Digit Insurance Joins the Unicorn club with $1.9 Bn Valuation

• Valued at $ 1.9 billion, doubling since last year.
• Achieved this in a span of 3 years of operations.
• Existing PE investors are participating. 

Bengaluru, 15 January 2021: Digit Insurance, a General Insurance company, started in 2017 with a mission to make insurance simple in India, becomes this year's 1st Indian Unicorn at a valuation of $ 1.9 billion.

In an almost-recession like year for most businesses and when the insurance industry itself grew by 0.1%*, Digit grew by 31.9%, earning a premium of $186 million (April'20-Dec'20) and claims to have 1.5 crore customers since inception. Within a short span of 3 years, Digit has also garnered profits in all 3 quarters of FY 20-21 **. They also hold a customer rating of 4.9 stars on facebook based on 14,000+ customer reviews***.

The young Unicorn uses technology to simplify processes for their customers, like smartphone-enabled self-inspection and audio claims. They are 100% on cloud and have launched several innovative offerings relevant to the ever-emerging needs of customers.

Under the unique and commendable sandbox initiative of IRDAI, they launched a novel COVID-19 product, a Fixed benefit cover for COVID-19. They have also been able to reach out to more than 20 lakh Indian lives through their Digit Group Illness Insurance product.

The Fairfax backed insurance company, headquartered in Bengaluru, is founded by insurance veteran Kamesh Goyal, who with over 30+ years has worked in both General Insurance and Life Insurance spaces. Before founding Digit, he was the Head of H8- Asset Management & US life insurance Company for Allianz Asset Management.

UrbanClap, CRED and Dunzo among Top 5 Soonicorns Newsmakers of 2019

• 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

Wizikey, Asia’s first PR and communication platform has collated interesting trends across industries using its AI and ML-based Technology and created a report on the top newsmakers of 2019 in the Soonicorns world. The report has been created after a thorough study of all the news published in the sector from 1st of January till date.

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.

India Hits Record Number of $1 Billion Startups

Unicorns may be mythical beasts in the animal kingdom but in Indian business, they are becoming more and more common. The unicorn here is not a fabled horse with a horn on its head but refers to a specific type of company. To those unaware, a unicorn is a start-up company which surpasses a $1 billion valuation. The term was coined in 2013 by venture capitalist Aileen Lee as it refers to the statistical rarity of this happening.

Start-up companies are notoriously difficult to succeed. Even turning a profit is an achievement but it is nothing short of extraordinary for a start-up to reach $1 billion. The start-up industry in India has had its ups and downs but the last few years have seen a marked increase in the number of unicorn companies: from 3 in 2014 to 14 in 2018, according to CB Insights.

India now sits third in the table of countries with the most start-up unicorn companies behind powerhouses the United States and China. The newest Indian start-up to join the list is Oyo Rooms, a hotel chain which surpassed the fabled $1 billion mark for funding. The company which was started in just 2013 by a then 19-year-old Ritesh Agarwal received the funding from the Japanese SoftBank Vision Fund and has become the largest hospitality company in the country.



But Oyo Rooms is just one of a number of Indian companies to achieve this incredible feat in the last few years. Why is this happening? China and the United States are expected to be at the top of the list of countries creating unicorns considering their economic clout but why India? Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why.

Internet Usage

India is getting more and more addicted to the internet. The country now has over 450 million internet users and that number is only increasing thanks to initiatives like discount mobile data plans. That is aided by the ever-growing list of smartphone users in the country. According to the Hindustan Times, India has 400 million smartphone users and that number is expected to increase to 700 million within five years.

The largest sales spike comes for phones priced lower than $150 (Rs 10,000) and a number of mobile phone companies are now actively looking towards this market.

“Features such as full-screen displays, dual-cameras, biometric security and support for Artificial Intelligence (AI) are beginning to make in-roads to the mid-range. They will become widespread over the next few years,” said Tarun Pathak, Associate Director at Counterpoint Research.

Choices

Another key reason why Indian start-up culture is thriving is the incredible amount of choice available to the consumer. This desire to get to work and start up a company is not as common in other parts of the world. A recent study by Betway Casino asked people in the United Kingdom what they would do with £1 million. Just 5% of respondents said they would start a business, despite the small risk which would be involved.

India produces far more start-up companies and this allows the best companies and products to float to the top, eventually culminating in many of them becoming unicorns. Even something as simple as food delivery, Indians have a wide array of choice available to them including Zomato, Faaso’s, Swiggy and TastyKhana.

Addressing The Country’s Problems

One of the main reasons why India is producing more unicorns than ever is because these companies often address some of the country’s most desperate needs: education, logistics and accommodation. Just look at Byju Raveendran’s company, BYJU’s, an educational technology and online tutoring company. Many schools don’t have enough funding to hire teachers but the app has reached almost 1.7 million users who pay around $135 per year for access. BYJU’s is adding around 130,000 students each month.



“Think of the effort and the capital involved in building thousands of schools and training teachers,” Raveendran has said.

“A young population, increased spending power, and rapidly growing digital infrastructure are helping India-relevant models to scale quickly.”

That certainly seems to be the case. India’s start-up industry is notoriously unsteady. However, it seems as if things are going extremely well right now, even if it is just for a small handful of companies. These are the brands which have risen to the top from a wide array of competitors and are servicing an increasingly technological nation by addressing its needs. If Indian start-ups continue to do that then there is no reason why the number of unicorns won’t increase in the coming years.

Freshworks Raises $100 Mn from Sequoia, Accel and CapitalG To Become India's First Unicorn in Enterprise Software Space

California and Chennai-based Freshworks, a enterprise software product-based startup, has raised fresh $100 million in a series G round of funding co-led by its existing investors Sequoia and Accel Partners, with participation from CapitalG, a late-stage growth fund of Google's parent firm Alphabet.

With is funding, Freshworks is now valued at $1.5 billion.

Earlier in November 2016, the company was valued at $750 million when it had raised $55 million from Sequoia Capital India and Accel Partners. With today's funding round the total funding raised by the company brings to mere $250 million -- to become India's first Unicorn in enterprise software segment.

In addition to funding, Freshworks also announced that it has hired a former AppDynamics VP of finance and treasury Suresh Seshardi, who helped AppDynamics prepare for its IPO. AppDynamics however got acquired by Cisco instead of going IPO.

Additionally, the company also said that it has scaled to $100 million in annual recurring revenue.

Interestingly, Freshworks co-founder and CEO Girish Mathrubootham indicated that Freshwworks may prepare for going IPO (which might be reason of hiring AppDynamics' Seshardi) and this funding will likely be the last private funding round for the company.

“Freshworks hasn’t started the IPO process but we do feel that we will eventually go public in the U.S.,” he said to TechCrunch.

“With that said, our primary focus right now is on growing the business and investing in our platform. When the timing is right, we’ll make that decision," added Mathrubootham.

