Indian start-up ecosystem witnesses $106-billion value creation by 44 unicorns

The Indian start-up ecosystem has seen $106-billion worth value-creation by 44 unicorns, including MakeMyTrip, InMobi, Paytm, Ola, BYJU’S, Cars24, Razorpay, Swiggy, and Zomato, among others, which in turn has created 1.4 million direct and indirect jobs.

While fintech has seen the maximum number of unicorns, retail and SaaS are a close second. Other spaces include logistics, Data Analytics, travel, food and gaming, reveals The Indian Tech Unicorn Report 2020 by Orios Venture Partners, an early stage venture capital fund.

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As per the report, 41 per cent of unicorns are from the start-up capital of India, Bengaluru, closely followed by Delhi at 34 per cent and Mumbai at 14 per cent. Three of the unicorns — MakeMyTrip, JustDial and Naukri.com — have already been listed, while Flipkart has been acquired. Another interesting finding is that 86 per cent of unicorn founders are engineers with the maximum of them being IIT alumni.

“Our report shows that the Indian start-up ecosystem has generated tremendous value for founders, employees, investors and the economy. Most of these are backed by technology and that is the key differentiating factor between unicorns of the 21st century vs the prior era. We are proud to be associated with three unicorns — Ola, Druva, Pharmeasy — since their early days and look forward to being part of another three to five more over the next few years,” said Rehan Yar Khan, Managing Partner, Orios Venture Partners.

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The report says that the average time period that a company has taken to become a unicorn is eight years. The trend that is noticeable here is that this time period has been reducing, as founders with prior founding or start-up experience get into the game. Start-ups like Naukri.com and MakeMyTrip which had been founded pre-2005, have taken over 14 years to achieve that status, while Zomato, Flipkart and Policy Bazaar (2007-2009) have taken almost 8.7 years. Nykaa and OYO (2012-13) have taken even less time at 5.8 years, while Udaan and OLA Electric (2016-17) have taken only three years to achieve that status.