one coming in April 2021. LEAD School has raised a total of $166 Mn in funding over 5 rounds. In 2021, edtech startups raised over $4.7 Bn to emerge as the third-most funded Indian startup sector of 2021, with only ecommerce ($10.7 Bn) and fintech sectors ($8 Bn) attracting more investment.

LEAD is an edtech startup founded in 2012 by Sumeet Mehta and Smita Deorah. The company enables schools to combine technology, curriculum, and pedagogy into an integrated teaching and learning system. It is the country’s sixth edtech unicorn after BYJU’s, Unacademy, Eruditas, UpGrad, and Vedantu. LEAD claims to have more than 5,000 schools from across 500 Indian cities on board, serving more than 2 Mn students.

Checkout The Indian Unicorn Tracker

Darwinbox

Hyderabad-headquartered Darwinbox raised $72 Mn in a funding round led by Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) in January this year making it the third Indian unicorn minted in 2022. Existing investors like Salesforce Ventures, Sequoia India, Lightspeed India, Endiya Partners, 3one4Capital, JGDEV and SCB 10X also participated in the round.

Last year in January, it had raised $15 Mn in funding led by Salesforce Ventures. It had raised another $15 Mn from Sequoia Capital in 2019 and $4 Mn in a Series A round in 2017. To date, it has raised a total of $107 Mn in funding over 7 rounds.

Founded in 2015 by Chaitanya Peddi, Jayant Paleti and Rohit Chennamaneni, Darwinbox is a cloud-based HRtech startup that enables enterprises to automate the entire employee lifecycle in one HR platform. It caters to companies’ HR needs across recruitment, onboarding, core transactions (leaves, attendance, directory), payroll, travel and people analytics among others.

The company claims to have around 500 enterprises and large tech companies as clients in India and Southeast Asia, including the likes of Tokopedia, Indorama, Zilingo, Fave, Adani, Mahindra, Kotak, TVS, National Stock Exchange, Ujjivan Small Finance Bank, Swiggy, Bigbasket and others.

The global HRtech market was valued at $22.89 Bn in 2020. It is projected to grow from $24.04 Bn in 2021 to $35.68 Bn in 2028 at a CAGR of 5.8% during the period. According to estimations, India accounts for $3.6 Bn of that market in 2021.

DealShare

The Indian social commerce segment is poised to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 55%-60% to reach $16 Bn-$20 Bn gross merchandise value (GMV) by 2025. The segment’s biggest milestone last year was Meesho’s entry into the unicorn club.

2022 saw Dealshare entering the unicorn club at a valuation of $1.62 Bn. The Bengaluru-based social commerce startup raised $165 Mn in a Series E funding round. The round saw participation from existing investors, Tiger Global and Alpha Wave Incubation, alongside new investors, Kora Investment, DF International Partners and Twenty Nine Capital Partners.

With the current round, DealShare has raised around $330 Mn to date. The startup’s valuation has more than tripled since its last fundraise in July 2021. The startup’s gross revenue has increased by 10X over the last year with an ARR of $750 Mn for FY22.

Founded in September 2018 by Vineet Rao, Sourjyendu Medda, Sankar Bora and Rajat Shikhar, DealShare is a social ecommerce marketplace. It enables first-time internet users to shop online, targeting the middle-class population. The startup sells grocery and household essential products through social media and messenger platforms like WhatsApp.

It uses two ways to bring down the cost of essential products for the mass market segment — directly sourcing household items of lesser-known brands and selling products via community sales.

ElasticRun

Pune-based ElasticRun was the first startup to enter the unicorn club in February. The Kirana commerce startup raised $300 Mn in a fresh round of funding led by Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank. It also saw the participation of New York-based Goldman Sachs, Prosus Ventures (earlier known as Naspers Ventures), Innoven Capital, and Abu Dhabi’s Chimera Investment, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi’s Royal Group.

As per Inc42’s estimates, the Series E round valued ElasticRun at around $1.5 Bn. The new investment comes almost a year after it had raised $75 Mn in a Series D funding round led by Avataar Venture Partners. The round also saw participation from Prosus Ventures, and Kalaari Capital among others. The round valued the startup at around $400 Mn. This means that the latest funding has thrust the startup’s valuation by 3.75X.

Founded in 2016 by Sandeep Deshmukh, Saurabh Nigam and Shitiz Bansal, ElasticRun’s tech platform acts as an extended arm of FMCG companies’ direct distribution networks in rural areas and enables these businesses to reach small Kirana stores in the hinterland. The startup also engages with banks and financial institutions to give them access to underserved SME customers from its Kirana network. Through data analytics, the platform also helps Kirana businesses sharpen their marketing strategy.

Checkout The Indian Unicorn Tracker

Livspace

Home renovation and interiors platform, Livspace became the sixth unicorn of the year. The Series F round saw $180 Mn raised from American investment giant KKR & Co, Swedish retail giant Ikea, Jungle Ventures, Venturi Partners and Peugeot Investments. Livspace has raised close to $450 Mn across 10 funding rounds.

This is the company’s second major round in the past 15 months after it raised $90 Mn in Series D in September 2020, led by Switzerland-based investment firm Kharis Capital and consumer space-focused Venturi Partners. Late last year also saw the French multinational giant Saint-Gobain acquiring a minority stake in the startup.

The Bengaluru-based startup was founded in 2014 by Anuj Srivastava and Ramakant Sharma. Livspace is a curated marketplace that provides an end-to-end home design experience. The startup’s online marketplace also offers software tools that can help designers and homeowners design interiors.

Xpressbees

The Pune-based startup is the latest entrant to the Indian unicorn club of 2022. It raised $300 Mn in its Series F funding round led by private equity funds Blackstone Growth, TPG Growth and ChrysCapital. Existing investors, Investcorp and Norwest Venture Partners also participated in this round. Xpressbees’ total funding touched $500 Mn, putting the company at a valuation close to $1.2 Bn. India now has four logistics unicorns including Delhivery, Rivigo and BlackBuck.

The investment comes almost two years after it had raised $110 Mn in its Series E funding round from Investcorp, Norwest Venture Partners, and Gaja Capital. The round valued the startup at around $400 Mn. This means that the latest round of funding has pushed Xpressbees valuation by 3X.

Founded in 2015 after being spun off from ecommerce giant FirstCry, Xpressbees is an ecommerce logistics company that offers express delivery services. It is present across 3,000 cities, serving over 20,000 pin codes, and delivers over 1.5 Mn packages per day.

Xpressbees currently has 100 hubs across India with over 10 lakh sq ft warehouse capacity and operates across 52 airports in the country. Firstcry also runs GlobalBees – a thrasio styled roll up company that entered the unicorn club last year.

Uniphore

Uniphore became the 8th Indian startup to enter the unicorn club in 2022 after it raised $400 Mn at a $2.5 Bn valuation. The funding round was led by NEA and saw the participation of its existing investors.

The conversational automation unicorn was founded by Ravi Saraogi and Umesh Sachdev in 2008. The startup has combined conversational AI, workflow automation, and RPA (Robotic Process Automation) in a single integrated platform to transform and democratise customer experiences across industries.

In 2021, Uniphore had made two acquisitions, i.e. Emotion Research Lab for added capabilities in emotion AI, and Jacada, for enhanced low-code/no-code capabilities.

With the current round, the unicorn’s total funding stands at $610 Mn to date.

Hasura

Hasura became the 9th Indian startup to enter the unicorn club in 2022. The GraphQL developer Hasura raised $100 Mn from Greenoaks Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Vertex Ventures in its Series C round in February 2022.

Founded in 2018 by Tanmai Gopal and Rajoshi Ghosh, the Indian startup provides data access and data flow tools and services via GraphQL APIs, a solution to accelerate product and data delivery. It has raised close to $136.5 Mn in funding to date. It claims that its application has been downloaded more than 400 Mn times and has earned more than 25,000 GitHub stars since its introduction in 2018.

CredAvenue

Chennai-based CredAvenue has become the 10th Indian startup to hit the $1 Bn valuation. The fintech startup raised $135 Mn in its Series B funding round led by New York-based Insight Partners. B Capital and Dragoneer Investment Group were the new investors who participated in the round. The round also witnessed existing investors such as Sequoia Capital, Lightrock, Lightspeed Ventures, and TVS Capital.

As per Inc42’s estimate, with this funding, CredAvenue’s valuation touched $1.2 Bn. In September last year, the startup raised the second-largest Series A investment that the Indian startup ecosystem had witnessed with $90 Mn. The round was led by Sequoia Capital, in participation with Lightrock, Lightspeed Ventures, Kunal Shah’s Cred and Stride Ventures. The funding helped CredAvenue’s valuation soar to $410 Mn.

Founded by Gaurav Kumar in 2017, CredAvenue is a debt platform that connects enterprises with lenders and investors. It offers five products catering to specific needs which include CredLoan, CredCoLend, Plutus, CredSCF and CredPool. The startup claims that it has over 2.3K corporates and over 750 lenders in its portfolio.

Amagi

Media-focused SaaS startup Amagi has become the 11th Indian startup to join the unicorn club after it raised $95 Mn in a funding round led by Accel. Existing investors such as Norwest Venture Partners and Avataar Ventures also participated in the round.

Amagi raised $100 Mn last September from Accel, Avataar Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, and existing investor Premji Invest. As part of the deal, the venture funds have bought out stakes held by Emerald Media (an investment platform backed by KKR) and Mayfield Fund, thus giving them an exit.

Founded in 2008 by Baskar Subramanian, Srinivasan KA and Srividhya Srinivasan, Amagi offers cloud broadcast and targeted advertising solutions to broadcast and streaming TV platforms. The startup claims to enable content owners to launch, distribute and monetise live linear channels on free-ad-supported TV and video services platforms.

Checkout The Indian Unicorn Tracker

Oxyzo

Oxyzo, the financial arm of the B2B commerce marketplace OfBusiness has hit a billion-dollar valuation by raising one of the largest Series A rounds. The startup raised $200 Mn from Alpha Wave, Tiger Global, Norwest Venture Partners, Matrix Partners and Creation Investments. This is Oxyzo’s first institutional funding round.

Launched in 2016 by OfBusiness founders Asish Mohapatra and Ruchi Kalra, it is a lending platform that provides cash flow and matches working capital financing for buying new materials for SMEs in the manufacturing and contracting sectors. The startup claims to have $350 Mn assets under management, growing 100% on a year-on-year basis. Oxyzo is currently serving 2,500+ SMEs across India, disbursing loans worth INR 4,000 Cr per annum. Some of its features include the facility to pay interest for the period of the usage of credit lines, low documentation, interest rates as low as 18% per annum and raw material priority from OfBusiness.

Games24x7

Games24x7 has become the 13th Indian unicorn of 2022 after it raised $75 Mn in its recent round led by Malabar India Fund. Other participants included its existing investor, US-based hedge fund Tiger Global. The startup will receive the investment in two tranches — with the first tranche including an investment worth $32 Mn and the rest coming in from the same clutch of investors.

The Mumbai-based startup’s valuation soared by 3X from $692 Mn in June last year to $2.1 Bn as per Inc42 calculations. The new investment comes almost a year after it had raised $18 Mn from Frederick Emmer Pollock, Jonathan Sawyer, among others.

Founded in 2006 by Bhavin Pandya and Trivikraman Thampy, Games24x7 is a gaming startup that houses popular brands such as RummyCircle, an online card game and a sports fantasy game, My11 Circle. The gaming platform claims RummyCircle has more than 30 Mn registered users and adds 50K new users on a daily basis. Its cricket fantasy gaming product My11Circle has had total downloads of 6 Mn since inception.

Open

Bengaluru-based neobanking startup Open becomes the country’s 100th unicorn after raising $50 Mn from IIFL. The round also saw participation from its existing investors including Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek, US hedge fund Tiger Global, and 3one4 Capital. The latest funding helped Open’s valuation soar past the $1 Bn mark. 

Founded in 2017 by Anish Achuthan, Ajeesh Achuthan, Mabel Chacko, and Deena Jacob, Open offers business banking, payments and expense management services to SMBs across the country. 

The newly minted unicorn states that it has increased its customer base to 2.3 Mn in the past 12 months and plans to reach 5 Mn globally in the next one year. The startup further intends to utilise the capital to strengthen its leadership team and increase employee headcount from 500 to 1,000 in the next one year. 

PhysicsWallah

The edtech startup, PhysicsWallah, also known as PW, has become India’s 101st Indian startup to hit the billion-dollar valuation. This news comes more than a month after the country witnessed its 100th unicorn.

The Noida-based edtech startup raised $100 Mn in a Series A funding round from Westbridge and GSV Ventures. This round pushed PW’s post-money valuation to $1.1 Bn, making it India’s seventh edtech unicorn. It plans to deploy the incoming funds for business expansion, branding, introducing more courses and opening more learning centres across India.

The Indian startup was founded by Alakh Pandey and Prateek Maheshwari in 2020. It focuses on providing competitive exam prep for NEET and IIT/JEE. Started as a Youtube channel in 2016, it eventually scaled its platform to an app and a website in 2020. The edtech startup claims that more than 10,000 of its students have cracked NEET and JEE in 2020 and 2021.

Purplle

Nykaa rival, beauty ecommerce startup Purplle entered the billion-dollar valuation club in June 2022 with its Series E funding round. Paramak Ventures, Premji Invest, Blume Ventures, and Kedaara infused $33 Mn in the Indian startup, which pushed its valuation to $1.1 Bn.

Started by Manish Taneja and Rahul Dash in 2012, Purplle is an online marketplace for beauty products and appliances. It claims to host more than 1,000 brands on its platform, including Lakme, Plum, WOW Skin Science, mCaffeine, Maybelline, SUGAR Cosmetics, among others.

The newly minted unicorn plans to use the cash infusion to scale its private brands and focus on tech investments in the country. With five D2C brands under its house of brands, it competes with the likes of Nykaa, SUGAR Cosmetics, Plum and WOW Skin Science.

LeadSquared

LeadSquared has become the latest startup to achieve unicorn status after raising $153 Mn in a Series C funding round from WestBridge.

This comes more than a year after it raised $32 Mn from Gaja Capital. This makes the sales automation platform India’s 21st enterprisetech and SaaS unicorn, joining the ranks of Amagi, Browserstack, and Zoho.

The incoming funds will be used to make growth investments in India and North America, expand in APAC and EMEA, add new products and solutions, and fund inorganic growth through acquisitions.

The Bengaluru-based startup was founded in 2011 by Nilesh Singh, Sudhakar Gorti and Prashant Singh, with Sukhbir Kalsi joining as a founding member. The company provides end-to-end sales, marketing, and onboarding automation solutions, as well as field sales management and merchant management. The SaaS startup claims to have over 2,000 enterprises across 40 countries, with more than 150K mobile users.

Its product offerings are available to a wide range of sectors such as edtech, healthcare, BFSI, real estate, and hospitality, among others. LeadSquared’s client base includes unicorns such as BYJU’S, Dunzo, Zoomcar and Cars24.

OneCard

Pune-based OneCard has become India’s 104th unicorn after it raised $100 Mn in what seems to be its Series D round.

The round, which pushed the startup’s valuation to around $1.25 Bn, saw participation from existing investors such as Sequoia Capital, QED Holdings, Matrix Partners, and Hummingbird, among others.

Founded in 2018 by Anurag Sinha, Rupesh Kumar, Vibhav Hathi, the fintech startup launched the mobile-first metal credit card ‘OneCard’ in 2020. The newly minted unicorn also offers Visa credit cards in partnership with banks such as IDFC Bank, South Indian Bank, Federal Bank, Bank of Baroda Financial, and SMB Bank.

