After 4.5 years of operation, the fintech startup Niro, which assisted consumer internet platforms in offering embedded credit products, has closed. Investors like Elevar Equity, GMO Venture Partners, Rebright Partners, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance VC, Innoven Capital, Alteria Capital, and CRED founder Kunal Shah supported the Bengaluru-based company, which was established in 2021 by Aditya Kumar and Sankalp Mathur.
In a LinkedIn post announcing the shutdown, Kumar stated that after 4.5 years, $20 million in finance, $200 million in loan disbursements, and 30 collaborations, “we’ve had to shut down Niro.”
What is the Core Reasons for Niro’s Clossure?
Just as the company was changing its business model, Shah explained, it was struck by “a perfect storm of regulatory pushback on personal lending, credit deterioration, and sub-optimal capitalisation,” which led to its demise. By collaborating with banks and NBFCs, Niro’s primary offering was to assist online platforms in integrating credit products; in other words, it transformed big consumer apps into fintech distribution channels.
The business expanded quickly and was one of the first in this field. According to Kumar, Niro had accomplished the seemingly impossible by recruiting amazing people, raising patient, high-quality funding, and persuading major consumer internet platforms and top lenders to collaborate with us in order to unleash value at scale.
Within just over two years of its start, Niro had $100 million in assets under management, and at its height, its platform had over 170 million members. During its existence, it also signed 30 partnerships and disbursed $200 million in loans. However, the company was compelled to alter its strategy at an unfavourable moment due to the swift legislative changes in the digital lending environment, declining credit quality, and financial limitations. Kumar described the situation as “a perfect storm.”
Financial Dynamics of Niro
Tracxn, a market intelligence platform, reports that Niro raised $18.7 million in four investment rounds, valued at $58.4 million. It had about 290 employees at its height. With ten years of experience, Kumar is a fintech entrepreneur who founded Qbera, a digital lending company that InCred later purchased. He oversaw InCred’s consumer loan division after the acquisition.
The closure of Niro coincides with a number of fintech startups dealing with increasingly stringent laws, declining credit scores, and a more conservative investment climate, all of which have made it harder to scale lending operations.
Quick Shots
•Fintech startup Niro, backed by Kunal Shah and top
VCs, shuts down after 4.5 years of operations.
•Launched by Aditya Kumar and Sankalp Mathur to help
consumer internet platforms offer embedded credit products.
•Raised $18.7M in funding, valued at $58.4M,
disbursed $200M in loans, and had 30+ partnerships.
•Achieved $100M AUM and reached 170M+ users at its
peak.
•Closure reflects wider fintech struggles with new
regulations, investor caution, and scaling hurdles.
On September 15, the fintech company CRED, based in Bengaluru, announced Sovereign, an exclusive society for India’s elite, which includes a custom 18-karat gold credit card with guilloché engraving. The CRED-IndusInd Bank RuPay Credit Card was also introduced by the corporation.
With CRED Scan and Pay, this lifestyle-focused card delivers a 5% reward on all online purchases and a 1% reward on offline and UPI purchases. Credit cards may only be issued by banks in India, which is why IndusInd Bank and the fintech have partnered. In a standard co-branded card agreement, CRED will handle the sales and marketing.
Benefits of CRED’s New Credit Card
More than 500 CRED Pay merchants, 2,000 CRED Store products, flights (facilitated by the ixigo platform), and more than 8 lakh hotel reservations (facilitated by Expedia) may all be made with the card. Earned reward points are instantly applied at checkout and are worth one rupee each. The founder of CRED, Kunal Shah, stated before the launch that the card was created to fill a basic market need: the lack of reward flexibility.
The majority of other e-commerce and payment companies also use co-branded cards from companies like Amazon, Flipkart, Swiggy, PhonePe, and Paytm. “Work with this merchant, work with that merchant,” Shah stated during the press conference, indicating that all the cards were moving in that way. Customers, however, desire freedom.
This card is about rewards based on preference rather than conditions. He went on to say that flexibility is now essential due to the change in consumer behaviour. Shah went on to say that 60–65% of all card spending is already going online, compared to 25–30% only a few years ago. “Credible consumers of the new generation prefer to experiment with a variety of brands rather than being confined to a small number of imposed allegiances.”