Founded out of Chennai in 2010 by Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy, Freshworks was earlier known as Freshdesk until it re-branded last year to reflect an expansion beyond its core helpdesk product. Now, Freshworks is the parent company behind its several enterprise software products which includes Freshdesk, Freshservice, Freshsales, Freshcaller, Freshteam, Freshchat, and Freshmarketer.

The company's cloud-based suite of SaaS products is widely used by over 150,000 customers around the world including Honda, Bridgestone, Hugo Boss, University of Pennsylvania, Toshiba and Cisco.

With offices in California, London, Berlin, and Sydney, a larger chunk of Freshwork's employees are based out of Chennai, India, where it claims around 1,400 people working on product development.

Moreover, the company has also made a substantial amount of acquisitions in span of just two years. Freshwork's last acquisition was in August last year when it made its ninth acquisition - of Zarget, a leading marketing software startup that provides marketers and designers with a suite of Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) tools helping them understand how users interact with their websites.

A month prior to that, it had a href="http://indianweb2/2017/07/20/freshworks-freshdesk-acquires-gurgaon-based-chatbot-startup-joe-hukum/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">acquired Gurgaon-based Joe Hukum, a platform that helps businesses build their own chatbots.

Source - Techcrunch | Business Insider

Freshworks Raises $100 Mn from Sequoia, Accel and CapitalG To Become India's First Unicorn in Enterprise Software Space

California and Chennai-based Freshworks, a enterprise software product-based startup, has raised fresh $100 million in a series G round of funding co-led by its existing investors Sequoia and Accel Partners, with participation from CapitalG, a late-stage growth fund of Google's parent firm Alphabet.

With is funding, Freshworks is now valued at $1.5 billion.

Earlier in November 2016, the company was valued at $750 million when it had raised $55 million from Sequoia Capital India and Accel Partners. With today's funding round the total funding raised by the company brings to mere $250 million -- to become India's first Unicorn in enterprise software segment.

In addition to funding, Freshworks also announced that it has hired a former AppDynamics VP of finance and treasury Suresh Seshardi, who helped AppDynamics prepare for its IPO. AppDynamics however got acquired by Cisco instead of going IPO.

Additionally, the company also said that it has scaled to $100 million in annual recurring revenue.

Interestingly, Freshworks co-founder and CEO Girish Mathrubootham indicated that Freshwworks may prepare for going IPO (which might be reason of hiring AppDynamics' Seshardi) and this funding will likely be the last private funding round for the company.

“Freshworks hasn’t started the IPO process but we do feel that we will eventually go public in the U.S.,” he said to TechCrunch.

“With that said, our primary focus right now is on growing the business and investing in our platform. When the timing is right, we’ll make that decision," added Mathrubootham.

Founded out of Chennai in 2010 by Girish Mathrubootham and Shan Krishnasamy, Freshworks was earlier known as Freshdesk until it re-branded last year to reflect an expansion beyond its core helpdesk product. Now, Freshworks is the parent company behind its several enterprise software products which includes Freshdesk, Freshservice, Freshsales, Freshcaller, Freshteam, Freshchat, and Freshmarketer.

The company's cloud-based suite of SaaS products is widely used by over 150,000 customers around the world including Honda, Bridgestone, Hugo Boss, University of Pennsylvania, Toshiba and Cisco.

With offices in California, London, Berlin, and Sydney, a larger chunk of Freshwork's employees are based out of Chennai, India, where it claims around 1,400 people working on product development.

Moreover, the company has also made a substantial amount of acquisitions in span of just two years. Freshwork's last acquisition was in August last year when it made its ninth acquisition - of Zarget, a leading marketing software startup that provides marketers and designers with a suite of Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) tools helping them understand how users interact with their websites.

A month prior to that, it had a href="https://www.indianweb2.com/2017/07/20/freshworks-freshdesk-acquires-gurgaon-based-chatbot-startup-joe-hukum/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">acquired Gurgaon-based Joe Hukum, a platform that helps businesses build their own chatbots.

Source - Techcrunch | Business Insider

India's Youngest Self-Made Female Millionaire Is An Ex-CEO of A Unicorn Startup

Ambiga Subramanian is a name to reckon with in the Indian women entrepreneurial world. Not only is she the first woman to ever head an Indian unicorn (Mu Sigma), a recent list published by research firm Hurun enlists Subramanian as the youngest of India’s eight richest self-made women.

Starting her career in 1998, the 42-year-old womenpreneur has collected a net worth of over Rs 2,500 crore over the year. Appearing on the Hurun India rich list 2017 at fourth position, the former CEO of Mu Sigma finds company among her peers Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson of biotechnology company Biocon, Vembu Radha, director at software products maker Zoho, and Sheela Gautam, chairperson emeritus of mattress-maker Sheela Foam in the top 4.

The Hurun India rich list ranks Indians having more than Rs 1,000 crore in wealth.

This isn’t Subramanian’s first time appearing on such a popular list. Last year, she found herself a place in India’s most powerful businesswomen list by Forbes, which is considered as a great honour in the business community. Subramanian started her career with telecom firm Motorola, where she held her ground for eight straight years. She joined her former husband’s company Mu Sigma in 2007 as a director for innovation.

[caption id="attachment_121821" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Ambiga Subramanian[/caption]

In the nine years that she worked at Mu Sigma, Subramanian had quite a journey. Starting off just as director for innovation, she went on to become the firm’s head of talent management in mere three years. In 2012, Subramanian was offered the position of chief operating officer (COO), which she eventually traded up for CEO position in 2016.

Considered as the world's largest provider of analytics and decision solutions, Mu Sigma was started by Subramanian’s former husband Dhiraj Rajaram in 2004 by selling their home in Illinois and putting in $200,000 of his personal savings. The firm's name is derived from the statistical terms "Mu (μ)" and "Sigma (σ)" which symbolises the mean and the standard deviation respectively of a probability distribution. Prior to venturing out on his own with Mu Sigma, Rajaram worked with consultancies such as Booz Allen Hamilton and PwC etc.

Over the years, the Bengaluru headquartered company has went on to achieve quite a lot. Five years ago, in 2012, the firm became India’s first profitable unicorn after it successfully crossed the $100 million revenue mark. The firm, which currently employs over 4,000 workers and serves 140 of the Fortune 500 companies, has raised over $211 million so far in seven rounds of funding. It has the backing some of the biggest names in the business such as Sequoia, Mastercard and General Atlantic. It is currently estimated to have a valuation of $1.5 billion.

For FY 2015-16, the company earned a profit of Rs 462.9 crore, which was a significant 22% increase from the year before. However, last year was particularly rocky for the company following Subramanian and Rajaram’s decision to get divorced. Anticipating a potential power struggle, several senior executives started to jump the ship in pursuit of a stable ground. This whole scenario resulted in a huge loss for the company as its revenues fell from $184 million in 2015 to $165 million in the year ending December 2016.