The company also has OneScore – a no-spam, digital credit score platform offering free credit score checks to its users. OneCard has become India’s 22nd fintech startup joining the ranks of Slice, Groww, Razorpay, Zeta and Open. The startup claims to have disbursed over 2.5 Lakh cards to its customers so far.

5ire

5ire, a 5th generation Layer-1 (L1) blockchain network, is the second startup to join the unicorn club in July, having raised $100 Mn in a Series A funding round. This round included participation from UK-based conglomerate SRAM & MRAM, raising the startup’s valuation to $1.5 Bn. The blockchain network plans to use equity-based funding for talent acquisition, technology development, and sales and marketing.

With plans to be adopted by Fortune 500 companies and governments, 5ire intends to launch the 5irechain testnet in a month, followed by the mainnet in November of this year. Founded in August 2021 by Pratik Gauri and Prateek Dwivedi along with web3 financier Vilma Mattila, the company initially sought to file for an IPO earlier this year after securing a $100 Mn capital commitment from GEM Global Yield LLC SCS (GGY).

Instead, the startup chose to raise the Series A round. The blockchain network claims to be not only faster than other conventional blockchains, but also the most sustainable blockchain due to its use of Proof-of-Benefit methodology.

Shiprocket

Shiprocket, a third-party logistics (3PL) service provider, has become the latest startup to enter the unicorn club, with a valuation of $1.2 Bn, according to Inc42 calculations.

The startup raised $33.5 Mn in a Series E2 round led by Lightrock India.Singapore’s sovereign fund Temasek, Bertelsmann, Moore Strategic Ventures, PayPal, March Capital, and Huddle also participated in the round. This round comes almost 10 months after Shiprocket raised $185 Mn led by Zomato and Lightrock India.

The Zomato-backed startup has become the sixth logistics unicorn, joining the ranks of Delhivery, Xpressbees, BlackBuck, among others.

Founded in 2017 by Saahil Goel, Vishesh Khurana, Gautam Kapoor, and Akshay Gulati, Shiprocket claims to serve the logistics demands of 2.5 Lakh sellers. The Delhi NCR-based startup states that it ships to more than 70 Mn consumers annually. It also reported that it clocked $49.7 Mn in revenue in FY21.

This is a running article. The story will be updated as more Indian unicorns are added to the list…

Checkout The Indian Unicorn Tracker

The post Here Are The 20 Indian Startups That Entered The Unicorn Club In 2022 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In 2013, venture capitalist Aileen Lee personified the term ‘unicorn’ within the startup ecosystem to indicate the rarity of startups with a valuation of over $1 Bn. A decade later, unicorns in India are no longer rare! In May, India became home to 100 unicorns, when neobanking startup Open raised $50 Mn to claim the position of India’s 100th unicorn.

India achieved the milestone shortly after a wild funding year which saw Indian startups raising $42 Bn across 1,583 deals in 2021 and minting 42 unicorns in the process. India ended 2021 with 86 unicorn startups, and at a striking distance from scoring a century of unicorns, according to Inc42’s unicorn tracker. 

The march continued in 2022, as India added 20 more unicorns to the club.

From producing its first unicorn in the form of InMobi in 2011 to hitting the century of unicorns in India by 2022, it has been a long and eventful journey for the Indian startup ecosystem. The country is witnessing an unprecedented surge in VC investment and tech entrepreneurship, and the Startup India initiative has played an important role in it.

Since its inception in 2015, a slew of policies, FoF and thematic funds, incubation programs, tax holidays and tax benefit schemes have been announced and launched under the Startup India initiative. With a massive tech transition to digital services and products in place and an active internet subscriber base of over 783 Mn (as of February 2022), India is now ready for the next stage of tech evolution.

While 2021 was the year of record-breaking funding, 2022 has seen India achieve a historic landmark in the first few months with 20 Indian startups entering the unicorn club. The focus should now be on the sustainability of these 100+ unicorns and helping a new set of Indian startups turn unicorns.

However, for that, the government will need to work on removing some of the obstacles like solving structural issues in the economy, preventing migration of Indian startups to cities like Dubai, and improving the ease of doing business, among others, to achieve the plausible target of having 250 unicorns by 2025.

List Of Unicorns In India

Collectively, the 106 Indian unicorns have raised a total of $94 Bn in funding to date and are valued at around $343 Bn combined. We at Inc42 have been tracking the Indian unicorns since 2016.

Here is a list of all the startups in India’s unicorn club:

Unicorns In India: Indian Startups That Entered The Unicorn Club In 2022

Shiprocket

Founded in 2017 by Saahil Goel, Vishesh Khurana, Gautam Kapoor and Akshay Gulati, Shiprocket is a Gurugram-based third-party logistics service provider, backed by the likes of Zomato, Temasek and Bertelsmann. The 3PL player became India’s 106th unicorn in August 2022 when it raised $33.5 Mn in a round led by Lightrock India.

Shiprocket claims to serve the logistics needs of more than 2.5 Lakh sellers across India and ships to more than 70 Mn consumers annually. The company offers logistics services to ecommerce sellers and direct-to-customer (D2C) brands alike, also providing tech-enabled logistics solutions for sellers.

In 2022, Shiprocket has made five acquisitions so far, including one of the biggest-ever acquisitions in the Indian startup ecosystem when it acquired rival 3PL player Pickkr for $200 Mn in June.

5ire

Founded in 2021 by Pratik Gauri and Prateek Dwivedi and Vilma Mattila, 5ire is a 5th generation Layer-1 (L1) blockchain network. The deeptech startup joined India’s unicorn club in July 2022, after raising $100 Mn in a funding round led by UK-based conglomerate SRAM & MRAM at a valuation of $1.5 Bn.

5ire has its own blockchain, called 5irechain, which is based on sustainability and works on a Proof-of-Benefit methodology for consensus. 5ire’s blockchain measures and rewards sustainability using a unique mathematical model. Talking with Inc42, Gauri said that Proof-of-benefit gives scores based on the UN’s 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) and 650 environmental, social and governance (ESG) parameters.

The newly-minted unicorn will keep India as its core focus and is working with various companies and government agencies across the globe to solve sector-agnostic problems with blockchain.

OneCard

Founded in 2018 by Anurag Sinha, Rupesh Kumar and Vaibhav Hathi, OneCard is a Pune-based fintech startup that offers Visa credit cards. The startup joined the unicorn club, becoming India’s 104th unicorn in July 2022 after it raised $100 Mn in a round led by Temasek. According to Inc42’s calculation, the startup’s valuation reached $1.25 Bn with the latest funding round.

Apart from offering credit cards, OneCard also has its own credit score platform called OneScore, which allows users to check their credit score free of charge. OneCard has disbursed over 2.5 Lakh cards to its customers so far. In FY21, the startup recorded a loss of INR 33.1 Cr, with its revenue standing at INR 16.3 Cr.

OneCard competes with other credit card providers such as slice and Uni Card, among others. The newly-minted unicorn becomes India’s 22nd fintech unicorn.

LeadSquared

Founded in 2011 by Nilesh Patel, Sudhakar Gorti and Prashant Singh, LeadSquared offers CRM, marketing and sales software solutions. The India and US-based startup became India’s 103rd unicorn in June after it raised $153 Mn from WestBridge Capital, taking it to unicorn valuation.

The startup offers products to verticals such as edtech, healthcare, BFSI, real estate, automotive and hospitality. The newly-minted startup has more than 2,000 enterprise clients and 150K mobile users across 40 countries, counting the likes of BYJU’S, Dunzo, Zoomcar and Cars24 among its clientele.

The SaaS unicorn’s cofounder and CEO Nilesh Patel, while talking with Inc42, had said that LeadSquared will go for acquisitions and international expansion with the incoming funds. “The intent is to look at what is there and basically what offers the opportunity to expand faster than the market,” he added.

Purplle

Founded in 2012 by Manish Taneja and Rahul Dash, Purplle is a Mumbai-based ecommerce startup focused on beauty-oriented products and appliances. It became India’s 102nd unicorn after it raised $33 Mn in a Series E funding round, from new and existing investors at a valuation of $1.1 Bn. The ecommerce startup has raised a total of $215 Mn so far.

Purplle features a range of products from both legacy and new-age beauty companies, having more than 1,000 brands and over 60,000 products listed on its platform. The Mumbai-based ecommerce unicorn also claims to have 7 Mn users. It has also created a house of brands with the likes of FACES CANADA, Good Vibes, Carmesi, Purplle, and NY Bae.

It is targeting an annualised GMV rate of $180 Mn in FY22, having recorded a loss of INR 51.27 Cr in FY21, up 110% from INR 24.38 Cr in FY20.

PhysicsWallah (PW)

Started in 2016 as a physics-focused competition prep YouTube channel by Alakh Pandey and Prateek Maheshwari, PhysicsWallah pivoted to being a full-fledged edtech platform in 2020. The startup became India’s 101st unicorn after raising $100 Mn in a Series A round from Westbridge and GSV Ventures, at a valuation of $1.1 Bn.

The edtech platform focuses on competitive exam prep for NEET and IIT/JEE alone, with multiple course offerings on both its YouTube channel, the website and the mobile app. PW, as it is colloquially known, claims that more than 10,000 of its students have cracked NEET and JEE in 2020 and 2021.

PhysicsWallah is also moving towards offline centres, having already opened 20 centres in 18 cities so far. With the recent fundraise, the Noida-based edtech startup will open another 20 centres across the country.

Open

Open, the 100th Indian unicorn, is a neobanking fintech startup founded in 2017 by Anish Achuthan, Ajeesh Achuthan, Mabel Chacko, and Deena Jacob. Open offers business banking, payments, and expense management services to small and midsize businesses (SMBs) across the country. 

The startup claims to have increased its customer base to 2.3 Mn in the past 12 months and plans to reach 5 Mn customers globally in the next year. Open processes over $24 Bn annually and claims to add 100K SMEs every month.

The fintech startup counts Temasek, BEENEXT, 3one4 Capital, and Trifecta Capital Advisors among its key investors. It has raised $140 Mn so far.

Open hit the unicorn status in April 2022, becoming the 100th Indian unicorn, by raising $50 Mn at a valuation of $1 Bn.

Games24x7

Founded by Bhavin Pandya and Trivikraman Thampy in 2006, Games24x7 is a gaming startup which houses popular brands such as RummyCircle, an online card game, and sports fantasy game My11 Circle. The third product from the startup is U Games, a hub for casual games.

Games24x7 became the 99th unicorn of India in March when it raised $75 Mn in a funding round led by Malabar India Fund at a valuation of $2.5 Bn. Its existing investor US-based hedge fund Tiger Global also participated in the funding round.

Games24x7’s My11Circle competes with Dream11, MPL, BalleBaazi, and Nazara’s Halaplay, among others. RummyCircle’s competitors include PlayRummy, JungleeRummy, and Adda52Rummy, among others. 

Oxyzo

Oxyzo, the financial arm of B2B commerce unicorn OfBusiness, was founded in 2016 by OfBusiness founders Asish Mohapatra and Ruchi Kalra. It is a lending platform that provides cash flow and matched working capital financing for buying new materials for SMEs in the manufacturing and contracting sectors.

The Indian startup claims to have $350 Mn in assets under management (AUM), growing 100% on a year-on-year (YoY) basis. Oxyzo is currently serving 2,500+ SMEs across India, disbursing loans worth INR 4,000 Cr per annum.

It counts the likes of Alpha Wave, Tiger Global, Norwest Venture Partners, Matrix Partners, and Creation Investments among its investors, and has raised only one funding round so far. However, it was the largest Series A funding round in the country. The startup raised $200 Mn in that funding round, turning into a unicorn.

Amagi

Founded in 2008 by Baskar Subramanian, Srinivasan KA, and Srividhya Srinivasan, Amagi offers creation, distribution, and monetisation tools for live, linear, and on-demand channels across cable, OTT, and free ad-supported streaming TV platforms.

The Bengaluru-headquartered cloud-based media Saas technology startup turned unicorn earlier this year after raising $95 Mn in a funding round led by Accel. Recently, it also announced the enhanced version of its live orchestration platform, Amagi LIVE.

CredAvenue

Continuing the momentum from 2021, debt marketplace CredAvenue joined the unicorn club in March 2022. CredAvenue entered the unicorn club with $137 Mn funding from Insight Partners, B Capital, and Dragoneer Investment Group, among others. 

At the time of the fundraise, the startup said that it intended to use the funds to expand the business in India along with key global markets, organically and inorganically, by acquiring diverse companies for forward and backward services and products integration.

Founded by Gaurav Kumar in 2017, CredAvenue is a debt platform that connects enterprises with lenders and investors.

Its offerings include CredLoan, CredCoLend, Plutus, CredSCF and CredPool. It claims to have more than 2.3K corporates and over 750 lenders in its portfolio.

It recently acquired an 82% stake in SaaS startup Corpository through a combination of primary investment and secondary purchase from existing shareholders. In February 2022, the startup acquired about 75% stake in digital collections startup Spocto.

Hasura

Founded in 2018 by Tanmai Gopal and Rajoshi Ghosh, Hasura provides data access and data flow tools and services via GraphQL APIs, a solution to accelerate product and data delivery. The company’s technology automatically creates real-time GraphQL APIs, granting customers instant access to their data via secure APIs.

Hasura entered the unicorn club early this year after raising $100 Mn led by Greenoaks Capital. The Series C funding round also saw participation from existing investors such as Nexus Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Vertex Ventures.

The Series C round came almost after two years of its Series B round. The Indian startup had raised $25 Mn from Lightspeed Venture Partners in participation with Vertex Ventures, and Nexus Ventures, among others, in its Series B round.

Uniphore

Conversational automation startup Uniphore became the eighth unicorn of 2022 after raising a record $400 Mn in funding at a valuation of $2.5 Bn. 

Founded by Ravi Saraogi and Umesh Sachdev in 2008, Uniphore is a conversational automation platform that combines conversational AI, workflow automation, and RPA (Robotic Process Automation) in a single integrated platform to transform and democratise customer experience across industries.

The startup is backed by marquee investors like Sorenson Capital Partners, Serena Capital, Cisco Investments, Iron Pillar, and Chiratae Ventures, among others.

Checkout The Indian Unicorn Tracker

Xpressbees

Logistics startup Xpreesbees was one of the early entrants to the unicorn club this year. The startup, which began its operations under Supam Maheswari’s FirstCry, later spun off to operate independently in 2015. The logistics startup claims to have operations across 3,000 cities and delivers across 20,000 pin codes. 

The startup bagged $300 Mn in its Series F round led by Blackstone Growth, TPG Growth, and Chrys Capital to cross the $1 Bn valuation mark. Currently, the startup has 100 hubs with over 10 lakh sq ft warehousing capacity.

Livspace

Founded in 2014 by Anuj Srivastava and Ramakant Sharma, Livspace is a curated marketplace that provides an end-to-end home design experience. The startup’s online marketplace also offers software tools that can help designers and homeowners design interiors.

It is present across nine metro cities and claims to have served about 20,000 customers. In India, Livspace competes with Bengaluru-based Homelane and other players in a largely unorganised market for home redesigns, interior design and custom furniture.

The startup hit the unicorn valuation in February 2022, raising $180 Mn in a funding round.

In total, it has raised upwards of $431 Mn through various funding rounds from investors such as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Trifecta Capital, and Tahoe Investment Group.

ElasticRun

Founded in 2016 by Sandeep Deshmukh, Saurabh Nigam and Shitiz Bansal, ElasticRun’s tech platform acts as an extended arm of FMCG companies’ direct distribution networks in rural areas and enables these businesses to reach small ’Kirana’ stores in the hinterland. The startup also engages with banks and financial institutions to give them access to underserved SME customers from its Kirana network.

