India is home to a lot of startups, in fact, it ranks second in the number of startups. It comes second only to the US. We do not just boast about the quantity but also quality. India has a number of startups that are in the elite club or the "Unicorn Club" as some people refer to them. This is a club of startups that have crossed the billion dollar mark and are running smoothly. Here are a few prominent billion dollar startups in the country.
Flipkart
US $15 Billion
Location: Bangalore, India
Founded in 2007
CEO: Binny Bansal (co-founder)
Flipkart was the first e-commerce startup to be a part of the billion dollar club. With it 15 billion dollar evaluation, it stands alone at the peak of the mountain with no one to challenge it. Started in 2007 by two brother Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, this is one Indian startup that have left everyone far behind. They boast of their 30 million products spanning 70 different categories and their 8 million shipments a month. With now Binny being the CEO, we expect only great things from Flipkart in the future.
Snapdeal
US $5 Billion
Location: New Delhi
Founded in 2010
CEO: Kunal Bahl (co-founder)
Next in line, we have Snapdeal, which is trying to keep up with Flipkart with its evaluation of 5 billion dollars. It was started 6 years ago by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, and since then it has proven its worth. It displays around 10 million products across various categories and ships yo 5000 cities in India. Snapdeal was recently in the news for its latest round of funding where it raised 500 million dollars from Alibaba and Foxconn. This is one startup that can give serious competition to Flipkart in the coming years.
Ola (ANI Technologies)
US $5 Billion
[caption id="attachment_103228" align="aligncenter" width="700"]
Image Credits - wsj.com[/caption]Location: Mumbai
Founded in 2011
CEO: Bhavish Aggarwal (co-founder)
In the last couple of years on-demand taxi services have also come into limelight. All of us know about Ola, which started off with just taxi services and has now diversified into more areas. It was valued at around 5 billion dollars. For a company that was started in 2010 in a new sector, it has done really well. It was started by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhatia with the aim of capturing this sector. They received their latest round of funding last year worth 500 million dollars from undisclosed investors.
InMobi
US $2.5 Billion
Location: Bangalore
Founded in 2007
CEO: Naveen Tewari (co-founder)
Founded in 2007 by Naveen Tewari, InMobi, earlier known as mKhoj, is a performance based mobile ad network backed by Softbank and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Last year, InMobi become talk of the global advertising industry when it fixed one of the fundamental problems of mobile advertising as their new 'advertising OS Miip takes over from the intent based sales model to a discovery based model. InMobi also won a spot in MIT Technology Review's 50 most disruptive companies of 2013.
InMobi makes money by charging 40% of the fee advertisers pay to the mobile Internet sites. The company turned profitable for the first time in the December quarter last year.
Paytm/One97 communications
US $1.5 Billion
Location: New Delhi
Founded in 2001
CEO: Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder
Another mobile commerce startup is Paytm which is still gaining popularity within the country. It is growing steadily with a recent evaluation of 2 billion dollars. The company has about a 100 million registered users. It started off as a platform offering mobile and DTH recharges but last year it entered the e-commerce platform as well. The parent company One97 sold $1 billion worth of goods and services on its Paytm commerce platform in 2015 and is aiming to reach $10 billion in sales volumes in two years.
Zomato
US $1 Billion
Location: New Delhi
Founded in 2008
CEO: Deepinder Goyal, co-founder
Moving on to another popular sector, which is Zomato's forte and it is doing extremely well with an evaluation of 1 billion dollars. The startup has grown colossally since its inception in 2008 by Founders Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah. It has crossed the Indian border and has expanded to US and Australia as well. It has started online ordering and cashless payments as well.
Quikr
US $1 Billion
Location: Mumbai
Founded in 2005
CEO: Pranay Chulet, founder
Quikr is one startup that took classified advertising to the internet. Founded in 2008 by Pranay Chulet in 2008 it has reached an evaluation of 1.5 billion dollars. It is basically a platform for second-hand trading. As of 2013, it claims to have had around 12 million listings. It has expanded into real estate and the job market as well.
Shopclues
US $1 Billion
Location: Gurgaon
Founded in 2011
CEO: Sandeep Aggarwal (founder)
The most recent startup to join this Unicorn Club is Shopclues. It is a recent player in the e-commerce market and with its recent success, it has made it clear that it is here to stay. It has recently received funding of an undisclosed amount. The startup boasts of it 42 million visitors per year and 12,000 registered merchants. This recent entrant in the billion dollar club shows that the Indian e-commerce sector is now ready for the next level.
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