Eventually, the once power couple came up with a plan to save the company from going under when Rajaram decided to buyout Subramanian’s stake in the company. Following the divorce, Subramanian sold her 24% stake in Mu Sigma to her former husband Dhiraj Rajaram, who then went on to buy stock options held by his employees to finally emerge as the controlling shareholder of the firm he started 13 years ago.

Following the highly publicised divorce, Subramanian has mostly remained out of newspaper headlines and hasn’t announced any new ground-breaking ventures. On the other end, Mu Sigma is finally bouncing back after a bad year and is now on track to hit the $180 million revenue mark this year.

This development was first reported in Quartz.

India's Youngest Self-Made Female Millionaire Is An Ex-CEO of A Unicorn Startup

Ambiga Subramanian is a name to reckon with in the Indian women entrepreneurial world. Not only is she the first woman to ever head an Indian unicorn (Mu Sigma), a recent list published by research firm Hurun enlists Subramanian as the youngest of India’s eight richest self-made women.

Starting her career in 1998, the 42-year-old womenpreneur has collected a net worth of over Rs 2,500 crore over the year. Appearing on the Hurun India rich list 2017 at fourth position, the former CEO of Mu Sigma finds company among her peers Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson of biotechnology company Biocon, Vembu Radha, director at software products maker Zoho, and Sheela Gautam, chairperson emeritus of mattress-maker Sheela Foam in the top 4.

The Hurun India rich list ranks Indians having more than Rs 1,000 crore in wealth.

This isn’t Subramanian’s first time appearing on such a popular list. Last year, she found herself a place in India’s most powerful businesswomen list by Forbes, which is considered as a great honour in the business community. Subramanian started her career with telecom firm Motorola, where she held her ground for eight straight years. She joined her former husband’s company Mu Sigma in 2007 as a director for innovation.

[caption id="attachment_121821" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Ambiga Subramanian[/caption]

In the nine years that she worked at Mu Sigma, Subramanian had quite a journey. Starting off just as director for innovation, she went on to become the firm’s head of talent management in mere three years. In 2012, Subramanian was offered the position of chief operating officer (COO), which she eventually traded up for CEO position in 2016.

Considered as the world's largest provider of analytics and decision solutions, Mu Sigma was started by Subramanian’s former husband Dhiraj Rajaram in 2004 by selling their home in Illinois and putting in $200,000 of his personal savings. The firm's name is derived from the statistical terms "Mu (μ)" and "Sigma (σ)" which symbolises the mean and the standard deviation respectively of a probability distribution. Prior to venturing out on his own with Mu Sigma, Rajaram worked with consultancies such as Booz Allen Hamilton and PwC etc.

Over the years, the Bengaluru headquartered company has went on to achieve quite a lot. Five years ago, in 2012, the firm became India’s first profitable unicorn after it successfully crossed the $100 million revenue mark. The firm, which currently employs over 4,000 workers and serves 140 of the Fortune 500 companies, has raised over $211 million so far in seven rounds of funding. It has the backing some of the biggest names in the business such as Sequoia, Mastercard and General Atlantic. It is currently estimated to have a valuation of $1.5 billion.

For FY 2015-16, the company earned a profit of Rs 462.9 crore, which was a significant 22% increase from the year before. However, last year was particularly rocky for the company following Subramanian and Rajaram’s decision to get divorced. Anticipating a potential power struggle, several senior executives started to jump the ship in pursuit of a stable ground. This whole scenario resulted in a huge loss for the company as its revenues fell from $184 million in 2015 to $165 million in the year ending December 2016.

Eventually, the once power couple came up with a plan to save the company from going under when Rajaram decided to buyout Subramanian’s stake in the company. Following the divorce, Subramanian sold her 24% stake in Mu Sigma to her former husband Dhiraj Rajaram, who then went on to buy stock options held by his employees to finally emerge as the controlling shareholder of the firm he started 13 years ago.

Following the highly publicised divorce, Subramanian has mostly remained out of newspaper headlines and hasn’t announced any new ground-breaking ventures. On the other end, Mu Sigma is finally bouncing back after a bad year and is now on track to hit the $180 million revenue mark this year.

This development was first reported in Quartz.

India Has Highest Number of Unicorn Startups Outside The US

In a news that further builds India’s reputation in the world startup ecosystem, after being the third largest startup ecosystem in the world, India has now achieved the celebratory feat of having the highest number of unicorn startups outside the US.

According to a CB Insights report, the South Asian country is home to the second highest number of unicorn startups in the world, outside of the US. While China has the highest number of unicorn startups after the United States, the Indian subcontinent is still way ahead of a lot of countries like the UK, Germany and South Korea when it comes to churning out successfully startups.



For the uninitiated, a Unicorn startup is a privately owned startup that has reached a valuation mounting to $1 billion or more. Typically, a unicorn startup climbs the growth ladder fast, all thanks to the fund money. Mostly, they're not that profitable but the main plan here is to first to set the business at a particular "scale" and then start focusing on making profits after it has successfully acquired a decent market share.

Startups right now basking in the Unicorn glory globally include Oscar, Uber, TransferWise, Prosper etc. Closer home, we have 9 unicorn startups including Flipkart, Hike, InMobi, Ola Cabs, Paytm, ReNew Power Ventures, ShopClues, Snapdeal and Zomato.

Outside of the US, at 55, China has the most number of private unicorn companies. The country also has the top 3 most highly valued private non-US firms, led by $50 billion ride-hailing company Didi Chuxing followed by $46 billion electronics company Xiaomi and $18.5 billion online lending platform Lu.com.

Outside of the US and China, India’s ecommerce giant Flipkart at $11.6 billion is the the most valuable private company. It is followed by Sweden’s $8.5 billion music streaming service Spotify in the second place and $ 7 billion Indian ecommerce site Snapdeal at the third place.

The report shares that the global unicorn club currently has a total of 214 members. The total collective worth of the members of the unicorn club is a jaw-dropping $745 billion.

“Following China, the most unicorn-rich countries are India and the UK, respectively. No “Other” country takes more than 2% of the world’s unicorns located outside the US,” revealed the CB Insights report.

While China currently has a whopping 52 per cent of its unicorn firms located outside of the US, India has 9 per cent of its unicorns based elsewhere than the US and UK has 8 per cent of its unicorn companies grounded outside of the United States.

The percentage of unicorn startups based outside of the US has been increasing slowly but steadily over the past few years. While in 2014, 37 per cent of all unicorns were located outside of the US. In 2015, this figure jumped to 53 per cent, and in 2016 it again rose to 58 per cent. According to the report, so far this year, there have been 42 additions to the global unicorn club, out of which, 24 are based outside of the United States.

India Has Highest Number of Unicorn Startups Outside The US

In a news that further builds India’s reputation in the world startup ecosystem, after being the third largest startup ecosystem in the world, India has now achieved the celebratory feat of having the highest number of unicorn startups outside the US.