The Pune-based commerce startup entered the unicorn club in February after it raised $300 Mn in a funding round led by Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank. It also saw the participation of New York-based Goldman Sachs, Prosus Ventures (earlier known as Naspers Ventures), Innoven Capital, and Abu Dhabi’s Chimera Investment, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi’s Royal Group.

DealShare

Founded in September 2018 by Vineet Rao, Sourjyendu Medda, Sankar Bora and Rajat Shikhar, DealShare is a social ecommerce marketplace. It enables first-time internet users to shop online. 

The startup sells grocery and household essential products through social media and messenger platforms like WhatsApp. DealShare competes with the likes of social commerce unicorn Meesho, BulBul, YouTube’s SimSim, and GlowRoad, among others. 

At the beginning of 2022, the Bengaluru-based social commerce startup raised $165 million from investors led by Tiger Global and Alpha Wave Global to become the fifth Indian unicorn of 2022.

Darwinbox

Founded in 2015 by Chaitanya Peddi, Jayant Paleti and Rohit Chennamaneni, Darwinbox is a cloud-based HRtech startup that caters to companies’ HR needs across recruitment, onboarding, core transactions (leaves, attendance, directory), payroll, travel and people analytics, among others.

Darwinbox raised $72 Mn in a funding round led by Technology Crossover Ventures. With this capital infusion, the startup’s valuation crossed the $1 Bn mark, making it the third Indian unicorn minted in 2022.

Existing investors Salesforce Ventures, Sequoia India, Lightspeed India, Endiya Partners, 3One4Capital, JGDEV and SCB 10X also participated in the round.

LEAD

Founded in 2012 by Sumeet Mehta and Smita Deorah, LEAD is a Mumbai-based edtech startup focusing on enabling better school education using technology.

LEAD offers a range of services, including full-stack school edtech solutions targeting students, especially in non-metro cities. The startup aims to reach 25 Mn students in 60,000 schools by the end of 2026. According to the startup, it will be entering the 2022-23 academic year with more than 5,000 schools from across 500 Indian cities on board, serving more than 2 Mn students.

LEAD became the first Indian startup to hit unicorn valuation in 2022 when it raised $100 Mn at a valuation of $1.1 bn. The edtech startup is backed by WestBridge Capital, Elevar Equity and GSV Ventures, among others. It has raised $166 Mn across various funding rounds.

Fractal

Fractal Analytics was founded in 2000 by a five-member team including IIM Ahmedabad alumni Srikanth Velamakanni and Pranay Agrawal, along with Nirmal Palaparthi, Pradeep Suryanarayan, and Ramakrishna Reddy. 

Fractal provides artificial intelligence and advanced analytics solutions. The AI and advanced analytics solutions startup employ people across 16 locations globally, including India, the US, the UK, and Singapore, among others.

The Mumbai and New York-based startup offers several products such as Qure.ai which assists radiologists, Crux Intelligence to assist CEOs and senior executives, and Theremin.ai to improve investment decisions, among others.

Velamakanni-led Fractal entered the growing unicorn list in January 2022 with an investment of $360 million from the private equity firm TPG Capital Asia. Although it became the second unicorn of 2022 following MamaEarth, it had to wait for two decades for it.

Unicorns In India: Indian Startups That Entered The Unicorn Club In 2021

Acko Insurance

Insurance provider Acko entered the coveted unicorn club in 2021 after it raised $255 million in its series D funding round led by private equity firms General Atlantic and Multiples Private Equity. The Mumbai-based unicorn has raised around $428 Mn to date. Founded in 2016 by Varun Dua and Ruchi Deepak, Acko offers auto insurance and covers workers through partnerships with companies, including Zomato and Swiggy. 

Acko counts Amazon, Accel Partners, Catamaran Ventures, Elevation Capital, RPS Ventures, and Binny Bansal, among others, as its investors. The startup has also introduced a health insurance policy for consumers between the ages of 18 to 45 years as part of its strategy to enter the retail health insurance space.

Apna

Founded in 2019 by Nirmit Parikh, Apna provides a job marketplace for India’s blue-collar workers and skilled professionals such as painters, carpenters, and sales agents, among others. It entered the celebrated unicorn club in 2021, within two years of its inception, when it raised $100 Mn in a Series C round led by Tiger Global at a valuation of $1.1 Bn.

During the fundraise, the startup claimed it had over 16 Mn job seekers on its platform and that it helped 150K employers hire talent. 

Zomato, Urban Company, PhonePe, BurgerKing, edtech giant BYJU’S and Bharti AXA are among the clients served by Apna. The startup recently launched its first brand campaign to reach job aspirants pan India.

Checkout The Indian Unicorn Tracker

BharatPe

From boardroom battles to social media spats, Indian startup BharatPe has been the talk of the town in the last couple of months. The controversies around the startup started with an infamous audio recording which gradually culminated in the resignation of BharatPe cofounder Ashneer Grover. 

In sharp contrast to the current situation, the fintech startup was celebrated for all good reasons last year. It entered the unicorn club after raising $370 Mn in a Series E equity round, led by Tiger Global, at a valuation of $2.85 Bn. 

Founded in 2018 by Ashneer Grover and Shashvat Nakrani, BharatPe launched India’s first UPI interoperable QR code. It is primarily a merchant-focused payments platform that offers a single interface for all existing UPI apps and other payment systems. It has also diversified into lending and other verticals.

Blackbuck

Founded in 2015 by Rajesh Yabaji, Chanakya Hridaya, and Rama Subramaniam, Blackbuck connects businesses with truck owners and freight operators. The Bengaluru-based logistics startup lists truck services on its platform and does an intelligent match for customers, based on their requirements.

It entered the unicorn club in 2021 after raising $67 Mn in its Series E round. The startup claims to have over 15,000 clients, 12,00,000 + trucks. Blackbuck also has a presence in Europe.

Blinkit (Grofers)

Grofers, now rebranded as Blinkit, was founded in 2013 by Saurabh Kumar and Albinder Dhindsa. After witnessing several ups and downs, the startup entered the unicorn club last year following an investment from Zomato. The foodtech giant acquired a 9.16% stake in the online e-grocery firm for INR 518.2 Cr, which valued the startup at around $1 Bn.

Grofers initially started as an on-demand pick-up and drop-off service, and later forayed into the grocery business. After Zomato invested in it last year, Grofers rebranded itself as Blinkit to focus on quick commerce. 

“We learnt a lot as Grofers, and all our learnings, our team, and our infrastructure is being repurposed to pivot to something with staggering product-market fit – quick commerce. Today, we are surging ahead as a new company, and we have a new mission statement – “instant commerce indistinguishable from magic”. And we will no longer be doing this as Grofers – we will be doing it as Blinkit,” Dhindsa said in a blog post. 

Blinkit is also now all set to merge with Zomato in a share-swap deal. Zomato also approved a $150 Mn loan to Blikit’s parent company, Grofers India, in March. As part of the deal, the loan will be disbursed to Grofers in one or more tranches.

Browserstack

Founded in 2011 by Ritesh Arora and Nakul Aggarwal, Browserstack is a software and mobile app testing cloud platform. The homegrown software-as-a-service (SaaS) startup joined the unicorn club after it raised $200 Mn in a Series B funding round. The company claims that its platform is used by 4 Mn developers spread across 50,000 companies, including tech giants such as Google, Microsoft and Twitter. 

The startup has been profitable since day one and has been a market leader since its early days. Earlier this year, BrowserStack announced the launch of BrowserStack Champions, a community program to bring together the thought leaders of software testing and development.

CarDekho

CarDekho is an Indian search and ecommerce platform for new and used cars. It also has an insurance vertical. Founded in 2007 by Amit Jain and Anurag Jain, CarDekho claims to have tie-ups with many auto manufacturers, more than 4,000 car dealers and numerous financial institutions to facilitate the purchase of vehicles. 

The automobile marketplace turned unicorn in October 2021 after its parent CarDekho Group (also known as GirnarSoft) secured $250 Mn in its Series E financing round. The round was led by Leapfrog Investments alongside Canyon Partners, Mirae Asset, Harbor Spring Capital and existing investors Sequoia Capital India and Sunley House.

At the time of fundraising, Amit Jain, cofounder and chief executive of CarDekho, said that the startup was planning its initial public offering in the next 18 months. GirnarSoft’s revenue from operations stood at INR 884.3 Cr during the financial year ended March 31, 2021. 

Chargebee

Founded in 2011 by Krish Subramanian, Rajaraman Santhanam, Saravanan KP and Thiyagarajan T, Chargebee is a revenue management platform that automates revenue operations of over 4,000 high-growth subscription-based businesses.

The Chennai-based startup entered the unicorn club with its $125 Mn Series G Round in 2021. This year, the startup doubled its valuation to $3.5 Bn after a $250 Mn funding round led by major VC funds like Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital.

To date, Chargebee has raised total funding of $470 Mn. Its customer portfolio includes the likes of access management companies Okta, Freshworks, Calendly, and Study.com, among others.

CoinDCX

Founded in 2018 by Sumit Gupta and Neeraj Khandelwal, CoinDCX became the first Indian cryptocurrency exchange to reach unicorn status last year. The crypto exchange closed a $90 Mn Series C funding round in August 2021, led by Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital Group as well as Coinbase Ventures, Polychain Capital, Block.one, Jump Capital among others, to reach the unicorn status.

Recently, CoinDCX became India’s most valued crypto startup after it raised more than $135 Mn in a Series D funding round.

With this fundraise, the startup’s valuation soared to $2.15 Bn. It also runs CoinDCX Go, a crypto investment app; CoinDCX Pro, a professional trading platform; and DCX Learn, a crypto-centric investor education platform.

CoinSwitch Kuber

Founded in 2017 by Ashish Singhal, Govind Soni and Vimal Sagar Tiwari as a global aggregator of cryptocurrency exchanges, CoinSwitch launched its India exclusive crypto platform, CoinSwitch Kuber, in June 2020 to simplify crypto investments for Indian retail investors. 

Last year, it became the second crypto unicorn when it raised $260 Mn at a valuation of $1.9 Bn in its Series C funding round led by Coinbase Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).

The Bengaluru-based crypto startup recently completed its first-ever employee stock ownership buyback plan (ESOP) worth $2.5 Mn.

CRED

Founded in 2018 by Kunal Shah, CRED offers premium credit card users rewards and benefits for paying credit card bills. It has also been working on ancillary services built around its primary ecosystem of credit card-centric services. The startup entered into P2P lending late last year. 

In April 2021, the Bengaluru-based fintech startup raised $215 Mn in Series D funding, at a post-money valuation of $2.2 Bn to turn unicorn. Later in the year, the startup raised $251 Mn in its Series E round, co-led by Tiger Global and Falcon Edge, at a valuation of $4 Bn. 

Recently, CRED allotted a total of 6,048 equity shares to around 125 employees upon ESOP conversion. The fintech startup is also reportedly in talks to raise another funding round which is likely to further soar its valuation from $4 Bn to around $6 Bn.

Cure.Fit

Founded in 2016 by Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori, CureFit uses an online-offline model to offer physical fitness (Cult.fit), mental fitness (Mind.fit), and nutrition (Eat.fit). It also has a primary care vertical (Care.fit).

CureFit entered the unicorn club late last year after foodtech giant Zomato invested in the startup. Zomato sold its fitness facility arm Fitso to CureFit for $50 Mn and invested another $50 Mn in the health and wellness startup. In the cross-selling, Zomato acquired a total shareholding of 6.4% worth $100 Mn in CureFit. 

“This will help us potentially explore cross-selling benefits between Zomato and CureFit, as we see food and health becoming the same side of the coin in the long term,” Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal had said in a blog post then.

Soon after it became a unicorn, CureFit acquired at-home cardio equipment brands RPM fitness, Fitkit, Onefitplus, and Urban Terrain in a single transaction. However, the Zomato-backed fitness startup saw its sales revenue decline 67.4% in the financial year ending March 31, 2021. It posted total revenue of INR 294.9 Cr in FY21, as compared to INR 567.4 Cr in FY20.

Digit Insurance

Bengaluru-based insurtech startup Digit Insurance was the first unicorn of 2021. The startup raised $18 Mn from existing investors A91 PArtners, Faering Capital and TVS Capital in January 2021 at a valuation of $1.9 Bn.

Founded in 2016 by Kamesh Goyal and Prem Watsa’s Fairfax Holdings, Digit Insurance is a tech-driven general insurance company. The company offers customised policies on health, auto, travel, smartphones, and commercial properties such as stores and holiday homes. 

Digit Insurance recently said it crossed the INR 5,000 cr yearly revenue milestone in FY22. Its gross written premiums stood at INR 5,268 crore during the year.

Droom

Founded in 2014 by Sandeep Agarwal, Droom provides an online platform where users can buy and sell used and new automobiles in India and other emerging markets. Droom has four marketplace formats — B2C, C2C, C2B, and B2B, and three pricing formats — fixed price, best offer and auction.

The Indian startup entered the unicorn club after a pre-IPO round of $200 Mn in July 2021. Existing and new investors, such as 57 Stars and Seven Train Ventures, participated in the round. 

Later in the year, the auto marketplace converted itself into a public company. It is likely to launch its INR 3,000 Cr initial public offering (IPO) in the next two months.

EaseMyTrip

Founded in 2008 by Nishant Pitti, Rikant Pitti and Prashant Pitti, EaseMyTrip allows its customers to book air, rail and bus tickets, hotel and holiday packages, and also offers other travel services. In the Indian market, EaseMyTrip competes with Yatra, MakeMyTrip, ixigo, and Cleartrip, among others.

The Delhi-based traveltech startup was bootstrapped until its public listing in March 2021. Later in the year, it hit a market capitalisation of $1 Bn on September 17, soon after it announced its international foray into the US, the Philippines and Thailand markets.

The company also has a presence in the UAE, Singapore, and the UK. It is also planning to foray into currency exchange service for which it will be applying for a licence to the Reserve Bank of India, as per a PTI report.

Eruditus

After the pandemic accelerated the growth of the edtech industry in India, Mumbai-based Eruditus became India’s fourth edtech startup to join the unicorn club. It raised $650 Mn in a funding round led by Accel US and Masayoshi Son-led SoftBank Vision Fund II in 2021, which increased its valuation to $3.2 Bn from $800 Mn in 2020.

Founded in 2010 by Chaitanya Kalipatnapu and Ashwin Damera, Eruditus offers executive education programmes in association with global business schools such as MIT, Columbia, Harvard Business School, INSEAD, Tuck at Dartmouth, Wharton, UC Berkeley and London Business School.

The startup also offers courses from Indian institutions such as IIT Kozhikode, IIM Lucknow, and BML Munjal University among others. It is also backed by Bertelsmann India Investments, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), a non-profit organisation headed by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan.

GlobalBees

Thrasio-style startup GlobalBees joined the unicorn club in December 2021. It raised close to $111.5 Mn in a mix of equity and debt in a Series B round of investment led by FirstCry. The round also saw participation from SoftBank, Premji Invest, Chiratae Ventures, and Trifecta Capital, among others. The funding round valued GlobalBees at $1.1 Bn. 

Launched in 2021, GlobalBees, which is headed by Nitin Agarwal as the CEO, invests in and acquires seller businesses on Amazon India, Flipkart and other ecommerce marketplaces. 

Recently, Inc42 reported that GlobalBees would make its foray into the consumer electronics segment with an investment in D2C appliance brand Candes. In an extraordinary general meeting on April 18, the shareholders of Candes decided to allot 17,544 compulsorily convertible preference shares (CCPS) to GlobalBees. 