CRED Attracting Affluent and Digital-First Consumers
The card has a two-minute digital onboarding process and no membership costs. The offering is positioned to appeal to India’s rapidly expanding market of wealthy, tech-savvy consumers, claims IndusInd Bank. Shah, a well-known angel investor, expressed optimism about the new products’ prospects, particularly those of the Sovereign Gold Card.
“Look closely since it’s likely that you won’t notice it. “Most people won’t understand it,” he stated. Cred, the sixth-largest UPI app, was first introduced as a platform for paying credit card bills. The business has evolved into a diversified payments fintech with a range of financial services capabilities.
Quick
Shots
•Issued as a CRED-IndusInd Bank RuPay
Credit Card, with CRED handling sales & marketing and IndusInd Bank
issuing.
•Access to 500+ CRED Pay merchants,
2,000+ CRED Store products, flights (via ixigo), and 8 lakh+ hotels (via
Expedia).
•Focus on reward flexibility vs. other
co-branded cards with restricted merchant tie-ups.
•The card is free to join, aimed at maximizing
adoption among aspirational users.
How many times have you broken your pot to withdraw your savings from the piggy bank? If you’ve also done this, then you know the temptation to break the pot and take the money out. But this was a traditional method of saving. In this era, you can save whenever you spend. Want to know how? Then stay tuned with this article.
So many tactics we adopt in order to save our money for our future needs. Traditionally, we used to save our money in piggy banks. Whenever we have some extra pennies, we put that money in a piggy bank and wait until it is full. This way, we accumulate a handsome amount of money through small savings.
As mentioned, this is a traditional method, but today we have the privilege to use digital technology for saving as well. Now we can automate our savings without any extra hustle by leveraging the benefits of digital savings apps. These apps are designed to boost savings by contributing a small chunk of daily spending into gold or investing it into different portfolios, which, with large returns, yields a handsome profit.
What Are Digital Saving Apps?
Digital saving apps facilitate saving by leveraging AI and technology. These apps help you to save every single penny, and in addition to that, provide interest on it. You can create your goal for future spending and start saving for that goal now. Each day, when you see yourself going toward your goal will create a habit of saving in you and motivate you to continue further.
Top 12 Digital Saving Apps
There are many digital savings apps in the market, but the following are the best digital apps that you must try to make a profit.
Many of you are very much familiar with the word “Gullak”, as it is widely used by us for saving pennies and small amounts. Gullak is a goal-based saving app that helps to maintain consistency in saving and also to move towards your goal of saving. The amount we save in Gullak is invested in digital gold, which is 24k pure gold. This way, you can earn some interest on your savings through appreciation in the gold price.
Set your goal with as low as Rs 10 per day and automate the whole process of saving via the autopay facility. Currently, this app supports autopay from three UPI platforms like PhonePe, BHIM, and PayTM. You can adjust the contribution, pause, or revoke the autopay anytime.
The most influential feature of this app is saving on your spending. Whenever you spend your money digitally, it automatically rounds off the amount spent and invests in digital gold. For example, if you make a payment of Rs194, it rounds off the figure to the nearest 10 and invests the remaining amount of Rs6. This way, it accumulates a handsome amount of money by aggregating these small savings.
Features of Gullak
It invests in digital Gold provided by Augmont, where the buying and selling price is based on the wholesale market price.
Flexibility to change the duration of your goal, the amount of autopay, and the multiplier.
Automate your saving habit with Spenny, which is a spare change investment platform. The working of this app is similar to Gullak, but it has certain advantages. Whenever you spend money digitally, it accumulates your transaction data, and based on your transaction, it rounds up the figure to the nearest 10.
It holds all your rounded-up money in a cart and invests the whole amount into your desired investment option. There is a minimum threshold limit in the cart set by you, which means it invests your money when this threshold is met.
Let me clear one most common doubts, it doesn’t deduct the money to round up whenever you make any transaction. It accumulates the spare change in the cart and only deducts the money via autopay when it reaches the threshold limit decided by you.
Features of Spenny
There is no lock-in period, which means you can withdraw your money whenever you want.
It provides multiple investment options like Pennywise, mutual funds, and digital gold.