According to a CB Insights report, the South Asian country is home to the second highest number of unicorn startups in the world, outside of the US. While China has the highest number of unicorn startups after the United States, the Indian subcontinent is still way ahead of a lot of countries like the UK, Germany and South Korea when it comes to churning out successfully startups.



For the uninitiated, a Unicorn startup is a privately owned startup that has reached a valuation mounting to $1 billion or more. Typically, a unicorn startup climbs the growth ladder fast, all thanks to the fund money. Mostly, they're not that profitable but the main plan here is to first to set the business at a particular "scale" and then start focusing on making profits after it has successfully acquired a decent market share.

Startups right now basking in the Unicorn glory globally include Oscar, Uber, TransferWise, Prosper etc. Closer home, we have 9 unicorn startups including Flipkart, Hike, InMobi, Ola Cabs, Paytm, ReNew Power Ventures, ShopClues, Snapdeal and Zomato.

Outside of the US, at 55, China has the most number of private unicorn companies. The country also has the top 3 most highly valued private non-US firms, led by $50 billion ride-hailing company Didi Chuxing followed by $46 billion electronics company Xiaomi and $18.5 billion online lending platform Lu.com.

Outside of the US and China, India’s ecommerce giant Flipkart at $11.6 billion is the the most valuable private company. It is followed by Sweden’s $8.5 billion music streaming service Spotify in the second place and $ 7 billion Indian ecommerce site Snapdeal at the third place.

The report shares that the global unicorn club currently has a total of 214 members. The total collective worth of the members of the unicorn club is a jaw-dropping $745 billion.

“Following China, the most unicorn-rich countries are India and the UK, respectively. No “Other” country takes more than 2% of the world’s unicorns located outside the US,” revealed the CB Insights report.

While China currently has a whopping 52 per cent of its unicorn firms located outside of the US, India has 9 per cent of its unicorns based elsewhere than the US and UK has 8 per cent of its unicorn companies grounded outside of the United States.

The percentage of unicorn startups based outside of the US has been increasing slowly but steadily over the past few years. While in 2014, 37 per cent of all unicorns were located outside of the US. In 2015, this figure jumped to 53 per cent, and in 2016 it again rose to 58 per cent. According to the report, so far this year, there have been 42 additions to the global unicorn club, out of which, 24 are based outside of the United States.

Coinbase Becomes First Bitcoin Based ‘Unicorn’ Startup

Becoming a $1 billion startup and attaining the "unicorn" prefix is on the vision board of almost every startup. But, it takes a lot of hard work and determination to achieve this feat and enter the Magna cum laude club for startups.

San Francisco-based Coinbase has recently become the first Bitcoin startup to enter the unicorn startup club after it successfully raised a whopping $100 million at a private valuation of $1.6 billion that includes the capital raised. The investment round saw the participation of Draper Associates, Greylock Partners, Battery Ventures, Section 32 and Spark Capital, and was led by venture capital firm Institutional Venture Partners.

Starting its journey in 2012, Coinbase achieved its unicorn status in just five years. During its half a decade journey, the startup which began as a simple Bitcoin wallet service has progressed on and ventured into brokerage space, opening online exchanges where traders can sell or swap crypto coins.

In previous funding rounds, the startup, which claims to have served over 9.2 M customers across 32 countries, had raised $117 million at a private valuation of about $500 million. This figure alone had made Coinbase the third most well financed Bitcoin startup in the world, after Circle and 21. And now, with its latest funding round and achieving the Unicorn startup feat, there's no stopping Coinbase when it comes to the Bitcoin space.

So far 2017 has proven to be an exceptional one for cryptocurrencies. The year saw Bitcoin making a comeback in big way and Ethereum, a rival cryptocurrency network, going down the slope. Bitcoin is currently trading at more than $3,400 per Bitcoin, a figure which is well above its previous 2013 highs in the $900 range.

According to Fortune, the total market value for cryptocurrencies and tokens combined has increased from just under $20 billion at the beginning of the year to more than $120 billion in just over 7 months.

Coinbase plans to invest its newly raised money towards strengthening its engineering and customer support teams, and opening a new office in New York for its professional trading operations. It also plans on using a part of the capital for further developing its Ethereum-based messaging and wallet app, Toshi that it launched last year.

Cryptocurrencies have caught the attention of investors like never before. Investment firms like Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, anf Union Square Ventures have recently seen a spurt in activity in backing so-called crypto hedge funds, like Metastable and Polychain Capital, that primarily invest in cryptocurrencies and digital tokens. Recently, Blockchain, a London-based cryptocurrency wallet provider, raised $40 million in a round led by GV, the venture capital arm of Alphabet.

India Ranked 3rd in Countries With Most Unicorns, and More

According to a new market map by CB Insights, there are 197 companies in the world that can be currently identified as "unicorns" as they have earned a valuation of $1 billion and above. Of these 197, 22 new unicorns were added this year (till 26/05/17) alone signalling a good time for the Global Startup Industry. The map also highlighted that India with 4 per cent of the world's unicorns based out of its land, is ranked 3rd in countries with most unicorns.

The unicorns, which are collectively valued at a jaw-dropping $679 billion and have raised a whopping $142 billion in funding, belong to 13 verticals, which includes: E-Commerce/Marketplace, Internet Software & Services, FinTech, Social, Cybersecurity, On-Demand, Big Data, Healthcare, Media, Hardware, Mobile Software & Services, Real Estate and Other. The other category includes companies functioning within AR/VR, ed tech, and aerospace categories, among others.

Top 3 Sectors For Unicorns

According to CB Insights' map, the top three most crowded markets for unicorns are: e-commerce (17 per cent), internet software & services (14 per cent) and fintech (11 per cent).

The most valuable company in the e-commerce/marketplace category is Airbnb ($29B), while Infor and Dropbox are the two most valuable companies operating in internet software & services, worth $10B and $9.4B, respectively. China’s Lu.com ($18.5B) is the most valuable private fintech company, followed by Stripe ($9.2B).

Having 54 per cent of the world's unicorn based out of its land, United States acquires the number one rank on the list of countries with most unicorns. It is followed by China for the second spot with 23 per cent of the world's unicorns. India shares the third spot with the United Kingdom with each having 4 per cent share out of the total 197 unicorns. Germany and South Korea with 2 per cent each take the fourth spot. The map also highlights the fact that no other country in the world except the ones mentioned above have three or more private companies with a valuation of at least $1 billion.

According to map, the world's Top 5 Global Unicorns are:

1. Uber- With a valuation of $68 billion, the US-based ride-hailing superpower acquires the number one spot. The company, which is currently locked in a leadership battle with homegrown Olacabs in India is the most valuable private company in the world.