Good Glamm Group

Founded in 2015 as MyGlamm, The Good Glamm Group turned a unicorn last year after it raised $150 million in a Series D funding round led by Prosus Ventures (Naspers) and Warburg Pincus. Darpan Sanghvi, founder and CEO of The Good Glamm Group, built the direct-to-consumer makeup brand MyGlamm.

Last year, MyGlamm announced the formation of The Good Glamm Group to consolidate its position as a ‘Digital House of Brands’ powered by a content-to-commerce strategy. The Good Glamm Group runs multiple brands, including MyGlamm, MomsCo, POPxo and Baby Chakra, Plixxo, ScoopWhoop, among others. 

Continuing its acquisition spree, it acquired a majority stake in beauty and personal care brand Organic Harvest in February 2022 for an undisclosed amount.

Checkout The Indian Unicorn Tracker

Groww

Founded in 2017 by ex-Flipkart employees Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Neeraj Singh, and Ishan Bansal, Groww offers direct plans for mutual funds and investing via mobile application and web platform. It also allows users to invest in stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, IPOs, and gold.

Talking about the inspiration behind starting Groww, Keshre recently said that he and other cofounders of the startup felt that financial products and services in India were more commission-centric than customer-centric. “We wanted to build a Flipkart for financial services,” Groww’s Lalit said at The Makers Summit 2022.

Groww raised $83 Mn in its Series D funding, led by Tiger Global, to enter the unicorn club. The round also saw participation from existing investors Sequoia India, Ribbit Capital, YC Continuity and Propel Venture Partners. Later in the year, Groww also raised $251 Mn in its Series E round, which valued the Indian startup at $3 Bn.

Gupshup

Founded by Beerud Sheth in 2004, Gupshup is a conversational messaging platform that caters to businesses from multiple sectors, including banking, ecommerce, hospitality, and consumer goods, among others. Along with India, it also has presence in the US and Latin America. Some of its clients include Kotak Mahindra Bank, IndusInd Bank, HDFC Bank, Ola, Zomato, and Flipkart. 

San Francisco-headquartered Gupshup entered the unicorn club in 2021 after raising $100 Mn in its Series F funding round led by Tiger Global Management.

The enterprisetech unicorn recently acquired a 100% stake in conversational AI provider AskSid in an all-cash deal to strengthen its customer experience offerings. In the last few months, Gupshup acquired Dotgo, Knowlarity, and Active.Ai.

Infra.Market

Founded in 2016 by Aaditya Sharda and Souvik Sengupta, Infra.Market is a B2B online procurement marketplace for real estate and construction material. The platform aggregates demand and matches it with the supply chain, with wholesale pricing on materials, along with affordable credit or financing.

The company’s platform connects its clients directly to its supply chain infrastructure for the ease of ordering, tracking and manufacturing till on-site delivery.

Infra.Market hit unicorn valuation in 2021 after it raised $100 Mn in a Series C funding round. It has backing of Accel, Tiger Global, InnoVen Capital, and Nexus Venture Partners, among others. The B2B startup has raised $376 Mn to date across various funding rounds.

Innovaccer

Founded in 2014 by Kanav Hasija, Abhinav Shashank and Sandeep Gupta, Innovaccer is a healthtech SaaS startup based out of Delhi-NCR. Innovaccer unifies previously siloed data and helps healthcare providers achieve better care quality at a lower cost. It further allows its customers and partners to develop interoperable applications to improve patient outcomes. 

The Innovaccer Health Cloud software is used by more than 50 healthcare organisations. Currently, the platform is being used to maintain medical records of over 24 Mn patients. It claims to generate savings of more than $600 Mn for institutions and healthcare providers in the US. 

Innovaccer hit unicorn valuation in 2021, it was the first healthtech unicorn in India, after raising $105 Mn in a Series D round. Shortly thereafter, the company raised another $150 Mn, taking its valuation to $3.2 Bn.

Licious

Founded in 2015 by Vivek Gupta and Abhay Hanjura, Licious is a D2C foodtech brand focused on cold-chain food deliveries, including meat. Licious functions on the farm to fork business model, meaning that the company owns the entire back-end supply chain.

In the fresh meat category, Licious specialises in chicken, goat, and lamb products, among others. Besides this, the company also offers a range of fish and seafood products, along with exotic meat varieties like turkey, blue crab, quail and Atlantic salmon.

The D2C startup became a unicorn in 2021, when it raised $52 Mn in its Series G round led by IIFL AMC’s Late Stage Tech Fund. The company is backed by IIFL, along with 3one4 Capital, Bertelsmann India Investments, Mayfield Fund, Nichirin, Temasek Holdings and Vertex. It has raised $488 Mn in funding so far.

Mamaearth

Founded in 2016 by Ghazal and Varun Alagh, Mamaearth initially started by selling baby care products but gradually moved on to become a complete personal care brand. 

The startup’s offering consists of a wide range of products, including hair, face and body products, among others. The startup claims that its products are dermatologically tested and FDA approved. It also claims that the products are ‘Made Safe’ certified. 

Mamaearth enjoys the backing of marquee investors like Sequoia India, Stellaris Ventures, Fireside Ventures, Marico’s Rishabh Mariwala, Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, and Shilpa Shetty Kundra, among others. It has raised $111 Mn so far across various funding rounds. It crossed the $1 Bn valuation mark in December 2021, raising $38 Mn from Sequoia.

MapmyIndia

Founded in 1995 by Rakesh Verma, MapmyIndia is a digital mapping startup that offers geospatial data services to other companies, along with rivaling Google Maps and Apple Maps for mapping in the country.

With over 2,000 customers (as of September 2021) including the likes of Apple, Uber, Amazon, BMW, Honda, Toyota, Mercedes, Ola, Yulu, Flipkart, HDFC Bank as well as public sector entities such as the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), UMANG e-governance app, ISRO, and others.

MapmyIndia has been profitable for several fiscals now, and it was listed in December 2021, becoming the third profitable tech startup to make a public markets debut, following beauty marketplace Nykaa, and used car marketplace CarTrade.

It charted the unicorn territory with its IPO itself, hitting a market cap of more than $1 Bn with the initial listing. At business close on 9th May, its market cap hovers ever so slightly below the market value.

Meesho

Founded by Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal in 2015, Meesho is an online reseller network for individuals and small and medium businesses (SMBs), who sell products within their network on social channels such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. It has about 13 Mn individual entrepreneurs, bringing the ecommerce benefits to 45 Mn customers pan India.

Meesho counts B Capital Group, DST Partners, Elevation Capital, Facebook, Fidelity Management And Research Company, Investopad, Prosus & Naspers, Raju Garg, RPS Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, Shunwei Capital, SoftBank Vision Fund, Venture Highway, and Y Combinator among its investors. It has raised upwards of $1 Bn through various funding rounds.

The startup became India’s first social commerce unicorn in India after it raised $300 Mn in a funding round.

Mensa Brands

Founded in May 2021 by Ananth Narayanan, Mensa Brands is a Thrasio model-based rollup ecommerce unicorn.

Mensa Brands’ current portfolio includes Pune-based women’s apparel brand Karagiri, Delhi NCR-based jewellery brand Priyaasi, men’s casualwear brand Hubberholme, Mumbai-based men’s casual wear brand Dennis Lingo, women ethnic wear brand Ishin, smart FMCD startup Helea, Jaipur-based ethnic wear brand Anubhutee, Ahmedabad-based men’s care brand Villain, among others. It claims that the majority of these brands are growing at 100% YoY.

Mensa Brands achieved a $1 Bn valuation after raising $135 Mn in its Series B round led by Alpha Wave Ventures and Falcon Edge Capital. With this, the startup became the fastest to reach unicorn valuation in India, within just 6 months. The startup counts Accel, Alpha Wave Incubation, Alteria Capital, Falcon Edge Capital, InnoVen Capital, and Norwest Venture Partners among its investors, and has raised $218 Mn so far.

Mindtickle

Founded in 2011 by Krishna Depura, Deepak Diwakar, and Nishant Mungali, Mindtickle is a Pune-based sales enablement platform that focuses on improving the sales function in businesses by understanding ideal sales behaviours, increasing seller knowledge and skillsets, and incorporating real-world feedback from their meetings with customers. 

The Pune and San Francisco-based company claims to cut training time for salespeople who need to be kept up-to-date on new product lines. It also offers solutions for onboarding, micro-learning, skills development and coaching to companies that have been using legacy learning management systems (LMS).

Mindtickle counts Canaan Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Norwest Venture Partners, and SoftBank Vision Fund among its investors.  It has raised more than $281 Mn across various funding rounds. It hit unicorn valuation in August 2021 when it raised $100 Mn in its Series E round of funding.

MobiKwik

Founded in 2009 by the husband-wife duo of Bipin Preet Singh and Upasana Taku, the fintech startup offers multiple financial services. It started its journey as a digital wallet and then pivoted into a horizontal fintech platform that offers multiple financial services, including credit, insurance, and gold loans, among others.

MobiKwik joined the $1 Bn club in October 2021 after a few of its employees exercised employee stock option plans (ESOPs).

Sequoia Capital India, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Hindustan Media Venture, and Bajaj Finserv Limited are among its key investors. The fintech unicorn has raised $202 Mn across various funding rounds.

MobiKwik plans to go for an initial public offering (IPO) to raise INR 1,900 Cr at a valuation of $1.5 Bn–$1.7 Bn. However, so far, it has not made any move for it owing to market volatility following the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Mobile Premier League

Founded in 2018 by Shubh Malhotra and Sai Srinivas Kiran G, Mobile Premier League, also known as MPL, is an esports gaming startup which offers various gaming options from skill-based games like daily fantasy sports and chess to casual games such as 8 Ball Pool and Fruit Ninja.

MPL claims to have 85 Mn users in India, the US, and Indonesia. Over the years, the startup has partnered with several game developers and added over 70 games to its platform. Sequoia Capital India and Times Internet are among its key investors. MPL has raised more than $376 Mn from its key investors.

The gaming startup hit unicorn valuation in 2021 when it raised around $150 Mn from Legatum Capital, Accrete Capital and Gaingels LLC at a pre-money valuation of $2.3 Bn.

Moglix

Founded in 2015, Moglix is an ecommerce marketplace for different kinds of industrial tools such as power tools, hand tools, adhesives, safety and security, and electricals. It procures and supplies safety tools, hardware, office supplies and more. Moglix runs a supply chain network of 16,000+ suppliers and more than 35 warehouses and logistics infrastructure.

The company serves over 500K small and medium businesses (SMB) and big enterprises including Hero MotoCorp, Vedanta, Tata Steel, Unilever and Air India. It has also set up 3,000 manufacturing plants across India, Singapore, UK and UAE.

The Delhi-NCR-based B2B startup has 13 key investors, which include the likes of Accel, Tiger Global Management, Sequoia Capital India and Ratan Tata, among others. Moglix has raised $622 Mn across various funding deals, hitting the unicorn valuation in 2021 when it raised a $120 Mn funding round in May.

Recently, it crossed $2.6 Bn in valuation, which saw its early investors making as much as 80X returns.

NoBroker

Founded in 2014 by Akhil Gupta, Amit Agarwal, and Saurabh Garg, NoBroker is a Bengaluru-based real estate platform. It provides verified listings from property owners, without any brokerage fees for middlemen. The startup also has the NoBroker Financial Service platform which provides home loans, and the NoBroker Home Services platform which provides packers and movers and legal documentation, among other services.

The company recently launched a tech-enabled security management system called NoBrokerHood that aims to simplify visitor management within residential accommodations and also offers a seller’s marketplace for verified users. 

NoBroker counts Elevation Capital, General Atlantic, and Tiger Global Management among its nine key investors. The proptech startup hit unicorn valuation in 2021, after raising $210 Mn in a Series E funding round led by General Atlantic and Tiger Global.

OfBusiness

Founded in 2015 by Asish Mohapatra, Ruchi Kalra, and Bhuvan Gupta, with Nitin Jain, and Vasant Sridhar joining as cofounders, later on, OfBusiness is primarily a B2B ecommerce marketplace. It also offers working capital financing for the procurement of raw materials to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing and infrastructure space. Its value-added services also include integrated SaaS products.

“Our businesses have grown 3x over the last year just on the impact of the sheer economic recovery we are seeing,” Sridhar had said while speaking at Inc42’s The Makers Summit 2022. He also added that OfBusiness’ lending segment and commerce business saw 2x and 4x growth, respectively, in the same period.

Kotak Mahindra Bank, Norwest Venture Partners, SoftBank Vision Fund, and Tiger Global Management are among the key investors in the B2B marketplace. It is valued at $5 Bn currently and has raised almost $900 Mn in funding across multiple rounds.

OfBusiness became a unicorn in 2021, six years after its incorporation when it raised $160 Mn in a funding round led by SoftBank.

PharmEasy

Founded in 2015 by Dharmil Sheth, Dr Dhaval Shah, and Mikhil Innani, PharmEasy is a healthtech startup that offers an online pharmacy on its platform. The company caters to the chronic care segment and offers a range of services such as teleconsultation, medicine deliveries, and sample collections for diagnostic tests. Post its merger with Medlife, the resulting entity was named API Holdings.

PharmEasy claims to have partnered with over 60K+ brick-and-mortar pharmacies across India and has reportedly served over 20 Mn patients since its inception.

The epharmacy became a unicorn in 2021 after its parent API Holdings raised $323 Mn in a Series E funding round at a valuation of $1.5 Bn. Since its incorporation, PharmEasy has raised $1 Bn in funding across various rounds from marquee investors, such as Prosus Ventures, TPG, Amansa Capital, and Blackstone-backed hedge fund ApaH Capital, among others.

Pristyn Care

Founded in 2018 by Harsimarbir Singh, Vaibhav Kapoor, and Garima Sawhney, Pristyn Care is a Gurugram-based healthtech startup. Pristyn offers affordable advanced surgical care to patients through innovative surgical techniques and recovery measures.

The startup has partnerships with over 700 hospitals in more than 40 cities to provide surgeries and treatments for proctology, urology, ENT, gynaecology, and vascular, among others. Pristyn Care claims that it has more than 300 full-time doctors and has performed more than 45,000 surgeries so far.

Pristyn hit unicorn valuation in 2021 after it raised $96 Mn in a funding round, four months after raising $53 Mn. The unicorn counts Epiq Capital, Hummingbird Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Tiger Global among its backers. It has raised $164 Mn in various funding rounds.

Checkout The Indian Unicorn Tracker

Rebel Foods

Founded in 2011 by Jaydeep Barman and Kallol Banerjee, Rebel Foods is a  Mumbai-based foodtech startup. Its house of brands includes Faasos, Behrouz Biryani, Ovenstory Pizza, Mandarin Oak, The Good Bowl, SLAY Coffee, Sweet Truth, Wendy’s, among others.

With more than 450 kitchens across 70+ cities, Rebel Foods has developed its full-stack technology – Rebel OS – through which, it claims, multiple brands are launched and scaled up in a short period. It is eyeing an IPO in the next 18-24 months.

The foodtech startup hit unicorn valuation in 2021 after raising $175 Mn in a Series F funding round. It is backed by Alteria Capital, Goldman Sachs, InnoVen Capital, Lightbox, Qatar Investment Authority, Sequoia Capital, Sequoia Capital India, and Sistema Asia Capital. Rebel Foods has raised upwards of $500 Mn in its various funding rounds.

ShareChat

Founded in 2015 by Ankush Sachdeva, Bhanu Singh and Farid Ahsan, ShareChat is a Bengaluru-based social media startup. It positions itself as an Indic language social media platform, with an average user time spent of 31 minutes daily.

Currently, ShareChat is the highest valued social media platform in India. It competes with Chingari, Mitron, and DailyHunt’s Josh, among others. 