Fello
Rating
3.7/5
Best For
Gaming Enthusiast
Daily Savings App – Fello
Fello is a game-based digital saving app that enriches the saving experience with the fun and joy of built-in games. It offers two investment options to save money: fellow flo and digital gold. Users can opt for any of these two options to grow their savings and earn some interest. Digital gold of Fello is provided by Augmont, which is a government, BIS, and NABL-accredited Gold provider.
Apart from saving and investing in Gold and Fello Flo, Users can play exciting games and win rewards. This app provides a token for every single rupee you save, and you can use those tokens to play games. Also, every Rs500 of weekly savings makes you eligible to win a tombola ticket. A Tambola ticket is like a lucky draw coupon where you win a reward if your ticket number matches the leaderboard number. Every Friday at 6 PM, they announce the draw number.
Features of Fello
10% fixed return if you choose Fello Flo, which is a decent return compared to other fixed investment options available. This return may change anytime.
Along with the Fello Flo, the Digital Gold investment option is also available from a trusted provider, Augmont.
Win a Fello token every time you save some bucks, and use these tokens to play games.
Money Saving Apps
Wizely
Rating
4.2/5
Best For
Saving and future Plans
Digital Piggy Bank App – Wizely
Wizely is a savings app to improve your financial discipline and make sure you never run out of money at the end of the month. This app comes with many exciting features and gives a reward whenever you take one step forward toward your goal. There are some saving plans already created, like an emergency plan, safety plan, and growth plan, or you can create your custom plan and start saving.
The funds are automatically saved in the form of digital gold to earn some interest. Whenever you save some money and fulfil the challenges, it will provide you with a wellness score and a scratch card. The reward earned through scratch cards can easily be transferred directly to the bank account through UPI. Wizely Wednesday is another exciting reward contest to win rewards up to Rs 25 lakh. Your savings are in autopilot mode with Wizely, and it will also track your spending and all the transactions in one place.
Features of wisely
Budget creation and monitoring of the expenditure to build financial discipline.
Save more and take on challenges to win scratch cards and earn monetary rewards.
Expense categorization to prevent you from overspending.
Fi money
Rating
4.5/5
Best For
Working professionals
Best Money Saving Apps India – Fi Money
Fi Money is a one-stop solution for accounts, savings, investment, UPI, and lending. It is a neobank with a partnership with a federal bank that provides an enhanced banking experience to its customers. It is loaded with all the basic facilities of a traditional bank, with no minimum balance requirements and zero forex charges. RBI-approved Fi money insures your money up to Rs 5 lakh. Smart deposit is the piggy bank of this app to save money for your goals.
It allows you to save money for your vacations, a new house, a car, and many more. With the benefit of saving, it gives an interest of 5.45% on the amount you save. If you want to earn some extra interest of 5.95%, then you can simply switch to fixed deposits with the convenience of your smartphone. For better convenience and transparency, it connects all your bank accounts to its platform so that you can view all your transactions and bank balances in one place.
Features of Fi money
Multiple saving and investment options are available to choose from, based on your saving goal.
The Fi jump feature to earn a fixed interest of 9% every year and see your investment grow every day. Also, withdraw your investment anytime to your account.
Have a collection of direct and commission-free mutual funds to invest in.
Jar is a digital Gullak to save your hard-earned money into 24K digital gold. Just like you put pennies into your traditional Gullak, you can put spare change into a jar. This spare change is automatically debited from your account via UPI mandate. Jar is the best app for saving money in India digitally.
Whenever you make any digital transaction, Jar rounds up the value to the nearest 10 and invests the remaining spare change into your digital goal. SafeGold is the digital gold provider of Jar, which enables investing in digital gold to be feasible. One can easily withdraw the investment at any time with a single click. Jar also provides real-time updates on Gold prices through the chart. Also, there is a spin reward awarded to you whenever you save some money in it.
Features of Jar
You can choose to withdraw your savings either into a bank account or in the form of physical gold, which will be directly delivered to your home.
There is no lock-in period and minimum amount for withdrawal.
Seamlessly automate your savings via autopay and pause or revoke it anytime.