2. Didi Chuxing- With a valuation of $50 billion, China's ride-hailing startup Didi, which rose to worldwide fame last year for driving out ride-hailing superpower Uber from its country, became Asia's most valuable startup this year in April when it raised more than $5.5 billion from investors, scoring the single largest round of funding on record to bankroll an expansion beyond China and into driver-less technology.

3. Xiaomi- With a valuation of $46 billion, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi occupies the number third spot on the Top 5 Unicorns list.

4. Airbnb- With a valuation of $29 billion, the app and website that connects people seeking lodging with renters who have listed their personal houses, apartments, guest rooms, etc., on either platform, appears fourth on the list.

5. Palantir Technologies- With a valuation of $20 billion, the Silicon Valley-based data company co-founded by billionaire investor Peter Thiel, acquires the fifth place on the list. The startup has earned an almost mythical reputation for its work building tools for the U.S. intelligence community.

Time to Welcome The ‘Decacorns’

For the uninitiated, a decacorn is a company with a valuation of at least $10 billion. Currently, there are fifteen private companies in the world that (7.6% of the global unicorns) can be identified as decacorns and have a valuation of at least $10 billion. Currently, India's homegrown e-commerce giant Flipkart with a valuation of $10 billion is the only Indian startup in the top 15 decacorns list.

Anatomy of India's First 'Unicorpse' Startup

Is Snapdeal getting merged? Is deal finalised? At what valuation Flipkart is going to acquire Snapdeal? These are the few questions which are currently buzzing around. Snapdeal, a homegrown e-commerce giant is today for sure has become the talk of the town. Once known as one of India’s first unicorns is now becoming India’s first unicorpse startup a.k.a dead unicorn which is ready to be cremated. For unawares, a Unicorpse is a former unicorn, now valued at less than $1 billion.

All the while, despite all the troubles, Snapdeal has its own story to tell.

A Quick Flashback

Founded in February 2010 by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, Snapdeal has come a long way since its inception. While establishing its footprint in the market and competing against the e-commerce biggies like Flipkart, Snapdeal has acquired about 13 startups which include big names like Freecharge, Exclusively, GoJavas, Rupee Power to name few.
Talking about the funding, during the course of its journey, Snapdeal has raised about $1.76 billion in 12 rounds of funding. Out of these the most recent investment came in August 2016 from Luxembourg-based firm Clouse SA, that poured in another $21 million which valued the company somewhere between $6.5-$7 billion.

In August 2015, Snapdeal was valued at $5 billion when it had raised $500 million from Alibaba Group, Foxconn Technology Group and Softbank. However, Snapdeal’s biggest round of funding came in October 2014, when SoftBank invested $ 627 million. Not only this, In August 2014, Ratan Tata also made a personal investment in the e-commerce giant.

Apart from these well-known investors, Snapdeal’s other bunch of investors includes eBay, Kalaari Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Intel Capital and Saama Capital, Temasek, BlackRock Inc, Myriad, Premji Invest and Tybourne and IndoUS Venture Partners.

The online retailer claimed to have an assortment of 65 Mn plus products across 1000+ categories from over 125,000 regional, national, and international brands and retailers. It has over 300,000 sellers and delivers to 6000+ cities and towns in India.

If everything sounds so good then what went wrong? From where the downfall started?

From A Unicorn To Unicorpse

The e-commerce firm has been in the news for quite some time for bleeding losses and more. In November 2016, Softbank Group Corp, which has the highest holding in Snapdeal (about 32%) marked down close to $555 Mn in two of its Indian investments, cab hailing firm Ola and Snapdeal. In February 2017, it was reported that Softbank had registered a whopping $350 million in losses from its investments in two of the Indian startups, Snapdeal and Ola. Later, In the same month, the company fired about 600 people from its workforce, in a cost-cutting exercise. Not only this, it also stopped the incentive programme for customers that was previously launched through affiliates.

For Snapdeal trouble doesn’t stop here. Later in 2017, a group of online sellers had requested commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman to safeguard their money that Snapdeal owed them, in the form of outstanding dues. Later, the Union Minister of State, Commerce & Industry (I/C) intervened in the situation and stated that she will look into the matter and inquire into vendors’ complaints of default payments by Snapdeal.

While Snapdeal is fighting to survive in the competitive market by raising funds, its home-grown competitor Flipkart has closed $1 Bn round at a valuation of $10 Bn from undisclosed investors.

Now What Future Holds For It

After bleeding losses and trouble, Snapdeal is finally news for its merger. In March 2017 it was reported that SoftBank is facilitating a merger between Snapdeal and Flipkart, and is likely to invest $1.5 billion into a joint entity with a roughly 15 percent stake. SoftBank was trying to strike a deal to sell Snapdeal to Flipkart was in talks with Tiger Global to merge the Gurgaon-based marketplace with Flipkart. However later on sources revealed that deal could go either way — Snapdeal getting merged either with Flipkart or Paytm.

After 3 months-long deliberations that included more than 15 board meetings and a giant payout of at least $210 million, Japanese internet and telecom giant Softbank has finally made up its mind to merge its biggest Indian asset Snapdeal with e-commerce giant Flipkart. But still there is a bump in the road. As per the people familiar with the deal, the merger still requires a go-ahead from two of India’s most powerful businessmen magnets, Ratan Tata and Azim Premji.

The final deal has ended up valuing Snapdeal at around $1 billion, which is a major fall from its $6.5 billion last year. If sources to be believed, Snapdeal’s co-founders, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, who hold approximately 6.5 percent together in the company, can be expected to get richer by a whopping $60 million when the merger comes through.

Now time will only tell, whether this merger will give a major push to the current cut throat competition going on between Jeff Bezos’ Amazon and India’s very own homegrown e-commerce leader, Flipkart or not.

Anatomy of India's First 'Unicorpse' Startup

Is Snapdeal getting merged? Is deal finalised? At what valuation Flipkart is going to acquire Snapdeal? These are the few questions which are currently buzzing around. Snapdeal, a homegrown e-commerce giant is today for sure has become the talk of the town. Once known as one of India’s first unicorns is now becoming India’s first unicorpse startup a.k.a dead unicorn which is ready to be cremated. For unawares, a Unicorpse is a former unicorn, now valued at less than $1 billion.

All the while, despite all the troubles, Snapdeal has its own story to tell.

A Quick Flashback

Founded in February 2010 by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, Snapdeal has come a long way since its inception. While establishing its footprint in the market and competing against the e-commerce biggies like Flipkart, Snapdeal has acquired about 13 startups which include big names like Freecharge, Exclusively, GoJavas, Rupee Power to name few.
Talking about the funding, during the course of its journey, Snapdeal has raised about $1.76 billion in 12 rounds of funding. Out of these the most recent investment came in August 2016 from Luxembourg-based firm Clouse SA, that poured in another $21 million which valued the company somewhere between $6.5-$7 billion.