It crossed the unicorn valuation in April 2021 after raising $502 Mn in a funding round. The unicorn raised $913 Mn in funding in 2021 alone. It has raised $1.77 Bn across all rounds to date and is backed by the likes of Google, Lightspeed, Temasek Holdings, Tiger Global, Twitter, and Xiaomi, among others.

ShareChat merged with short video platform MX TakaTak in a $700 Mn deal in February 2022.

slice

Founded in 2016 by Rajan Bajaj, slice is a fintech startup that offers payment cards and credit cards to millennial and Generation Z customers. 

The startup issues credit cards and payment cards to this segment in partnership with Visa and SBM Bank, while also offering rewards and discounts on payments. The startup provides a credit line starting from INR 10,000 and going up to INR 10 Lakh. slice claims that it has a registered user base of over 5 Mn and a 40% month-on-month growth rate. It ships over 2,00,000 credit cards each month.

The fintech startup hit unicorn valuation in 2021 when it raised $220 Mn in its Series B round. It has raised almost $300 Mn from its 8 key investors, including Das Capital, Insight Partners, Pegasus Wings Group, and Tiger Global.

Spinny

Founded in 2015 by Niraj Singh, Mohit Gupta and Ramanshu Mahaur, Spinny is a Delhi-NCR-based online used car marketplace. Spinny competes against the likes of CarsTrade, Droom, Cars24, Cardekho, OLX, Quikr and OlaCars. 

It operates across the entire value chain of pre-owned cars and claims to embed superior technology and processes to deliver a premium experience to customers. The startup has 15 car hubs that operate across eight cities – Delhi-NCR, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata, and Ahmedabad.

Spinny hit unicorn valuation in 2021 after raising $283 Mn in a Series E funding round, in which its valuation soared to $1.8 Bn from around $800 Mn in the round before. It has raised more than $530 Mn in various funding rounds to date. Spinny is backed by the likes of Abu Dhabi Growth Fund, Accel, Elevation Capital, and Tiger Global Management, among others.

upGrad

Ronnie Screwala-led edtech startup upGrad entered the unicorn club in August last year. Founded in 2015 by Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, Phalgun Kompalli, and Ravijot Chugh, it offers higher education courses in collaboration with various universities. The startup last raised $185 Mn in a funding round led by Singapore’s sovereign fund Temasek at a valuation of over $1.2 Bn. 

The startup has been on an acquisition spree this year. It has acquired Insofe, Talentedge, and Work Better this year.

Urban Company

Gurugram-based hyperlocal services startup Urban Company was founded in 2014 by Abhiraj Bhal, Raghav Chandra, and Varun Khaitan. The startup offers a range of services from beauty and spa at home to appliance repairing. It achieved the unicorn status in June last year after bagging $255 Mn in its Series F round.

The startup is backed by marquee investors like US-based Tiger Global, Steadview Capital, Vy Capital, among others. Earlier this year, Inc42 had exclusively reported about Urban Company’s foray into medical video consultation.

Vedantu

Bengaluru-based K12 focussed edtech startup Vedantu was founded in 2014 by Vamsi Krishna, Anand Prakash, and Pulkit Jain. The startup offers an interactive online tutoring platform. Currently,  over 35 Mn students attend its live classes every month, with teachers delivering 8 Mn+ hours of live classes. 

Last month, the startup launched an immersive platform W.A.V.E 2.0 to bring further innovation in live classes. 

Vedantu entered the unicorn club in September last year after raising $100 Mn led by Temasek, ABC World Asia, Tiger Global among others.

Zeta

Founded in 2015 by Bhavin Turakhia and Ramki Gaddipati, Zeta offers cloud-native neo-banking platform for the issuance of credit, debit and prepaid products. It also provides digitised solutions to enterprises such as automated cafeteria billing and more.

Headquartered in Bengaluru, Zeta serves big fintech firms and banks including Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Yes Bank, Induslnd Bank, and HDFC Bank. Zeta has more than 1,300 employees across US, UK, Middle East, and Asia. The startup claims to have served eight issuers and 30 fintech firms. In total, Zeta says that it has issued more than 10 Mn cards.

Zeta entered the unicorn club in 2021, having raised $250 Mn in its Series C funding round led by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank. Recently, credit card giant MasterCard has invested in the fintech unicorn, and the two will bring co-branded credit cards soon.

Zetwerk

Founded in 2018 by Amrit Acharya, Srinath Ramakkrushnan, and Vishal Chaudhary, Zetwerk entered the unicorn club in August 2021 after raising $150 Mn from D1 Capital Partners. 

The startup is a manufacturing services platform that connects manufacturing companies with vendors and suppliers for customised products, industrial machine components and other equipment. The startup reported sales of INR 828.6 Cr in FY21, while reducing its losses to INR 41.2 Cr. 

Last year, Zetwerk raised $210 Mn in a funding round led by GreenOaks Capital at a valuation of over $2.5 Bn valuation.

Unicorns In India: Indian Startups That Entered The Unicorn Club In 2020

Cars24

Founded in 2015 by Vikram Chopra, Gajendra Jangid, Ruchit Agarwal and Mehul Agrawal, Cars24 is an ecommerce platform for pre-owned vehicles, including cars and bikes. In 2019, it also procured a non-banking financial company (NBFC) licence from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to venture into consumer lending business.

In 2020, the Gurugram-based startup entered the unicorn club by raising $200 Mn in a Series E funding round led by DST Global. Within five years of its inception, it became the first used car marketplace to join the unicorn league.

FirstCry

Founded in 2010 by Supam Maheshwari and Amitava Saha, FirstCry offers different categories of baby and kids products from clothing to other essentials. Besides the online presence, the startup also has a retail footprint. 

The Pune-based baby products marketplace turned unicorn in 2020 when it raised $296 Mn from Japan-based Softbank’s Vision Fund at a valuation of $1.2 Bn. Later, the startup raised around $315 Mn from TPG, ChrysCapital and Premji Invest. To date, the ecommerce unicorn has raised $741 Mn in funding.

The startup is gearing up for its initial public offering (IPO), and recently converted itself into a public company.

The Pune-based startup posted a profit after tax of INR  215.94 Cr in FY21, as against a loss of INR 190.8 Cr in FY20. FirstCry’s consolidated total revenue soared to INR 1,740 Cr, a 141.3% rise from INR 896.7 Cr in FY20. 

Glance

While 2021 proved to be a watershed year for the Indian startup ecosystem, with 42 startups joining the unicorn club, the pandemic-hit 2020 was among the most difficult years for startups amid uncertainty. However, Glance was among the few startups which weathered the storm and entered the unicorn club in 2020. The startup, owned by adtech unicorn InMobi, turned unicorn after raising $145 Mn from Google and existing investor Mithril Capital.

Glance delivers AI-driven personalised content in multiple languages, including English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Bahasa, on the lock screen of Android smartphones. The content includes trending news across a range of categories, such as entertainment, sports, and fashion, and is delivered in a visually rich format. In 2019, Glance also acquired Roposo, a short-video platform. 

It must be noted that Glance was the second unicorn to emerge from Naveen Tewari founded InMobi group. Glance raised $200 million in its Series D round from Reliance-owned Jio Platforms in February this year. The Google and Reliance-backed startup recently launched Glance TV – a live, interactive content platform for the home screen of Android smart TVs.

Nykaa

Founded in 2012 by Falguni Nayar, Nykaa is an online marketplace for beauty and wellness products. After starting as an online platform, Nykaa also launched offline stores in 2015, and currently has 80+ outlets today across three formats, driving an omnichannel presence.

Fidelity Management and Research Company, Lighthouse Funds, Steadview Capital, Sunil Munjal, and TPG Growth are the key investors in the ecommerce platform. Besides, it also counts Bollywood stars Katrina Kaif and Alia Bhatt as investors. Nykaa hit unicorn valuation in 2020 after raising two funding rounds in March and May from Steadview Capital, reaching $1.2 Bn in valuation.

Nykaa went public in 2021, with its shares listing at a huge premium on the stock exchanges over its IPO price. On the NSE, its shares were listed at INR 2,018, higher by 79.37% than the issue price of INR 1,125. On the BSE, the shares are listed at INR 2,001 apiece. Nykaa’s shares closed at INR 1,643.60 on the BSE on Wednesday (May 4).

Pine Labs

Founded in 1998 by Lokvir Kapoor, Tarun Upaday and Rajul Garg, Pine Labs is a fintech startup that enables businesses to accept online and offline digital retail transactions. 

The startup claims that its cloud-based platform powers over 1,40,000 merchants, and 3.5 lakh PoS (point of sale) terminals across 3,700 cities and towns in India and Malaysia. The fintech unicorn also claims to process $30 Bn of transactions per year.

Pine Labs attained unicorn valuation in 2020. Since becoming a unicorn, the fintech startup has raised multiple rounds of funding, taking its current valuation to $5 Bn. It counts Flipkart, Investco, Lone Pine Capital, Mastercard, PayPal Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, Temasek Holdings, and Alpha Wave Ventures among its key investors. It has raised $1.4 Bn across various funding rounds and is eyeing a US listing this year.

Postman

Founded in 2014 by Abhinav Asthana, Abhijit Kane, and Ankit Sobti, Postman is a San Fransico and Bengaluru-based B2B SaaS startup. Postman helps developers and companies build new applications through the application programming interface (API) workflow.

Postman boasts of more than 17 Mn users and 500K organisations on its platform. The startup said that 98% of its clients are Fortune 500 companies, including the likes of Salesforce, Cisco, PayPal, and Microsoft. The company recently announced that its public API Network is now the largest API hub in the world, with more than 75,000 APIs shared on the network.

The SaaS startup hit unicorn valuation in 2020, raising $150 Mn in a Series C funding round. In 2021, it raised another $225 Mn in funding, becoming India’s highest-valued B2B SaaS startup, at a valuation of $5.6 Bn. It counts CRV, Insight Partners, and Nexus Venture Partners among its key investors.

Razorpay

Founded in 2014 by Harshil Mathur and Shashank Kumar, Razorpay is a Bengaluru-based B2B fintech startup that provides APIs for payment gateways to other companies. It started as a payments gateway but has now expanded to provide services such as SME payroll management, banking, lending, and payments, among others.

According to Razorpay, it powers payments for 34 of the 42 startups that turned unicorn in 2021. It achieved $60 Bn TPV (Total Payment Volume) as of early December 2021 and plans to achieve $90 Bn TPV by the end of 2022.

It hit unicorn valuation in 2020 after raising $100 Mn from existing investors and GIC. Since then, it has raised another $535 Mn in two funding rounds, taking its total fundraising to well over $739 Mn and its valuation to $7.5 Bn. Razorpay is backed by marquee VC firms such as Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global Management, along with the likes of MasterCard and Salesforce.

Unacademy

Bengaluru-based Unacademy is currently the country’s second most valued edtech startup after BYJU’S. Initially founded as a YouTube channel, founders Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, and Hemesh Singh officially registered Unacademy in 2015.

The startup was the second in the edtech segment, after BYJU’S, to achieve the unicorn status in September 2020, when it raised $150 Mn in a round led by Japan’s SoftBank.

The startup has to date raised close to a billion dollars in funding, counts Tiger Global, General Atlantic, Blume Ventures, Steadview Capital, and Sequoia Capital among its investors. 

Unacademy, which mostly focuses on test prep and upskilling, claims to have more than 50,000 registered educators and more than 62 Mn learners. The startup offers content in 14 languages across 5,000 cities.

VerSE Innovation (DailyHunt)

Founded in 2009 by Umesh Kulkarni and Chandrashekhar Sohoni as NewsHunt, the Bengaluru-based content startup rebranded as DailyHunt in 2015. NewsHunt was acquired by VerSe Innovation in 2012.

DailyHunt parent VerSe Innovation became India’s first tech unicorn focused on vernacular content after raising $100 Mn funding from Google, Microsoft and Falcon Edge’s Alpha Wave Incubation in December 2020.

Recently, VerSe Innovation raised $805 Mn in a round led by Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board (OTPPB), Luxor Capital and Sumeru Ventures. The deal is the largest investment round in 2022 so far, followed by Byju’s $800 Mn.

Dailyhunt claims to have 350 Mn+ monthly users, while it offers content in 15 languages from an ecosystem of over 100K content partners and individual content creators. Its parent company incurred a total consolidated loss of INR 807.9 Cr in FY21, almost a 97% jump from a loss of INR 410.2 Cr in FY20.

Zenoti

Spa and salon software startup Zenoti entered the unicorn club in December 2020, when it raised $160 Mn in a funding round led by Advent International and Sunley House Capital, along with Tiger Global and Steadview Partners. 

Founded by Sudheer Koneru and Dheeraj Koneru in 2010, Zenoti is an all-in-one cloud-based software for spas, salons, and medi-spas. 

Later, in the first half of 2021, the startup bagged $80 Mn, led by TPG Global, at a valuation of $1.5 Bn. 

Zerodha

Founded by brothers Nithin Kamath and Nikhil Kamath, Zerodha is one of the few Indian startups that is often looked at as a successfully run business. It is among the handful of Indian startups to have entered the unicorn club without raising any money from external investors.

The startup continues to remain bootstrapped, completely operating on the basis of its earnings. 

Zerodha, which entered the unicorn club in 2021, posted total revenue of INR 2,729.6 Cr in FY21, a 2.5X rise from INR 1,093.7 Cr in FY20. Its total profit stood at INR 1,122.3 Cr in FY21, an increase of 164.7% from INR 423.9 Cr in FY20.

Checkout The Indian Unicorn Tracker

Unicorns In India: Indian Startups That Entered The Unicorn Club In 2019

BigBasket

Founded in 2011 by VS Sudhakar, Hari Menon, Vipul Parekh, V S Ramesh and Abhinay Choudhari, the grocery delivery startup BigBasket has not only evolved but also witnessed a rapid change in consumer behaviour, especially during the pandemic.

However, even before the online grocery delivery segment went mainstream in India, BigBasket turned unicorn by raising $150 Mn in its Series F funding round in 2019. Last year, Tata Digital acquired a majority stake in the online grocery startup. Riding on the recent wave of quick commerce, BigBasket has also launched the express delivery service BB Now.

Delhivery

Delhivery became the first Indian logistics startup to enter the coveted unicorn club in 2019 after SoftBank invested $413 million from its Vision Fund in it.

Founded in 2011, the Gurugram-based startup offers logistics services such as express parcel transportation, LTL (less than truckload) and FTL (full truckload) freight, reverse logistics, cross-border, B2B & B2C warehousing, end-to-end supply chain services and technology services.

The logistics unicorn is gearing up for its initial public offering (IPO) which will open for the public on May 11 and close on May 13.

The price band for the IPO has been set at INR 462-487 per share.

Dream11

Founded in 2008 by Harsh Jain and Bhavit Sheth, Dream11 offers its users fantasy gaming in categories such as cricket, football, kabaddi, among others. The Mumbai-based fantasy gaming startup joined the Indian unicorn club with an investment round led by Steadview Capital in April 2019. It became the first gaming startup to achieve a $1 Bn-plus valuation. 

Last year, ahead of the beginning of the new Indian Premier League (IPL 2021) season, Dream Sports, the parent company of Dream11, announced the completion of a $400 Mn secondary investment led by TCV, D1 Capital Partners and Falcon Edge. The funding round helped Dream11’s valuation inch closer to $5 Bn. It also claims to have reached 14 cr users in 2021.

Dream11 saw a 53% growth in its revenue from operations in FY21. The gaming unicorn posted INR 2,554.4 Cr in revenue from operations in FY21,  as compared to INR1,670.2 Cr earned in FY20.

Druva

Founded in 2008 by Jaspreet Singh, Milind Borate, and Ramani Kothandaraman, Druva offers cloud data protection and information management solutions to enterprises by leveraging the public cloud with an integrated cloud management console.