Jupiter
Rating
4.4/5
Best For
Expense tracking and management
Best Saving App in India – Jupiter
Jupiter is a federal bank-backed digital asset management platform that is loaded with banking facilities, investments, debit and credit card management, savings, and transaction tracking. Jupiter offers savings pots to save for future purchases. This pot lets you be aware of your savings for your goal and keeps you disciplined. Apart from saving, you can also make investments in direct mutual funds with no commission. These are no-penalty mutual funds, which means you don’t need to pay any penalty for SIP default.
A zero balance account with no forex charge is another notable feature of this app. Just like Fi money, you can configure your bank accounts and see all your transactions and bank balances at one single interface. It provides a Jupiter debit card with no annual maintenance charge. Earn a reward of 1% whenever you make a purchase using this card, also freeze and sleep the card with a single tap.
Features of Jupiter
Categorized insight into all the expenditures made through any of your bank accounts.
Intuitive interface to manage everything at a glance.
Get a 1% reward not only on debit card transactions but also on purchases through UPI.
Deciml is the next app on our list of digital portfolios. Like other saving apps we discussed so far, this also has the functionality to save your spare change and invest in a fixed return instrument. This supports all debit cards, credit cards, UPI, net banking, and ATM transactions to accumulate spare change.
While other apps invest your spare change in digital gold or mutual funds, this app invests your money into Lendbox. Lendbox is a P2P investment platform certified by the RBI. It invests your money into a diversified portfolio to earn interest on your savings. Deciml is currently working on implementing mutual funds and crypto in its investment portfolio. It’s a piggy bank app in India that supports all credit cards and helps you save money.
Features of Deciml
The main feature of Deciml, which differentiates it from Jar and Gulllak, is that it invests your spare change on a daily basis. It doesn’t wait to reach a certain amount to invest.
Offers return up to 10%, which is approximately 3X the savings account return, and 2.5X the FD return.
Cred
Rating
4.7/5
Best For
Credit card users
Best Money Saving Apps in India Digitally – Cred
Cred is a credit card management app that delivers amazing credit card-related services that eventually help you save a lot of money. The use of Credit cards is now very common among people, also most people tend to hold more than one credit card at a time. Credit cards come with a lot of benefits, only if you use them in a disciplined manner, and here Cred plays an exceptional role.
It helps in the timely payment of your credit card dues by reminding you of the due date. You can monitor all your credit cards in one place, their spending, EMIs, outstanding amount, and many more things. Apart from making you disciplined in credit card use, it also showcases the hidden charges associated with these cards.
It offers free credit scores to you from top credit rating agencies like Experian and CRIF. Cred allows you to become a member if you fulfil certain eligibility criteria. It checks your credit score when you apply for membership and approves you as a member if your credit score falls above the eligible score.
Features of Cred
Whenever you make a credit card bill payment through this app, it will reward you the Cred coins by which you can use to unlock exclusive rewards.
Since your Credit score depends on your credit behaviour, this app uses AI to provide you with the statistics of your spending patterns and usage.
Multiple credit card management facilities in one app, now there is no need to download separate apps for all your cards.
YNAB (You Need a Budget) is an app that acts as your personal finance manager that taking care of all your finances. It helps to manage all your finances in one place and also to make smart financial decisions. Integrate all your bank accounts in one place and see all your finances.
The goal-tracking feature will help you to track your progress at a glance. This app doesn’t allow you to save money on it, but it helps in different aspects of saving. Smart categorization of your expenses will help you monitor your expenses at the top.
Features of YNAB
Target setting for your goal to achieve it even faster.
Adjust your spending and move the money from one category to another seamlessly.
Easy monitoring of spending, goal progress, and budget.
Digit is an AI-powered savings app that automatically analyzes your spending habits and moves small amounts of money into savings without you noticing. It helps you save for multiple goals like emergency funds, vacations, or debt repayment. The app removes the need for manual budgeting or transfers, making it ideal for people who want a hands-off approach to saving. Digit also offers features like overdraft prevention and investment options. It’s especially useful for users who struggle with consistent saving habits.
Features of Digit
Digit analyzes your income and spending habits to save small, safe amounts daily without manual input.
You can create multiple savings goals like travel, emergency funds, or debt repayment, and Digit allocates funds accordingly.
Digit monitors your bank balance and transfers money back if needed to help you avoid overdraft fees.
