- UrbanClap was in the limelight for Investment announcements and expansion to international markets.
- CRED has made huge strides towards becoming a household name.
- BharatPe to secure funding from one of the biggest Venture Capitals in today’s world
The number of India’s potential unicorns—a term to describe startups valued at $1 billion—more than tripled from 15 last year to 52 in 2019, becoming the world’s largest pipeline of unicorns in the making, Nasscom said in its report ‘Indian Tech Start-up Ecosystem – Leading Tech in the 20s’.
The top 12 Soonicorns who were shortlisted on the basis of news they made are as follows: UrbanClap, BharatPe, Vedantu, Pharmeasy, Dunzo, Medlife, OkCredit, Chargebee, Sharechat, Dailyhunt, Rupeek and FreshtoHome. 8 Soonicorns moved up the ladder to become Unicorns and many more are expected to do the same in 2019.
“Indian startups have created a lot of benchmarks this year. Two common themes that defined why these companies were at the top of the category in terms of making news was about their Funding Announcement and Strategic Partnerships,” said Anshul Sushil, Founder and CEO of Wizikey.
Here are the top newsmakers in the Soonicorn category for the year 2019:
UrbanClap has had a good year in the limelight. Investment announcements and expansion to international markets were the major highlights for the year. The new range of offerings
from time to time also made sure that they remain in the media limelight. A careful analysis shows that the business was in the news for more than one reason. The most common news buzzwords for UrbanClap were Tiger Global, Flipkart and Home Services.
Since its conception almost a year back, CRED has made huge strides towards becoming a household name and it seems to be succeeding. In just one year CRED has been able to create
huge waves in the investing space. CRED has received substantial media coverage thanks to its sudden rise to fame with majority of it coming from the funding it received and Kunal Shah’s own funding activities. This soonicorn made news on the buzzwords Credit Reward, Credit Card Payments and Tiger Global.
BharatPe has had a stellar year in the spotlight. Having had a quiet couple of months at the very beginning of the year, BharatPe’s visibility started its upward trend after it entered talks with Sequoia to secure funding from one of the biggest Venture Capitals in today’s world. BharatPe has now become a household name and a force to be reckoned with in the digital payments space. The company has since launched various features and offerings to cement its position as a market leader in this space. The most common buzzwords for BharatPe were Digital Payments, QR Payments and Sequoia.
Dunzo had consistent visibility throughout the year. The highlights of the first half of the year came from the launch of Swiggy stores which sited Dunzo as a major competitor. There was also a fair amount of speculation regarding Dunzo’s plan to raise funds. The latter half saw Dunzo getting higher coverage thanks to their partnership with Google and Airtel acquiring Vahan. Dunzo also announced a fresh round of funding during the latter half of the year. The most common buzzwords for this newsmaker were Google Funding, Home Delivery and B2B Logistics Services.
Vedantu, a relatively new entrant in a booming ed-tech industry has been able to make a name for itself in the news this year. Vedantu has been in the news consistently this year owing to its various funding announcements and feature releases. The biggest announcement the company made by far was about receiving funding from Tiger Global, a leading venture capital firm. One blip on an otherwise positive year for Vedantu was when they received considerable publicity for a hack of their platform.
About Wizikey:
Wizikey is a PR Software-as-a-Service that uses data and AI to simplify PR, making it transparent and measurable for Fortune 500 companies and startups alike. It enables users with features like realtime media intelligence, helps delivering stories to the right journalist while saving spam, hours of scrutiny and giving brands the voice they need.
Wizikey’s co-founders Anshul and Aakriti have spent over a decade in the communications industry, identifying key problems as they served 300+ businesses. These first principles form the foundation of Wizikey - to make the communications industry efficient, transparent and measurable through the power of data and AI tech. With investors like Ajai Chowdhry (Co-founder, HCL), Alok Mittal (Co-founder and CEO, Indifi), Ambarish Raghuvanshi (ex-CFO, Info Edge), Keshav R Murugesh (CEO, WNS), Raman Roy (Chairman, NASSCOM and Chairman, Quattro), Sanjiv Bajaj (CEO, Bajaj Finserv) and the Indian Angel Fund among others, we strive each day to make PR accessible and simple - for everyone.
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