NASA, pharma giant Pfizer, hotel chain Marriott, the US National Cancer Institute, and global logistics player DHL are among its clients.

The Pune-based startup joined the unicorn club after it raised $130 Mn in June 2019 in a round led by Viking Global Investors. Last year, it raised $147 Mn in a new round of funding at a valuation of over $2 Bn. 

Icertis

Founded in 2009 by Monish Darda and Samir Bodas, Icertis is SaaS company that provides contract management services to enterprises. The company’s flagship product, Icertis Contract Management (ICM), can manage sell-side, buy-side, and corporate enterprise contracts across the globe.

The Seattle and Pune-based software company joined the unicorn club in 2019 after it raised $115 Mn in a funding round led by US-based venture capital firm Greycroft and PremjiInvest.  Earlier this year, Icertis raised an undisclosed amount from German-based SaaS giant SAP. With this funding round, Icertis’ valuation reportedly reached $5 Bn.

Icertis also provides business applications to manage clinical trials, collaboration modules, GDPR compliance, risk management, among others. The company caters to multiple industries such as financial services, healthcare, pharmaceutical, retail, and manufacturing industries.

Lenskart

Founded in 2011 by Amit Chaudhary and Peyush Bansal, Lenskart is a Delhi-NCR-based vertical ecommerce startup for the eyewear segment, and other eye care products and services. 

The company claims to reach 100K customers per month. Lenskart also boasts of serving more than 7 Mn customers annually through its omnichannel shopping experience, which spans online, mobile application, and over 750 omnichannel stores in 175 cities across the country.

In 2021, Lenskart launched ‘Vision Fund’ under which it would invest $2 Mn in selected startups synergistic to the eyewear, eye care, and omnichannel retail sectors. 

Lenskart became the first D2C startup to reach unicorn valuation when it raised $231 Mn from SoftBank in 2019. Recently, it raised $24.7 Mn in a fresh round of investment from its existing investor Epiq Capital, taking its total fundraising to date to well over $770 Mn.

Ola Electric

Initially established as Ola’s EV venture in 2017, Ola Electric Mobility was set up as an independent entity in March 2019. The company makes electric two-wheelers, while also running pilots for the country’s electric charging infrastructure, including charging stations and battery swapping stations.

The company has invested INR 2,400 Cr in building the largest EV manufacturing facility in the country. The EV unicorn sold 9,121 e-scooters in March 2022, according to reports. It also plans to expand into four-wheeler EVs.

The company has 12 key investors, including Falcon Edge Capital, Hyundai Motor Company, Kia Motors, Softbank, Tata Sons, Tiger Global Management, and Edelweiss. Ola Electric has raised around $863 Mn across various funding rounds to date. It crossed the $1 Bn valuation mark after it raised $250 Mn in Series B funding in 2019. Most recently, the e-mobility startup raised $200 Mn in January 2022, taking its valuation to $5 Bn.

Unicorns In India: Indian Startups That Entered The Unicorn Club In 2018 & Before

2018

Billdesk

Founded in 2000 by MN Srinivasu, Ajay Kaushal, and Karthik Ganapathy, Indian payments gateway startup BillDesk took almost two decades to achieve unicorn status. Mumbai-based IndiaIdeas.com Ltd, which operates BillDesk, joined the unicorn club in 2018 after a funding round. 

Later in 2021, Prosus, a global consumer internet group that operates fintech company PayU, acquired BillDesk for $4.7 Bn. At that time, it was touted as the largest acquisition deal in India’s fintech space. The deal also gave exit to investors General Atlantic, TA Associates, Temasek, Clearstone Ventures, and Visa.

As per reports, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) sought more information on the acquisition and its implications from PayU earlier this year. PayU India reportedly filed a revised merger notification with the antitrust watchdog a week ago.

BYJU’S

Founded in 2011 by Byju Raveendran, BYJU’S was the first edtech unicorn in India. The startup has a presence in 7 countries and more than 150 Mn students on its platform. BYJU’S flagship app, BYJU’S – The Learning App, has students from more than 1,700 cities. 

In March 2022, BYJU’S, which is reportedly gearing up for its initial public offering, raised $800 Mn in a strategic funding round led by CEO and founder Byju Raveendran, Sumeru Ventures, Vitruvian Partners, and BlackRock. With this round, Raveendran became the third Indian founder to invest in his own startup. The round also helped the company valuation soar to $22 Bn. 

The edtech platform has been named as the official sponsor of FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. With this partnership, the edtech startup became the first Indian company to be associated with the FIFA World Cup.

Checkout The Indian Unicorn Tracker

Freshworks

Founded by Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy in 2010, Freshworks offers a suite of softwares for customer management, which includes an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot and messaging platform for customer support, as well as call centre-based solutions for customer service resolutions.

The SaaS startup entered the unicorn club eight years after its incorporation when it raised $100 Mn from Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners and CapitalG. While SMBs have been a major focus area for the company since the beginning, it has also scaled up the number of mid-market enterprise clients in the last couple of years.

Mathrubootham, who is regarded as a veteran of the Indian SaaS industry, also successfully led the public listing of the company. Last year, the company became the first Indian SaaS startup to list on Nasdaq. As it made a stellar debut on the stock exchange, its market crossed $12 Bn on the first day itself. Interestingly, over 500 of its shareholding employees in India became ‘crorepatis’ following the listing.

OYO

Founded in 2013 by Ritesh Agarwal, OYO is one of the leading travel tech platforms in the country which provides accommodation and other solutions to users. OYO partners with hotels and lists them on its platform. Users can make hotel bookings as per their requirements. 

OYO has also expanded into providing technology solutions for hospitality facilities. The hospitality startup has expanded to more than 157K storefronts that use its full-stack hospitality technology solutions.

The hospitality unicorn is backed by marquee investors such as Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank, NASDAQ-listed Airbnb, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Innoven Capital, among others. The startup has raised almost $4.5 Bn to date from 26 investors across various funding rounds. 

OYO turned unicorn in 2018. Soon after, it raised a mammoth $1 Bn in a single funding round, valuing the traveltech startup at $5 Bn. The startup has also filed the DRHP for an IPO worth INR 8,430 Cr.

Paytm Mall

Paytm Mall, the ecommerce arm of Paytm, was established in 2017 by Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma. The ecommerce marketplace offers products in fashion, grocery, electronics, entertainment, beauty and health, and travel and holidays segments. It has partnered with multiple brands for the same.

Based on China’s TMall retail model, Paytm Mall operates as an independent entity and a consumer shopping app. 

The ecommerce arm of the fintech decacorn earned unicorn status when it raised $445 Mn in a funding round from SoftBank and Alibaba at a valuation of more than $1.6 Bn. Paytm Mall counts Softbank Vision Fund, Alibaba Group, and eBay among its key investors.  It has raised $645 Mn across various funding rounds so far.

PhonePe

Founded in 2015 by Burzin Engineer, Rahul Chari, and Sameer Nigam, PhonePe is a fintech platform that provides multiple financial services such as bank transfers, UPI-based payments, mobile recharges, and bill payments. The company has also diversified into providing digital insurance and other related services.

PhonePe was acquired by ecommerce giant Flipkart in 2016. According to the National Payment Corporation of India’s (NPCI’s) latest data, PhonePe is the biggest UPI app in terms of transaction volume as well as transaction value. The fintech startup saw more than 2.5 Bn transactions, worth more than INR 4.71 Tn, in March 2022.

PhonePe achieved unicorn status in 2018, merely 3 years after its incorporation. The fintech unicorn has raised more than $1 Bn in funding since 2016. Most recently, PhonePe’s Singapore-based parent company received $297 Mn in funding from Flipkart.

Policybazaar

Founded in 2008 by Yashish Dahiya, Avaneesh Nirjar, and Alok Bansal, Policybazaar aggregates insurance policies from a range of providers for use-cases, including life insurance, automobile insurance, health insurance and more.

Its parent company, Gurugram-based eTechAces Marketing and Consulting Pvt Ltd, also runs PaisaBazaar, a marketplace for loans and credit cards. Policybazaar became a unicorn in 2018, 10 years after its incorporation when it raised $200 Mn from SoftBank Vision Fund and InfoEdge. Its current valuation is well over $6 Bn.

Backed by the likes of SoftBank, Tencent, Tiger Global Management, True North, and Falcon Edge Capital, among others, the company has raised more than $700 Mn in various funding rounds. Policybazaar was listed on the stock exchanges in 2021, with an INR 6,017 Cr IPO.

Rivigo

Founded in 2014 by Deepak Garg and Gazal Kalra, Rivigo is a Delhi-NCR-based logistics startup. The company owns trucks and operates across multiple parts of India. Rivigo’s website claims that it owns a fleet of more than 5,000 trucks, and is present in more than 4,000 cities, covering around 29,765 pin codes across India.

The logistics startup offers both part-truck and full-truck deliveries, and also provides the option for cold-chain deliveries,  along with various pre-and post-delivery support services. Rivigo also launched the National Freight Index (NFI) to bring transparency to the largely unorganised logistics sector.

Rivigo first hit the unicorn valuation in 2018, when it raised $50 Mn in a Series D funding round. After it, its valuation declined to below $1 Bn for a short while but again crossed the threshold in 2019, raising $65 Mn in a Series E round. Warburg Pincus and SAIF Partners are among its key investors.

Swiggy

Founded in 2014 by Nandan Reddy, Rahul Jaimini and Sriharsha Majety, Swiggy is a food and groceries delivery decacorn, though it likes to call itself a logistics company. 

Since starting as a food delivery company, Swiggy has diversified into providing intra-city delivery services with Swiggy Genie and hyperlocal grocery delivery services with Swiggy Instamart (in which it invested $700 Mn last year). The startup will also offer online restaurant table booking with its acquisition of Dineout for $200 Mn earlier this year.

Currently, it claims to have more than 150K restaurants on its network, with a presence in more than 500 cities.

While Swiggy achieved unicorn status in 2018, it achieved the hallowed decacorn status in January 2022 after it raised $700 Mn in a funding round. So far, it has raised $4.4 Bn across multiple funding rounds. It is backed by Accel, SoftBank, Alpha Wave, Investco and Goldman Sachs, among others.

Udaan

Founded in 2016 by Sujeet Kumar, Amod Malviya and Vaibhav Gupta, Udaan is a B2B ecommerce platform.

It connects small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), manufacturers, wholesalers, traders, and retailers to sell goods and services to each other. It also offers a credit facility to select small sellers. It currently functions across electronics, home and kitchen products, clothing, and footwear segments. The startup claims to have a network of 25,000 sellers across the country, offering over 5 lakh product categories. Udaan is operational in 900 cities.

In 2018, Udaan became a unicorn when it raised a $225 Mn funding round. With that round, it became the then fastest startup to reach the unicorn status – within 2 years of its incorporation. Udaan is backed by BlackSoil Capital, Citi Ventures, InnoVen Capital, Lightspeed, and Tencent, among others. It has raised $1.4 Bn across funding rounds to date.

2017

ReNew Power

Founded in 2011 by Sumant Sinha, ReNew Power is a Delhi-NCR-based energytech startup. It is a renewable energy independent power producer (IPP). It develops, builds, owns, and operates utility-scale wind energy, solar energy, and hydro projects. 

As of April 2022, ReNew had a gross total portfolio of about 12.1 GW of renewable energy projects across India, including commissioned and committed projects

The cleantech startup joined the unicorn club in 2017 after raising $300 Mn through a rights issue. ReNew Energy raised $450 Mn in January 2022 by issuing dollar bonds. The bonds have a tenor of 5.25 years. It was the first high yield issuance out of the ASEAN and South Asian regions in 2022, it said.

2016 & Before

Hike

Hike was founded in 2012 by Kavin Bharti Mittal, the son of billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal, the chairman of Bharti Enterprises. Hike entered the unicorn club in 2016 when India didn’t have many startups valued at $1 Bn or more, by raising $175 Mn in a funding round.

Despite its high valuation and cash inflow, Hike has struggled to find a sustainable monetisation model. The startup, which started as a messaging app, tried to take the super app route with services such as digital wallet, ticket booking, ecommerce and more. However, as the endeavour did not pay off, Hike unbundled its super app in 2019 to focus on services that were showing traction.

Last year, Hike decided to shut down its messaging app to focus more on gaming and social media experiences.

In August last year, five years after the funding round which turned it into a unicorn, Hike raised an undisclosed amount of investment from Tinder cofounders Sean Rad and Justin Mateen, SoftBank Vision Fund CEO Rajeev Mishra, Tribe Capital’s Arjun Sethi and others.

Hike CEO Kavin Mittal had said then that the startup would utilise the capital to build platforms that will enable people to express themselves online through competition and interaction, along with hiring talent from different sectors such as cryptocurrency, gaming and social media platforms.

ShopClues

Founded in 2011 by Sandeep Aggarwal, Sanjay Sethi and Radhika Aggarwal, ShopClues was a Delhi-NCR-based ecommerce platform similar to the likes of Flipkart and Snapdeal. ShopClues claimed to be the first company to evangelise the ‘managed marketplace model’ in India. 

Currently, the ecommerce platform claims to get 100 Mn monthly visitors and has 600K sellers on the platform. It delivers to more than 32,000 pin codes across the country.

ShopClues counts Helion Venture Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, GIC, Tiger Global Management, InnoVen Capital, Unilazer Ventures, and Clues Network among its key investors, and has raised $256 Mn from them so far. The company hit unicorn valuation in 2015 after raising $100 Mn from Tiger Global and GIC.

The ecommerce platform was acquired by Singapore-based Qoo10 Pte Ltd in 2019, which saw the latter’s entry into the Indian market, valuing the once-unicorn ShopClues at about $70-$100 Mn.

InMobi

Founded in 2007 by Naveen Tewari, Mohit Saxena, Amit Gupta and Abhay Singhal, 

InMobi is a Bengaluru-based adtech startup. The company owns a variety of businesses such as Glance, a mobile content unicorn, and Roposo, a short-video content platform.

The company has operations across 5 continents and works mostly in the advertising space. However, its IPs also include content and social commerce, among other verticals.

In 2011, InMobi became the first Indian startup to turn into a unicorn. The company had raised $200 Mn from Sequoia Capital at a unicorn valuation.

Since then, it has also turned profitable, becoming the second Indian unicorn to do so after Mu Sigma. The company has raised $360 Mn in funding so far.

Flipkart

Founded in 2007 by Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal, ecommerce giant Flipkart was one of the earliest unicorns in India. The startup became a unicorn in 2012 after raising $150 million in a round led by South African tech major Naspers. 

The Bengaluru-based ecommerce startup was acquired by US retail giant Walmart in 2018. Walmart acquired a 77% stake in Flipkart for approximately $16 Bn. From a startup valued at $1 Bn in 2012 to reaching a valuation of over $37 Bn, the ecommerce giant has come a long way in the last ten years to emerge as the strongest rival of Amazon in India.

Flipkart raised $3.6 Bn in a funding round last year from a slew of investors, including its parent company. Besides Walmart, Singapore-based GIC, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), and SoftBank, through its Vision Fund II, also participated in the round. 

The ecommerce giant is reportedly planning its IPO next year. Moreover, it has raised its IPO valuation target to $60-70 Bn.

MakeMyTrip

Founded in 2000 by Deep Kalra, Keyur Joshi, and Rajesh Magow, online travel agent (OTA) MakeMyTrip offers air tickets, customised holiday packages, hotel bookings, railway tickets, and a plethora of other travel-related services to its customers.