In August 2015, Snapdeal was valued at $5 billion when it had raised $500 million from Alibaba Group, Foxconn Technology Group and Softbank. However, Snapdeal’s biggest round of funding came in October 2014, when SoftBank invested $ 627 million. Not only this, In August 2014, Ratan Tata also made a personal investment in the e-commerce giant.

Apart from these well-known investors, Snapdeal’s other bunch of investors includes eBay, Kalaari Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Intel Capital and Saama Capital, Temasek, BlackRock Inc, Myriad, Premji Invest and Tybourne and IndoUS Venture Partners.

The online retailer claimed to have an assortment of 65 Mn plus products across 1000+ categories from over 125,000 regional, national, and international brands and retailers. It has over 300,000 sellers and delivers to 6000+ cities and towns in India.

If everything sounds so good then what went wrong? From where the downfall started?

From A Unicorn To Unicorpse

The e-commerce firm has been in the news for quite some time for bleeding losses and more. In November 2016, Softbank Group Corp, which has the highest holding in Snapdeal (about 32%) marked down close to $555 Mn in two of its Indian investments, cab hailing firm Ola and Snapdeal. In February 2017, it was reported that Softbank had registered a whopping $350 million in losses from its investments in two of the Indian startups, Snapdeal and Ola. Later, In the same month, the company fired about 600 people from its workforce, in a cost-cutting exercise. Not only this, it also stopped the incentive programme for customers that was previously launched through affiliates.

For Snapdeal trouble doesn’t stop here. Later in 2017, a group of online sellers had requested commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman to safeguard their money that Snapdeal owed them, in the form of outstanding dues. Later, the Union Minister of State, Commerce & Industry (I/C) intervened in the situation and stated that she will look into the matter and inquire into vendors’ complaints of default payments by Snapdeal.

While Snapdeal is fighting to survive in the competitive market by raising funds, its home-grown competitor Flipkart has closed $1 Bn round at a valuation of $10 Bn from undisclosed investors.

Now What Future Holds For It

After bleeding losses and trouble, Snapdeal is finally news for its merger. In March 2017 it was reported that SoftBank is facilitating a merger between Snapdeal and Flipkart, and is likely to invest $1.5 billion into a joint entity with a roughly 15 percent stake. SoftBank was trying to strike a deal to sell Snapdeal to Flipkart was in talks with Tiger Global to merge the Gurgaon-based marketplace with Flipkart. However later on sources revealed that deal could go either way — Snapdeal getting merged either with Flipkart or Paytm.

After 3 months-long deliberations that included more than 15 board meetings and a giant payout of at least $210 million, Japanese internet and telecom giant Softbank has finally made up its mind to merge its biggest Indian asset Snapdeal with e-commerce giant Flipkart. But still there is a bump in the road. As per the people familiar with the deal, the merger still requires a go-ahead from two of India’s most powerful businessmen magnets, Ratan Tata and Azim Premji.

The final deal has ended up valuing Snapdeal at around $1 billion, which is a major fall from its $6.5 billion last year. If sources to be believed, Snapdeal’s co-founders, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, who hold approximately 6.5 percent together in the company, can be expected to get richer by a whopping $60 million when the merger comes through.

Now time will only tell, whether this merger will give a major push to the current cut throat competition going on between Jeff Bezos’ Amazon and India’s very own homegrown e-commerce leader, Flipkart or not.

Startups Working in Sohpisticated Tech, Record-keeping, Augmented Reality will Be Next Unicorns, Says A VC

When we build something from ground up, we want it to be as successful as possible. So, if you're an entrepreneur currently in the midst of searching for your next big multi-billion-dollar startup idea, then you're reading the write article.

Bryan Schreier, who is currently a partner at the much famous Silicon Valley-based Venture Capital firm Sequoia Capital, recently shared his predictions for where the next unicorn startups are expected to come from. In his nine long years at Sequoia, Schreier has placed his bet on startups like Dropbox, TuneIn, and Trulia, which have now become big names in their fields. Prior to Sequoia, Schreier has worked at Morgan Stanley and tech giant Google.

1) Companies Bringing Together Sophisticated Technology With Hands-on Operations

Citing the examples of Airbnb and Uber, Schreier explains that from the consumer side, it has been made very clear that we are currently in the age where the next $50 billion market cap company will be what we call a 'hybrid' that makes use of both technology and operations from a human perspective. Schreier believes that after Snapchat, the next three or four consumer IPOs can be expected to come from these kinds of hybrid companies.

According to him, even thought technology has matured to a certain extent now and a lot of white space has gone, but this maturing technology has also created a different set of opportunities altogether. "The new large markets that haven't been tapped into yet tend to be offline markets that are now coming online, sometimes because there's finally mobile connectivity or sometimes for other reasons. Uber is an obvious example where you want to disrupt the taxi industry once all the drivers have mobile phones and the phones have GPS," said Schreier in between sessions at the Insight Summit that wrapped up earlier this month.

According to Schreier, the potential for hybrids such as Uber is much larger than for pure technology companies. He backed this statement by stating some simple figures and said, "In core tech, we get excited about $5 billion market. Uber's market is a $60 to $70 billion market. Airbnb's market is a $100 to $200 billion market." Schreier also mentions that in order for these companies to take off they need a very large human workforce that works with the technology.

2) B2B System Of Record Companies

A system of record company provides a "single source of truth," which is a term that the tech industry often uses to describe all data pertinent to a specific function being gathered and accessible in one interface. ServiceNow, a cloud-based IT help desk software; Workday, an HR and ERP company and Salesforce.com are all examples of such companies.

In addition to this, Schreier believes that there is also an opportunity for system of record companies that can lend a helping hand to their business customers in taming Big Data.
He said, "There's this plethora of data available to companies and most don't have tools to deal with it. They've got all this data coming at them, and they're wondering, 'What does it mean to me?' So you've got companies working on that."

Schreier predicts that AI and data science are the future of the tech world, with AI finally becoming accurate enough to be used by people on daily basis in their cars and homes. According to him, the company that will win the self-driving war is the one that will have the most amount of data. Unfortunately, he doubts that there's much scope there for small companies or startups as it will be very hard to compete against the Googles and Microsofts of the world that have already accumulated so much data since their birth.

3) Augmented Reality Companies

Schreier has utmost confidence in both augmented reality and virtual reality. He believes that VR is still a technology that's just about to arrive. But, he feels, startup opportunities may be limited in the field as far as hardware side is concerned because tech biggies like HTC and Samsung have grabbed most of the market share for devices.

Talking about AR, Schreier believes that the field has a lot of potential, and not just for games like Pokemon Go. He is optimistic that the technology can extensively help professionals working on car or jet engines, give people working in warehouses a better idea of their inventory and even tell construction workers what's concealed within a particular wall, among many other users. According to Schreier, "There will be a number of interesting vertical software markets to go after."