Cash Karo
Rating
4.2/5
Best For
Cashback and Coupons on Shopping
Best Digital Money Saving App – CashKaro
CashKaro is a cashback and coupons platform that helps users save money on online shopping. When you shop through CashKaro’s partner links, you earn real cashback on purchases from sites like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, and more. The cashback can be transferred to your bank account or redeemed as gift cards. It also offers exclusive deals and coupons to boost your savings. Ideal for regular online shoppers who want extra value on every purchase.
Features of CashKaro
You earn cashback when you shop on popular sites like Amazon and Flipkart through CashKaro.
It gives you exclusive coupon codes to save more money.
You can refer friends and earn extra cashback from their purchases.
Saving and investing for a future goal is the best thing you can start today, and these digital savings apps will help you in your journey. Today, we have a plethora of investment and saving options to choose from. You need to choose the right option that best suits your goals and requirements. Don’t think too much, just create your goal and start saving by choosing the best-saving App from the list we have provided.
FAQs
What are the benefits of Digital savings apps?
Digital savings apps can make the process of saving money easier over time. You can fill your piggy bank automatically so that savings goals can be met without stress, and it also helps you on tough days by automatically saving for you as you are spending. Some apps are programmed to make payments rounded off to the nearest whole number and save away the “change” you would receive if the transaction were done in cash.
Why is saving important?
Saving provides a financial “backstop” and provides financial security and freedom, and it also secures you in case any financial emergency arises. One can avoid debt, pay off loans, live their dream life, and avoid further debt if they have saved a sufficient amount.
Which are the apps like Jar?
Some of the apps like Jar
Gullak
Cred
Spenny
Fello
Wizely
Fi Money
Jupiter
YNAB
Deciml
Which is better in Gullak vs Jar?
Gullak and Jar are both digital savings apps that help you save money easily, but they work a bit differently. Gullak focuses on automating small savings by rounding off your daily expenses and putting the extra change aside, making saving effortless. Jar, on the other hand, also saves your spare change but invests it directly into digital gold, helping your savings grow with potential returns. So, if you want simple, automatic saving, Gullak is great. But if you want to invest your small savings in gold, Jar is a better choice.
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The concept of credit is not new. People have been opting for credit since time immemorial. Credit is crucial when our capital cannot support certain investments, and credit cards have certainly made them easy to avail. However, paying the credit card bills is a priority and equally difficult to manage. This is why CRED decided to come forth with the unique idea of a platform that will help Indians pay their credit card bills on time and also offer them instant offers and rewards for the same.
CRED is a fintech company headquartered in Bengaluru, which allows its users to make credit card payments through its app and get exclusive offers and other benefits online. Furthermore, CRED has also introduced house rent payment options, Rent Pay; flexible credit lines, CRED Cash; and CRED Mint, with which the lenders can lend their idle money to borrowers who exhibit decent credit scores at interests of around 9% per annum.
Learn more about the CRED startup story, its founder, history, tagline, logo, business model, revenue model, funding, competitors, and more.
CRED allows credit card users to pay their credit card bills through its platform and extends rewards for each transaction. The fintech platform also lets users make their house rent payments and avail all the benefits of the short-term credit lines that the app now offers. The CRED headquarters is in Bangalore.
The company takes the utmost care in protecting the data and user information. Hence, the app is completely safe and secure. Kunal Shah is the founder of CRED. He founded the company in 2018 and often describes CRED as a TrustTech company, not a Fintech. This is because his initial motivation to start CRED came from solving trust issues in Indian society, which, according to him, is the key to economic prosperity. The CRED founder, Kunal Shah, is a well-known face in the startup ecosystem who has already funded numerous startups.
CRED – Startup Story
The Cred story was very simple. The goal was to create a platform where life could be made better and systematic. Kunal Shah wanted to offer more privileges and benefits to people with good credit scores. Therefore, creating a flywheel effect for more people was important to improve the scores.
Everybody, from the startups to the government, has focused on the masses. The founder of the company wanted to focus specifically on the people, the responsible citizens who pay taxes on time. He felt that nobody had solved their problems earlier.
‘If you look at history, nobody has been rewarded for paying back on time. We want to fix that.’
Therefore, CRED was founded primarily to solve the problems of the taxpayers and reward them with attractive rewards in return.