Over time, the OTA platform also expanded its services to provide visa services, homestays, charter flights, buses, and cabs. MakeMyTrip recorded a 57.4% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) growth in gross bookings during Q3 FY22, and a 70.5% QoQ increase in revenue to $115 Mn.

The Delhi-NCR based startup counts Ctrip, Tiger Fund, Helion Venture Partners, and Sierra Ventures as its key investors, having raised $548 Mn thus far across various funding rounds. It hit unicorn valuation in 2016, shortly after Chinese OTA platform Ctrip invested $180 Mn in MakeMyTrip.

Checkout The Indian Unicorn Tracker

Mu Sigma

Founded in 2004 by Dhiraj Rajaram, Mu Sigma is a Bengaluru-based data science and analytics firm. The data analytics firm boasts of a clientele of over 140 Fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft Corp, Walmart Stores Inc, Dell Inc, and Pfizer Inc.

Mu Sigma counts Sequoia Capital, General Atlantic, and MasterCard as its key investors. However, General Atlantic has since sold its stake – it owned 20% – in the big data unicorn. 

The startup hit unicorn valuation in 2013, when it got $45 Mn from a MasterCard arm and a group of global financial investors, including Fidelity Investments, taking about a decade to become a unicorn. Currently, CEO Dhiraj Rajaram is the majority shareholder in the Chicago and Bengaluru-based unicorn with a 52% stake.

Ola

Founded in 2010 by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, Ola is one of Indian startup offering ride-sharing platforms.  It has also forayed into manufacturing electric vehicles (EVs), through its unicorn arm Ola Electric, and hyperlocal delivery, through its arm Ola Dash.

The transport tech unicorn had taken only four years to hit unicorn valuation. Steadview Capital, Tiger Global Management, Sequoia Capital India, Softbank Group, Accel Partners India, Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC), Mauritius Investments, SoftBank Capital, Ratan Tata, and Tencent Holdings are among its key investors. Ola has raised almost $5 Bn in funding across multiple equities and debt rounds since its incorporation. Most recently, Ola Cabs raised close to $20 Mn from Hong Kong-based Segantii Capital.

The ride-hailing platform is aiming for an IPO this year, with founder Aggarwal saying that the parent company ANI Technologies planned to list both Ola and Ola Electric on the stock exchanges. 

However, Aggarwal said that Ola will be listed first as it is a more mature business compared to Ola Electric, which was started just three years ago. 

Snapdeal

Founded in 2010 by Rohit Bansal and Kunal Bahl, Snapdeal is a Delhi-NCR-based ecommerce platform. It competes with the likes of Flipkart and Amazon in India’s ecommerce market.

Snapdeal claims to have 40.15 Mn monthly active users with over 200 Mn app installations. The startup says that 50.37 Mn customers have shopped on its platform since FY19, and it has 14.82 Mn annual transacting customers. Snapdeal covers 96.65% of the pin codes across the country and its net merchandise value stood at INR 374 Cr in Q2 FY22.

Snapdeal has received over $1.5 Bn in funding from marquee investors such as SoftBank, Foxconn Technology Group, and Alibaba Group. The ecommerce platform became a unicorn in 2014. In 2016, it was valued at $6.5 Bn when it raised $200 Mn. However, its valuation has fallen below the $1 Bn mark since then. 

The company was in lengthy talks with Flipkart for a merger in 2017, but the deal fell through. In 2021, Snapdeal filed a DRHP for an IPO worth INR 1,250 Cr, valuing the company at $1.5 Bn.

Info Edge

Founded in 1995 by Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Info Edge is a Delhi NCR-based discovery platform that runs jobs classifieds website Naurki.com and matrimony website Jeevansaathi.com, real estate platform 99Acres.com and education consultancy platform Shiksha.com.

The company has various businesses in the discovery segment. It recently increased its stake in dating platform Aisle, in a deal worth INR 91 Cr, to 76%. It has also made multiple investments across various verticals, including in Zomato, Recur Club, greyHR, and Zingbus, among others. Info Edge also announced an INR 100 Cr fund in 2020, aimed at backing tech startups

Currently, the company is valued at $10 Bn and is one of the four decacorns of the Indian startup ecosystem.

Paytm

Founded in 2010 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Paytm is a Delhi NCR-based fintech decacorn which offers payments services, bank transfers, mobile recharges, bill payments, travel and accommodation bookings, and multiple other financial services.

The company has 71 Mn monthly average users and 2.9 Mn devices deployed, along with a GMV of $34.5 Bn, as of Q4 FY22. Paytm went public in a mega IPO in November 2021 that was worth INR 18,300 Cr.

The decacorn has raised $2.5 Bn across multiple rounds so far, with the biggest round coming when Paytm raised $1.4 Bn from SoftBank in 2017, taking its valuation past the $10 Bn mark.

Quikr

Founded in 2008 by Pranay Chulet, Quikr is a Bengaluru-based online classifieds marketplace. The company allows its users to post classified advertisements on its online platforms.

At one point, the startup had 30 Mn monthly unique visitors and was present in 1,200 cities in India. Quikr spread its verticals across diverse domains like grocery, home rentals, beauty services as well as online recruitment. However, following a major scam at the company, it had to lay off around 2,000 employees in 2019.

The company first hit the $1 Bn valuation mark in 2015 after raising $150 Mn in funding from Tiger Global Management, Investment AB Kinnevik, and Steadview Capital. However, its valuation dipped below the mark for a while. It crossed the threshold again in 2019, however, it is currently valued below $1 Bn.

Zoho

Zoho, like Zerodha, is another startup that is closely followed and admired in the Indian startup ecosystem. Founded in 1996 by Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas, Zoho, which was initially known as AdventNet INC, is also a bootstrapped unicorn. 

The SaaS giant, which plans to continue to remain private, has more than 60 Mn customers and over 9K employees globally. With offices in the US, Singapore, UAE, Japan, among others, it has more than 50 integrated online applications that support multiple business operations spanning sales and marketing, finance, email and collaboration, app creator and analytics, among others.

The startup reported total revenue of INR 5,442.4 Cr in FY21, while its profit stood at INR 1,917 Cr.

Zomato

Food delivery giant Zomato is a household name and will always be remembered for being one of the first Indian tech startups to go for an IPO. 

Deepinder Goyal-led Zomato, which initially started as Foodiebay, entered the unicorn club in 2015. The foodtech unicorn, which made its IPO debut in July last year, is backed by Info Edge, Tiger Global, Alibaba, Sequoia Capital, Antfin, among others. 

Currently, the startup is heavily investing in companies that are into logistics or in ecommerce.

Checkout The Indian Unicorn Tracker

[This is a running list of Unicorns in India, we will be updating this list whenever an Indian startup enters the unicorn club]

Written by Hemant Kashyap, Gargi Sarkar, Debarghya Sil, Laxitha Mundhra

Update | 10th May, 11:50 PM IST

Story edited to incorporate correct details of Licious founders.

Update | 6th June, 11:00 AM IST 

Story edited to incorporate correct details of EaseMyTrip founders.

The post India’s Unicorn Club: Here’s The Comprehensive List Of 100+ Unicorns In India appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has blocked eight YouTube-based news channels, one Facebook account, and two Facebook posts under the IT rules 2021 for spreading disinformation related to India’s national security, foreign relations and public order. 

“The content blocked by the ministry was found to be detrimental to sovereignty and integrity of India, security of the State, India’s friendly relations with foreign States, and public order in the country. Accordingly, the content was covered within the ambit of section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000,” the ministry said in a statement.

Additionally, the blocked YouTube channels had a cumulative viewership of over 114 Cr, were subscribed by over 85 Lakh users, the ministry informed.

As stated by the ministry, the purpose of the content published by some of these YouTube channels was to spread hatred among religious communities in India. False claims were made in various videos of the blocked YouTube channels, the ministry added. 

“Examples include fake news such as the Government of India to have ordered demolition of religious structures; Government of India to have banned celebration of religious festivals, declaration of religious war in India, etc. Such content was found to have the potential to create communal disharmony and disturb public order in the country,” it said.

The eight channels that have been abolished are Loktantra TV, U&V TV, AM Razvi, Gouravshali Pawan Mithilanchal, SeeTop5TH, Sarkari Update, Sab Kuch Dekho, and Pakistan-based News ki Dunya.

All the YouTube channels blocked by the ministry were displaying advertisements on their videos having false content detrimental to communal harmony, public order and India’s foreign relations, the statement added.

Add to that, the blocked channels were displaying advertisements on their videos that consisted of false content detrimental to communal harmony, public order and India’s foreign relations.

With this, the ministry has banned a total of 102 YouTube news channels and various social media accounts since December 2021. 

By doing so, the Centre remains committed to ensuring an authentic and trustworthy online news media environment. It also thwarts any attempts at undermining the country’s sovereignty and integrity, national security, foreign relations, and public order, as per its statement.

In July, in a Parliament meeting, Union Minister Anurag Thakur said that the Centre blocked 94 YouTube channels and 19 social media accounts since 2021 for posting fake news and content threatening the integrity and sovereignty of the nation. 

The minister also informed that a total of 747 websites have been taken down since 2021 for spreading wrong information about the Centre and other sensitive matters. It was further informed that MIB’s fact check unit (FCU) responded to 34,125 actionable queries on various social media platforms up to July this year.

The post Centre Bans 8 YouTube News Channels For Spreading Disinformation appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Flipkart Ventures, an investment arm of ecommerce giant Flipkart is going to invest $500K in six startups as part of its accelerator program called Flipkart Leap Ahead.

Through the accelerator program, Flipkart aims to provide mentorship and guidance to early-stage startups to grow, scale, and build innovations for the country.

As a part of the program, the selected startups will undergo a 16-week mentorship program that has been designed by Bain & Company.

“With Flipkart Leap Ahead, we want to support startups in scaling their businesses and build solutions to solve problems in the consumer internet and tech ecosystem. Through this, we strive to be a catalyst in the growing startup community by continuing to expand our program each year and presenting growth opportunities to emerging entrepreneurs,” said Ravi Iyer, senior vice president and head of corporate development at Flipkart Ventures.

The 16-week program will include daily mentor connect sessions with Flipkart leaders across divisions including business, product, technology, and finance. At the end of the program, which is called Demo Day, the startups will present their ideas to investors and industry leaders. 

The six shortlisted startups for the accelerator program are metaverse startup Dopplr, blockchain-based insurtech startup Livwell, B2B logistic startup LogisticsNow, deeptech startup NeuroPixel.AI, full stack robotic startup Rightbot Technologies, and seller-centric intelligence startup SellerApp.

According to Flipkart, the six startups are building a wide range of solutions including a metaverse with virtual stores, robotic supply chain solutions, AI-led fashion cataloging, data analytics-based business optimisation and freight intelligence, among others to elevate customer and seller experiences.

The latest development comes at a time when Flipkart is facing the wrath of Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) for selling sub-standard culinary utensils. As a result, CCPA penalised the ecommerce giant with an INR 1 Lakh fine.

Yesterday, chief commissioner of CCPA, Nidhi Khare ordered Flipkart to order back all 598 sub-standard pressure cookers that were sold on its website and notify all distressed customers. 

Besides, Flipkart has also been under the Centre’s radar for some time now. Industry bodies such as CAIT asked the government to take action against the ecommerce player for using deep pricing practices and anti-competitive behavior. 

In Addition to that, the regulatory body CCI was reported to be examining Flipkart’s documents to understand financial dealings between ecommerce platform and its sellers in May this year. 

On the other hand, Flipkart’s backer Walmart lately reported that its global advertising business grew by 30%  in the July quarter 2022, on the back of strong performances by its American advertising subsidiary and Flipkart. 

In a quarterly report, Walmart said, “Global advertising business grew nearly 30%, led by Walmart Connect in the US and Flipkart advertising.”

The post Flipkart’s Accelerator Program To Invest $500K In Six Early-Stage Tech Startups appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Last month, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) notified a framework for listing on the Social Stock Exchange (SSE) that would provide social enterprises with an additional avenue to raise funds or donations. Developed on the basis of recommendations from a working group and technical group formed by SEBI, the SSE would now be a separate segment of a recognised stock exchange.

Social enterprises having social intent and impact as their primary goal would be eligible to participate in the SSE, and these entities would include both non-profit organisations (NPOs) and for-profit social enterprises. 

However, there are certain conditions based on which various entities would be deemed as social enterprises.

As per the framework, the eligibility criteria for being identified as a social enterprise would include demonstrating participation in activities for eradicating hunger, poverty, malnutrition, and inequality; promoting education, employability and livelihoods; promoting gender equality, empowerment of women and LGBTQIA+ communities; protection of national heritage, art and culture; slum area development; disaster management; promoting the welfare of migrants and displaced persons, among others.

There are multiple other conditions that the framework has prescribed. However, before delving deeper into the framework for SSE and its impact, let’s take a look at the broader concept. 

What Is SSE?

Like bond and equity trading platforms, SSEs are also trading platforms, but they allow only businesses that have a motive to make social impact to raise capital by attracting socially-conscious investors willing to fund such businesses.

It not only enables the social businesses to address the issue of funding crunch but also helps interested investors to get to know and fund such businesses whose names could often go unnoticed. 

SSEs are present in countries including Brazil, the UK, Singapore, Portugal, Canada, and South Africa. While the idea and motive are the same, the framework for these SSEs vary from one nation to the other.

In India, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman first floated the idea of SSE during her Budget Speech for the financial year 2019-20. “It is time to take our capital markets closer to the masses and meet various social welfare objectives related to inclusive growth and financial inclusion,” Sitharaman said.

Her proposal was to create an electronic fundraising platform or a social stock exchange under the regulatory ambit of SEBI for listing social enterprises and voluntary organisations working for the “realisation of a social welfare objective” so that they could raise capital as equity, debt, or as units like the mutual funds.

Post that, SEBI constituted a working group on SSE under the chairmanship of Ishaat Hussain on September 19, 2019. The working group included experts such as TV Mohandas Pai, chairman of Manipal Global Education; Vineet Rai, founder and chairman of Aavishkaar Venture Management Services; Amit Chandra, chairman of Bain Capital; among others.

The working group held its first meeting on October 1, 2019, and decided to follow a consultative approach. It again met in March and May of 2020 to finalise the report.

The panel released a comprehensive report on June 1, 2020, stating that the SSE in India can be housed under the existing stock exchanges – the BSE and the National Stock Exchange (NSE). 

In the report, the working group noted that the SSE will provide capacity building support to the NPOs, a majority of which are smaller organisations.

Besides, its recommendations were also motivated by “a very urgent concern” about the economic damage that Covid-19 had posed, especially to the poorest Indian households and a large section of the informal sector. 

The latest notifications on the SSE followed approval by the SEBI board for the framework in September last year.

Speaking to Inc42, Aavishkaar’s Rai said that the aim of creating the SSE is not to have a stock exchange but to find a mechanism whereby the social sector businesses can raise capital in a more accountable and transparent manner through a securities exchange.

For willing citizens to donate or invest in the social enterprises, the latter would first have to float a bond specifying the nitty-gritty of raising capital just like a listed company floats shares for people to buy them. Following that, once the documents for raising capital are approved, they would be marketed and available to the people willing to invest, explained Rai.

“From a social sector perspective, this is a great step in bringing transparency into the entire system and creating a formal channel for raising capital for social causes,” said Siddarth Pai, managing partner of venture capital firm 3one4 Capital.

What All The Framework Covers?

SEBI’s framework for SSE has several separate guidelines and covers crucial aspects like how the social enterprises can raise funds, SSE’s governing council, ineligibility for raising funds, among others.  

Corporate foundations, political or religious organisations or activities, professional or trade associations, infrastructure and housing companies, except affordable housing, will not be eligible to be identified as a social enterprise, according to the framework.