So, if you have been sitting on a great idea in any of the fields mentioned above, now is the time to put your idea into action because you never know, that might be the next multi-billion dollar idea.

[Image: Business Insider]

Huge Funding Makes This Firm World's First Space-based Unicorn Startup

Los Angeles-based Rocket Lab has become the first Unicorn space startup in the world. The company announced on Tuesday that it has closed a $75 million Series D round at a valuation of over $1 billion. The round was led by Data Collective, with Bessemer Venture Partners, Khosla, Promus Ventures, and K1W1 also contributing to the round.

According to figures made available by Rocket Lab, this latest round of funding has brought the total funds raised by the startup to a whopping $148 million, with its valuation crossing more than $1 billion. Thus, making it a Unicorn Startup.

The startup has decided to use the funds raised to scale up and increase its production rate enormously. It is looking to expand its manufacturing facilities in California and New Zealand for Rocket Lab's small launch vehicle, Electron.

Even though the cost of building smaller satellites has gone down over the past decades, rocket technology is still based around sending much larger satellites into the Earth's orbit. This means, small satellite operators have no option but to hitch rides with big payloads, such as big communication satellites, which not only comes out to be costly for them but they also have to comply with the schedules of these big satellite companies.

Electron, which makes use of the startup's 3D-printed Rutherford engines for its main propulsion system, has been designed with an objective of putting satellites weighing about 150 kilograms into orbits 500 kilometres above planet Earth. Once the company's production is fully functional, it aims to launch a rocket every week.

Rocket Lab can manufacture Electron at a rate of one per week and is looking to sell the same for $5 million per flight.

The startup, which has signed on customers such as NASA, Planet, Spire, and Moon Express, has already shipped the first Electron to its site on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand. It will now be conducting three test launches before taking its first commercial cargo into space in the second half of this year.

After this, the company hopes to send up its second and third rockets for test flights in short order. Those rockets are already in production. According to its current plan, Rocket Lab is hoping to launch its first commercial payloads before the end of this year.

While the market for launching satellites is currently booming at its all time high, but it is still a very small market in size. Experts predict that the market will grow exponentially in the coming few years, with billions of dollars already invested in private companies like OneWeb Satellites and SpaceX.

While India Struggles, China's Newest Unicorn is A Bicycle Rentals Startup

China has once again shown the world how it is done. The country which boosts of having the largest population on Earth has found a new trend being adopted by its citizens. The trend of renting bicycles has spread like wild fire and given birth to the country's first unicorn bicycle rentals on-demand startup, Ofo.

China's bicycle rentals on-demand space is flourishing at an unprecedented rate with the sector raking in investments worth more than $300 million this year alone — that too by just one company. And now comes the news that Beijing-based Ofo, which is popularly also referred to as the Uber for Bikes, has become the first player in the space to have reached the much-coveted $1 billion valuation, thus adding the title unicorn to its name.

The company behind the yellow two-wheelers that are nowadays seen everywhere in China has recently raised $450 million in its Series D round which was led by Russia’s DST.

The funding round saw a major onstage and offstage participation by China's local car-hailing giant Didi Chuxing, the startup which is most famed for driving its arch rival, US-based taxi-hailing giant Uber out of the country. Not only has Didi itself invested in Ofo but it has also got some of its own investors like Matrix China and CITIC interested in the startup.

Ofo began its journey in the year 2014 as a student project at Beijing’s prestigious Peking University. Eventual PhD dropout Dai Wei and four other students had initially decided to explore cycle tourism but they finally decided to something around bike-sharing. It's arch-rival Mobike was also started by Hu Weiwei, a former journalist around the same time.

These startups aim to democratise access to rental bikes by leveraging the boon of technology. The bikes being provided by these startups come tagged with GPS chips which enable them to be easily rented out via a mobile app without having the need to be stored in a central location.

Mobike, which has raised capital from Tencent, Xiaomi, Sequoia China and Singaporean sovereign fund Temasek among others, started its year with a $215 million Series D round of its own in January. This was followed by a whopping $85 million in additional capital via strategic investments from Temasek and Foxconn.

It is interesting to note here that India, the country with the second largest population just behind China, has still not been able to capitalise the big potential that the space holds. Though there are many startups trying to make a mark in the space in the country, none has been able to achieve success on the same scale as China's Ofo and Mobike.

India's IITs Are 4th Largest Source of Billion-Dollar Startups in the World

Here's a great news to start your week with. If you're one of those who aspires to build themselves a billion-dollar business in India in the near future, then enrolling yourself in one of the country's IITs is your safest bet to success.

Sage, a UK-based accounting and payroll company, recently carried out a study in which it listed universities all around the world that can be credited with having produced the most unicorn founders. According to the report published, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), which are considered premier institutes in the country, are the fourth largest producer of unicorn startups in the world. The first position was bagged by US-based Stanford University for having churned out 51 unicorn founders and the second position went to Harvard University with 37 unicorn founders. The third rank was occupied by California with 18 unicorn founders, which was followed by IIT for fourth rank with 12 billion-dollar founders.

For the unversed, a unicorn startup is the one that has more than a billion-dollar valuation. Currently, India houses 10 unicorn startups that have been responsible for putting the country on the world map of startup ecosystem.

India is home to 10 unicorn companies making them the poster boys of the country's startup ecosystem. From e-commerce biggies Flipkart, Snapdeal and ShopClues to restaurant aggregator Zomato, mobile adtech firm InMobi, analytics company Mu Sigma, classified ads platform Quickr, cab aggregator Ola, digital payments company Paytm, and messaging app Hike, these 10 are the members of the elite group of unicorn companies in India and almost all of them have founders from one of the IITs.

When it comes to IITs, IIT Delhi has churned out the maximum founders and has names like Flipkart's Sachin and Binny Bansal, Quikr's Pranay Chulet and Jiby Thomas, Snapdeal's Rohit Bansal, ShopClues' Sanjay Sethi, and Zomato's Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah as its esteemed alumni. Inmobi's founders Naveen Tiwari, Abhay Singhal and Amit Gupta went to IIT Kanpur while their co-founder Mohit Saxena was a student of IIT Roorkee. Ola's founders Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati are a product of IIT Bombay.

According to a statement given by IIT Delhi director V Ramgopal Rao, who is himself an alumnus of IIT Bombay to TOI, "Good students and faculty is a given with IITs. What is probably the differentiator with IIT Delhi is the culture of the institute which has been cultivated over several decades. They are more connected to the society and have a deep awareness of the problems that exist. Hence, they are able to look for solutions and become entrepreneurs."

According to industry observers, while in the earlier days it was the rigorous entrance exams and competitive spirit among the students that gave birth to such establishments, nowadays the institute is placing a special effort in fostering unicorns.

Sage's elaborate study also revealed that for over a 60% of the unicorn founders, the current unicorn was the only business that they had built and nurtured. However, the study also indicated that experience surely does play a crucial part in success as the study found out that people who have founded more than one company have, on an average, had a 34.5% higher valuation than those who founded just one.

