Startup wealth. India’s future unicorns are worth $36 billion: Hurun

India’s future unicorns are worth $36 billion, according to the inaugural edition of Hurun India’s Future Unicorn List.

The Hurun Research Institute on Thursday released the Hurun India Future Unicorn List 2021, a ranking of start-ups founded in the 2000s that are worth at least $200 million, are not yet listed on a public exchange, and are most likely to ‘go unicorn’ — valued over a billion dollars — within two years (‘gazelles’) or four years (‘cheetahs’). The cut-off date was August 31, 2021.

The list includes the most valuable private equity or venture capital-funded companies in India founded after 2000, ranked according to their latest funding round valuation.

According to the report, India is the third-largest unicorn ecosystem in the world after the US and China, and home to 51 unicorns with an average valuation of $3.3 billion; 25 were added in 2021. India added nearly three unicorns each month over the last year. It has 32 ‘gazelles’ and 54 ‘cheetahs’.

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The gazelles on the Hurun list have an estimated valuation ranging from $500 million to $1 billion.

The category is led by e-commerce with six companies, followed by fintech with five, and artificial intelligence, gaming and shared economy with three each.

The estimated valuation of cheetahs in the Hurun list ranges from $200 million to $500 million. India is home to 54 cheetahs, which have cumulatively received an investment of $6 billion, the report said. With 13 start-ups, fintech leads the cheetah list, followed by e-commerce with 11.

Top 10 future unicorns

Singapore-headquartered e-commerce company Zilingo, with funding of $310 million, tops the Hurun list. Bengaluru-headquartered gaming start-up Mobile Premier League, with funding of $230 million, ranks second.

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At third place is Rebel Foods, a shared economy company headquartered in Pune and with funding of $340 million.

Fitness start-up Cure.Fit , headquartered in Bengaluru, is fourth with $410 million funding.

E-commerce company Spinny, headquartered in Gurugram, is fifth with funding of $230 million.

Noida-based SaaS company RateGain, with $50 million funding, is sixth; Gurugram-headquartered e-commerce company Mamaearth, with $70 million funding, is next on the list.

Gurugram-based CarDekho ($250 million funding), Singapore-headquartered AI company GreyOrange ($170 million), and Gurugram-based fintech company MobiKwik ($170 million) make up the tailend of the top-10 in the Hurun list.

RateGain, MobiKwik, MedPlus, Fino Paytech and ixigo are preparing for IPO to raise ₹6,840 crore by the end of this year.

The start-ups in the Hurun list have raised $12.1 billion in funding from more than 300 investors. With 37 investments, Sequoia is the leading investor in the list, followed by Tiger Global Management with 18 investments.

Fintechs galore

With 18 start-ups on the list, fintech contributed the most to the list, followed by e-commerce (17) and SaaS (7). E-commerce, fintech, shared economy and SaaS contributed more than half the companies featured in the list.

CoinSwitch Kuber is the only crypto start-up in the list.

Bengaluru the start-up capital

Bengaluru, the start-up hub of India, contributed 31 companies to the list, followed by Mumbai and Gurugram.

Other key trends

In terms of the Hurun India Rich List Entrepreneurs, CRED founder Kunal Shah topped the list with nine start-up investments, followed by Binny Bansal at five and Ratan Tata at four. Investments by Infosys co-founders include Nandan Nilekani (three start-ups), NR Narayana Murthy (two) and Kris Gopalakrishnan (one).

The average age of Indian start-up founders in the list is 39. There are 11 founders under the age of 30. The youngest are Dilsher Singh (25) and Siddhant Saurabh (25) of gaming gazelle Zupee. The oldest co-founder in the list is Ecom Express’s K Satyanarayana (60); 15 co-founders are above 50.

As many as 12 start-ups on the list were co-founded by women.

Seventeen of the co-founders on the list are from IIT-Delhi, 15 are from IIT-Bombay, IIM-Ahmedabad (13), and Harvard University and Stanford University four each.

The Hurun research team used the most recent valuation based on a sizeable round. Countries and cities were ranked according to the start-up head-office.

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