Speaking about the 17 criteria chosen for recognising an entity as a social enterprise, which includes empowering women, improving rural livelihood, and more, Rai explained that the broad areas are reasonably aligned with sustainable development goals, which are global initiatives that the government has to follow.

After being recognised as a social enterprise, if any of its promoters, promoter group or directors or selling shareholders or trustees are debarred from accessing the securities market by the SEBI, they would also not be eligible to raise funds on the SSE.

Besides, if an entity or any of its promoters or directors or trustees is a wilful defaulter or a fraudulent borrower or a fugitive economic offender, they would also be barred from raising capital through the SSE.

As per the framework, every SSE will constitute a governing council to oversee its functioning. The composition and terms of reference for such a body would be specified by the SEBI from time to time.

The for-profit entities may raise funds through issuance of debt securities, equity shares on the main board, SME platform or Innovators Growth Platform or equity shares issued to an Alternative Investment Fund (AIF), including a social impact fund.

On the other hand, the NPOs will have to mandatorily register with the SSE before raising funds through the exchange and they will be able to raise funds through the issuance of zero coupon, zero principal instruments to institutional investors, donations through mutual fund schemes, and others.

According to Rai, SSE has been ideated to find ways for enabling Indians to help other Indians by creating securities around donation and that’s where the idea of zero coupon, zero principal bond came up.

However, the NPOs will be required to file a draft fundraising document with the SSE and the latter would provide its observation on the document within 30 days from its filing or on receipt of any clarification. This process reiterates that the system of funding social sector enterprises would be more transparent as the documents will be available publicly and under SEBI’s regulations, the experts believe.

Steps Ahead

From a startup perspective, there are a variety of new business models they can end up supporting by helping these companies tap the market, helping them in terms of reporting back to their investors. Using technology, they can help companies involved in social businesses bring down their administrative costs, thereby enabling them to allocate more money to an actual social cause, said Pai.

“This is also a great foresight from the securities regulator to take the onus upon themselves to create a formal mechanism akin to how people raise IPO funding and apply that to the social sector,” he added.

Meanwhile, Rai said that the most important aspect of the SSE is that it aims to convert the act of giving or donations into security, which is pathbreaking.

The creation of SSE is a “pioneering innovation” but this innovation will only be successful if institutions of all kinds are able to convince people with capital to participate through the exchange into the new products, believes Rai.

“So, the framework for creating an SSE is the first step while there is a lot more to be done for success to come through,” he added.

The post How SEBI-Regulated Social Stock Exchange Will Help Organisations Working For Social Causes? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Investment tech startup Jar has secured $22.6 Mn in its Series B funding round at a post-money valuation of $300 Mn. 

The round was led by Tiger Global along with participation from Arkam Ventures, Eximius Ventures, Force Ventures, LetsVenture, Rocketship Venture Capital and WEH Ventures. 

New investors–1Finance, Capier Investments, Cloud Capital, Folius Ventures, Panthera Capital, Prophetic Ventures, Yes VC, Adam Nash from WealthFront and Zachary Hargreaves from Vires Aeronautics also participated in the round. 

Jar will use funds to develop its platform and expand workforce. 

“By starting with digital gold, Jar’s savings app has gained trust and traction from young earners that are interested in developing an investment strategy. We are impressed with the company’s rapid growth and are excited to double down as they expand into new asset classes,” said Alex Cook, partner at Tiger Global.

Including the current fundraising, Jar has raised $59.1 Mn in aggregate to date. 

The recent development comes after Jar secured $32 Mn in its Series A funding round in February this year. 

Founded in January 2021 by Nischay AG and Misbah Ashraf, Jar is a digital gold-saving investment platform. It operates a mobile-based app that allows users to make investments as small as INR 1. Its app works along with the digital payment app Paytm to enable recurring payments.  

Further, Jar allows users to make daily investments ranging from INR 1 to INR 500. It further permits users to invest round-up amounts from their daily spending. Later on, these gold investments can also be withdrawn or liquidated.

“We are seeing a 20% average growth in users’ savings from MoM and are excited to see them evolving into committed and confident investors. We will continue to expand our service offerings to suit them and help them achieve their goal of financial independence,” Nishchay AG said. 

Jar claims to record an average of 220,000 transactions on a regular basis. It also claims to have offered services to over 9 Mn users to date.

Earlier this year, Jar secured Series A funding led by Tiger Global along with Rocketship.vc, Third Prime, Stonks, Force Ventures, Arkam Ventures and WEH. Post this round, the fintech startup was pegged at $200 Mn. 

Prior to the Series A round, Jar bagged $4.5 Mn in its Pre-Series A funding round from investors–Tribe Capital, Arkam Ventures, WEH Ventures, Kunal Shah from CRED, Shaan Puri from Twitch, Manik Gupta from UBER  and Ali Moiz from Streamlabs. 

In India’s investment tech segment, it faces competition from the likes of Groww, Zerodha, Paytm Money, Upstox and ETMONEY. 

According to a report, the country’s investment tech market, which was estimated at $20 Bn in 20201, is likely to touch over $60 Bn mark by the financial year 2025.

The post Tiger Global Leads Jar’s $22.6 Mn Funding Round, Valuation Jumps To $300 Mn appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In a new twist to the ongoing battle over ownership of cars between ride-hailing giant Ola and thousands of its drivers across the country, the Bengaluru-headquartered firm has offered an out-of-court settlement to at least 1,000 drivers in Lucknow, sources in knowledge of the development told Inc42.

Ola officials have reached out to several representatives of drivers in Lucknow, offering them car ownership against payment of over INR 1 lakh by each driver, the sources said.

SoftBank-backed Ola has further offered to pay back security deposits worth INR 17,000 to drivers as part of the settlement, one of the sources said.

Earlier, Inc42 reported that Ola drivers across many cities have come together to fight legal cases against the ride-hailing firm for “cheating” them by reneging on the contract for its car lease scheme.

Advocate Ganga Yadav, who is representing the drivers in the ongoing litigation in Allahabad High Court, also confirmed the development to Inc42. However, he said that Ola’s demand for payment of INR 1 Lakh and above by each driver is “substantially high”.

“We have held discussions amongst the Lucknow drivers and the maximum amount each driver is willing to pay is INR 50,000. In case the company agrees to this, the drivers will take the ownership of the cars. But the ongoing case being fought in Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) is going to set a precedent for various other litigations which are being fought in other states. An out of court settlement, on the other hand, will not have such validity,” Yadav explained.

A source quoted above further said that Ola is working on similar out-of-court settlements with drivers in other cities like Jaipur and Delhi.

“Although the drivers are liable to individual decision making, the larger opinion has been that the cars lying in the service yards for couple of years are now costlier than the brand new cars, and for many drivers, the payout beyond INR 50,000 won’t be possible as it is beyond their means,” a Lucknow-based member of a driver’s representative body said.

Failed Arbitrations In Past

Sheikh Salauddin, general secretary of the Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT), said that discussions had taken place in the past also between the ride-hailing company and its drivers. However, those discussions failed due to the high price quoted by the Bhavish Aggarwal-led company.

“Uber, in fact, also worked out similar arrangements with drivers after COVID and each driver had to pay somewhere between INR 30,000-INR 40,000 to get the car ownership with legal papers signed,” Salauddin informed.

He further said that Ola has silently shut the car lease programme started in 2015. “The vendors have been informed not to publicise the car lease programme anymore after the news reports on this scheme came out last week,” Salauddin added.

Inc42 has sent a detailed questionnaire regarding the above developments to Ola. The story will be updated as and when the company responds.

Ola’s car lease programme offered drivers a chance to own a car by paying a daily rental and a refundable security deposit. However, the pandemic put brakes on the flagship car lease scheme run by Ola Fleet Technologies as its business was hit hard.

The company’s revenue slipped to INR 43 Cr in FY21 from INR 545 Cr in FY20, while loss ballooned to INR 686 Cr in FY21 from INR 377 Cr in FY20, according to Ola Fleet Technology’s financials filed with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.

In its earnings report, the company noted that the pandemic and lockdowns impacted its revenue badly. “Ola is the largest vehicle lease provider in Asia, considering the fleet size of 32,879 vehicles as of March 2021. The FY20-21 has been the year of the pandemic with all the vehicles in yards for the most part of the year, yielding negligible revenue,” it said.

The driver associations have alleged that the cars were taken away by the ride-hailing firm in March 2020 during the lease period, allegedly under the pretext of maintenance, and were never returned to them.

Ola is currently named in at least 4 FIRs filed in Lucknow and Hyderabad under Sections 420 and 409 of the Indian Penal Code, amounting to criminal breach of trust subjected to an imprisonment period of up to 10 years and a fine.

The post Exclusive: Ola Looks To Cut Out-Of-Court Deal With Leased Car Drivers To End Legal Mess appeared first on Inc42 Media.

The Kerala High Court has directed the state government to take steps to formulate regulations and guidelines pertaining to installation of charging points for electric vehicles (EVs) in apartment complexes.

The order was issued by Justice VG Arun while hearing a petition filed by two residents of Kochi who faced objection from their apartment owners association when they proposed making provision for installing an EV charging point on their own.

Keeping in view the EV policy declared by the Kerala government and the phenomenal increase in the number of EVs in the state, the court observed that “adequate provision ought to be made” to provide charging points in the apartment complexes where the EV owners are residing.

The court asked the state government to take necessary steps in this regard at the “earliest” and submit to it the progress made on it by the next date of hearing. 

The Kerala government’s EV Policy, which was released in 2019, said that in order to ensure sustainability, the state government would promote electric mobility and ensure a robust infrastructure for EVs, including adequate power availability, a network of charging stations, and favourable power tariff.

The state had also set a target of having 10 Lakh EVs on the road in 2022. 

However, as per the latest data provided by the Union Ministry of Heavy Industries, there were 30,775 EVs in Kerala till mid-June. On the other hand, the total number of EVs running across India stood at 13.34 Lakh units.

Meanwhile, as per the same report, as of January this year, Kerala had 39 retail outlets where EV charging facilities were available.

EV Charging Stations Vs EV Adoption

Despite the push by the Centre and various state governments to promote EVs, the EV charging infrastructure in the country has not risen at the same pace as EV adoption.

Availability of a robust charging infrastructure is critical to push the adoption of EVs in the country. Moreover, EV charging stations in apartment buildings would also provide EV owners with more flexibility, cut down the time spent at public charging stations, and ensure more efficiency at the public charging stations.

A recent Redseer report noted that India currently has only about 3,000 EV charging stations, which is around six available charging stations per 1,000 EVs. In comparison, China has about 200 charging stations per 1,000 EVs.

The Ministry of Heavy Industries sanctioned 2,877 EV charging stations last year in 68 cities across 25 states and union territories under phase-II of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles (FAME) India Scheme, with Kerala getting sanction for 211 EV charging stations.

However, of the total sanctions across the country, only 50 charging stations were installed as of July 1.

Meanwhile, under phase-I of the FAME scheme, 479 of 520 EV charging stations were installed by the same time, but none of them were in Kerala.

In this context, it is pertinent to note that Union Minister Nitin Gadkari recently said that India will have 3 Cr EVs in the next two years.

The post Kerala HC Asks Govt To Draft Rules For EV Charging Points In Housing Complex appeared first on Inc42 Media.

In what appears to be fresh trouble for fintech players Slice, Uni and LazyPay, their prepaid card partner State Bank of Mauritius India (SBM Bank India) is reportedly mulling pausing onboarding of new customers for prepaid cards till more clarity emerges on the model.

The development comes close on the heels of a circular issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in June in which the central bank barred non-bank fintech players from loading their prepaid payment instruments (PPIs) with credit lines.

Sources familiar with the matter told Moneycontrol that SBM Bank India sent a notice on the matter to Slice, Uni and LazyPay right after the RBI released its first set of guidelines on digital lending earlier this month.

According to the report, a Uni spokesperson said that it has stopped onboarding new customers since June 20, while LazyPay also stopped new card issuance in June only.

Another issue at the centre of the drama appears to emerge from the recently issued guidelines on digital lending. It notes that all loan disbursals and repayments should be executed between the bank accounts of the borrower and the regulated entity without passing through a pool account or any third party.

The immediate aftermath saw industry members reportedly urging the central bank to keep PPIs such as prepaid cards and wallets outside the ambit of these norms. Despite the chatter, the RBI has issued no clarification on the matter which appears to have put the bank on guard. 

“If the RBI has not explicitly said that loans can be disbursed to fully KYC compliant PPIs, then we cannot assume that it can be done. It is safer to stop onboarding new customers until there is any clarity,” one of the sources was quoted as saying.

It is pertinent to note that as per the digital lending guidelines, borrowers with only PPI accounts and no bank account can be disbursed loans in fully know your customer (KYC)-compliant PPIs.

Meanwhile, there appears to be no clarity yet on the bank’s side regarding its current customers availing credit lines via co-branded PPI cards.

“The bank, as well as fintechs, are in talks about what can be done for existing customers. It would not be right to stop a product overnight. But, if RBI does not say anything further on this, then they will have to stop disbursing credit through the model,” the source added.

Many fintech players are already looking to pivot from their core business model amid the regulatory headwinds. While Slice appears to have replaced credit lines with loan on demand, reports have also emerged of LazyPay mulling converting its prepaid card to co-branded credit card.

According to an Inc42 report, India’s total addressable fintech market opportunity is estimated to reach $1.3 Tn by 2025, growing at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31% between 2021 and 2025. 

The post More Trouble For Slice, Uni? Banking Partner SBM To Halt Onboarding New Clients For Prepaid Cards appeared first on Inc42 Media.

NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), on Thursday (August 18) signed an MoU with PayXpert for acceptance of the payment solutions in the UK.

The collaboration will make the Indian payment solutions available in the UK on all PayXpert’s Android point-of-sale (POS) devices for in-store payments. PayXpert would offer QR code payments via Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and later integrate RuPay card payments.

The development comes on the back of the Indian government’s effort to enable the adoption of UPI and RuPay cards in other countries. Last month, Minister of State for External Affairs Rajkumar Singh informed the Parliament that the NPCI was in talks with 30 countries for the same.

The NPCI has also signed similar MoUs for acceptance of UPI in France, the UAE, Singapore and Nepal.

For the uninitiated, the UPI and the RuPay Card were developed by the NPCI, which enabled one of the most significant evolutions in the digital payments ecosystem in the country.

UPI is one of the most successful real-time payments systems globally, providing person-to-person (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M) transactions in India. UPI transactions worth INR 73 Lakh Cr took place in 2021, which was a over 110% year-on-year rise from transactions worth INR 33.87 Lakh Cr in 2020.

On the other hand, RuPay has issued over 700 Mn cards so far in India.

“The UPI and the RuPay payment schemes are great names to add to PayXpert’s portfolio of international payment options available on our POS devices,” said David Armstrong, managing director of PayXpert. “It will open up a new field of opportunity for us in the UK and further strengthen the capability of our solution for UK merchants.”

Founded in 2019, UK-based PayXpert claims to have over 25 payment methods, processing in 100 different currencies with over 650 clients in the UK, Spain, France, and Taiwan.

PayXpert said that every year over half a million Indians travel to the UK, which includes over 100K students, and this number is expected to grow exponentially in the next five years. Hence, the partnership with the NPCI is a step towards helping Indian travellers to make payments in the European country in a familiar and convenient way.

UPI transactions in India crossed the 6 Bn mark in July 2022 as NPCI processed 628 Cr transactions worth INR 10.63 Lakh Cr in the month. Total UPI transaction volume in 2022 stood at INR 67.21 Lakh Cr ($850 Bn) till July end.

The post NPCI Partners PayXpert For Acceptance Of UPI, RuPay Cards In UK appeared first on Inc42 Media.