When it comes to counting the number of unicorn companies that a country houses, US emerges at the top with 144, followed by China with 47. Here, India settles for the third position with 10 unicorn companies.

Sage's study also said that the year 2007 emerged as the bumper founding year as many as 29 companies joined the unicorn companies club, including Indian ecommerce biggie Flipkart. Further, the study also identified the year 2015 as the year of the unicorn as many as 86 companies added the unicorn credibility to their companies. However, the year 2016 wasn't that great as only 41 companies joined the unicorn club.

Unicorn Startups Was Past Now Its "Cockroach" Startups That Investors Are Searching For

It's time for the unicorns to make way for the cockroaches. Confused? No, we haven't gone bananas. The trend we're referring here to is the Unicorn Startups being dethroned of their glory by their cockroach counterparts. Still confused? Let's break it down for you.

The year 2015 belonged to the Unicorn startups- privately owned technology-driven startups that have reached a valuation mounting to $1 billion or more. But, fortunately or unfortunately in the startup world nothing stays permanent. According to industry experts, cockroach startups could be the term defining the year 2016 for the International Startup Industry.

A cockroach startup can be typically defined as a business which treads on a slow and steady path from the beginning, keeping a close check on its profit and revenue. A cockroach startup also keeps a tight control over its spending habits in order to keep itself safe and secure in case of any unexpected funding storm.

On the other hand, a unicorn startup climbs the growth ladder fast, all thanks to the fund money. Mostly, they're not that profitable but the main plan here is to first to set the business at a particular "scale" and then start focusing on making profits after it has successfully acquired a decent market share.

Startups right now basking in the Unicorn glory include Oscar, Uber, TransferWise, Prosper etc. Closer home, we have Flipkart, Snapdeal and Olacabs etc. in the Unicorn Club.

The main reason for the shift and unicorns being replaced by cockroaches is the investors concern over funding.

2015 saw startups getting free and easy funding, all because of record low-interest rates attracting more and more funds into venture capital. But, the year 2016 hasn't been off to a great start as compared to last year. As a result of a wobbly Global Economy, venture capital funding in startups has taken a major hit.

The recent trends have also revealed a fundamental problem in the business models of various Unicorn Startups and that is their reliance on easy Venture Capital money to fund the company's growth.

According to Dan Primack of Fortune, both private equity and venture capital performance have declined in the first quarter of the year 2016 for the very first time in years.

The term "cockroach startups" was first coined by Flickr founder Caterina Fake in a blogpost he wrote on idea in September last year.

Unicorn Startups Was Past Now Its "Cockroach" Startups That Investors Are Searching For

It's time for the unicorns to make way for the cockroaches. Confused? No, we haven't gone bananas. The trend we're referring here to is the Unicorn Startups being dethroned of their glory by their cockroach counterparts. Still confused? Let's break it down for you.

The year 2015 belonged to the Unicorn startups- privately owned technology-driven startups that have reached a valuation mounting to $1 billion or more. But, fortunately or unfortunately in the startup world nothing stays permanent. According to industry experts, cockroach startups could be the term defining the year 2016 for the International Startup Industry.

A cockroach startup can be typically defined as a business which treads on a slow and steady path from the beginning, keeping a close check on its profit and revenue. A cockroach startup also keeps a tight control over its spending habits in order to keep itself safe and secure in case of any unexpected funding storm.

On the other hand, a unicorn startup climbs the growth ladder fast, all thanks to the fund money. Mostly, they're not that profitable but the main plan here is to first to set the business at a particular "scale" and then start focusing on making profits after it has successfully acquired a decent market share.

Startups right now basking in the Unicorn glory include Oscar, Uber, TransferWise, Prosper etc. Closer home, we have Flipkart, Snapdeal and Olacabs etc. in the Unicorn Club.

The main reason for the shift and unicorns being replaced by cockroaches is the investors concern over funding.

2015 saw startups getting free and easy funding, all because of record low-interest rates attracting more and more funds into venture capital. But, the year 2016 hasn't been off to a great start as compared to last year. As a result of a wobbly Global Economy, venture capital funding in startups has taken a major hit.

The recent trends have also revealed a fundamental problem in the business models of various Unicorn Startups and that is their reliance on easy Venture Capital money to fund the company's growth.

According to Dan Primack of Fortune, both private equity and venture capital performance have declined in the first quarter of the year 2016 for the very first time in years.

The term "cockroach startups" was first coined by Flickr founder Caterina Fake in a blogpost he wrote on idea in September last year.

The World Has 229 Unicorn Startups, With $175B In Funding and $1.3T Valuation

The number of startups in the world is increasing every single day. There are people coming up with new ideas everywhere, dreaming of making it big. The next Mark Zuckerberg or Arianna Huffington might be sitting in their rooms and working on their idea somewhere in the world, we might not know. Our of these startups there are some that are a class apart, the "Unicorns" as the world calls them and, even more, rare are the "Decacorns". These are normally those startups that stir up the minds of people and make them want to reach for the stars too.

These so-called Unicorns are startups that have crossed an evaluation of $1 billion and the Decacorns are the ones with a valuation in excess of $10 billion. Like the government tracks all the rare species, VB profiles also decided to make a list of these rare creatures. They have counted a whopping 210 Unicorn Startups till now and about 21 Decacorn Startups. Digging a little deep, they found that half of these mystical creatures live in the state of California.

These startups are not uniformly distributed over the different sectors. Most of these big startups like Alibaba and Etsy to name a few, are concentrated in the consumer sector ( about 98%) and the rest are distributed in different sectors like fintech, healthcare, cleantech etc. But no other sector has a huge majority like consumer and retail industry.



Geographically speaking (as in top-most image), about 101 of these startups have their headquarters in the state of California. The next big fish in terms of cities is New York, housing 23 such startups. Crossing the Atlantic, we have only 13 startups in Europe spread across Germany and the UK. Moving further east, one big contender is China which has 33 startups alone and next in line is India with about 6 such startups and a few in the pipeline.



The year 2015 is a big one in the startup industry. In this year alone there we 81 startups that crossed the unicorn line and 1 startup that crossed the decacorn line. It is good to know that this growth is not just restricted to the US, 30% of these startups are based out of the US and spread out on the map a little wider. According to the founder Spoke, the recipe for a unicorn though not specified but has some key ingredients that make it work. Based on research it takes approximately 6 years and 95million on an average for a startup to become a unicorn, provided the idea is good and so the execution.

These unicorns and decacorns are the ones who make the rich richer. The top investment firms of the world, most of which are US based, are the ones who invest in these startups and make their money. Investing in these startups can be a bit risky. If you invest in the initial stages, the chances of getting returns are lower, but the chances of return are much higher if the investment is made during a later stage.