CRED – Founder and Team
Kunal Shah
Kunal Shah, Founder and CEO of CRED
Kunal Shah is the founder and CEO of CRED. He is an Indian entrepreneur who is credited for launching new ventures for a second time. Kunal was a Philosophy graduate from Wilson College and later went on to pursue an MBA from the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, but he dropped the course midway to chase his dreams as an entrepreneur.
Kunal started his entrepreneurial journey with PaisaBack, a website for cashback, coupons, and other offers for users, along with Sandeep Tandon. However, he eventually shut down its operations in order to found FreeCharge, which the duo founded in 2010.
FreeCharge was acquired by Snapdeal in April 2015, but the company still continued as an independent entity led by Shah. CRED was founded in 2018 and successfully turned unicorn on April 6, 2021. FreeCharge, on the other hand, was acquired by Axis Bank in July 2017. Here’s looking at the FreeCharge business model and how it makes money through it.
Kunal Shah was born in Mumbai in 1983. His hobbies include playing chess and poker. He loves munching on chips and guacamole. He loves the ideology of Socrates and the plays of G.B. Shaw.
CRED app – The CRED app is a neat-looking, beautifully designed app that users can visit if they want to go through the offers that are available after they pay their credit card bills. They can easily sign up on the app and view all the offers that they can avail of.
Businesses that provide offers on the app – The users of CRED can also find a wide range of offers from numerous businesses. For this, CRED brings businesses on board and collaborates with them. Along with benefitting CRED and its customers, who can avail of the exclusive offers provided by the businesses, it is also a win-win situation for the companies. This is because they also hugely benefit from the visibility they get.
Users who pay their credit card bills – CRED also serves as a smooth and rewarding platform for the users who use it to pay their credit card bills. In comparison to banking or other apps, end-users can choose CRED as an app to pay their credit card bills and get numerous offers and benefits. On the other hand, the users who like the app also share CRED with their family and friends.
CRED Mint – CRED disclosed its new feature, CRED Mint, on August 20, 2021, which is designed as a peer-to-peer lending platform that will help CRED users lend their idle money to creditworthy members. It is a rather transparent process that only allows the trustworthy CRED members boasting of a minimal credit score of 750 or higher to be the borrowers. Furthermore, the lenders can also withdraw their money whenever they want, with the interest that they have accumulated for the period.
There are 2 prominent ways via which CRED makes money,
Listing products and offers – CRED, as we know, lists an array of products and offers that benefit its users from a range of businesses. These businesses, in turn, pay CRED a fee for their visibility. Every time a user avails of the offers, CRED generates an income through it.
Using the financial data of the users, CRED accumulates the financial data from the users who use the platform for paying their bills and more. Along with providing CRED with the opportunity to introduce more offers to their users using these data, CRED also has other banks and financial institutions that pay them a fee for accessing these data. These companies, banks, and financial institutions would eventually approach the potential customers with their own set of products aligned to their tastes.
CRED has revealed that it does not charge any fees for the credit card payment options that it offers via its app. The company instead earns its revenues from the ancillary services it provides with the help of its technology and distribution platform.
CRED – Funding and Investors
Here’s a look at the CRED funding rounds:
Date
Transaction Name
Money Raised
Lead Investors
June 9, 2025
$72 million
Lathe Investment, RTP Global, Sofina Ventures, QED Innovation Labs
June 9, 2022
Series F
$80 million
GIC, Sofina, Alpha Wave and DF International
April 8, 2022
Venture Round
$200 million
GIC
October 19, 2021
Series E
$251 million
Tiger GLobal and Falcon Edge
April 6, 2021
Series D
$215 million
Coatue, Falcon Edge Capital and others
January 1, 2021
Post-IPO Secondary Round
–
–
November 30, 2020
Series C
$81 million
DST Global
July 26, 2019
Series B
$120 million
Gemini Investments, Ribbit Capital and Sequoia Capital India
April 16, 2019
Series A
$24 million
–
January 1, 2019
Seed Round
–
Rainmatter Technology
November 6, 2018
Seed Round
$30 million
Sequoia Capital India
CRED – Shareholding
CRED Shareholding Pattern as of March 2025
Here is CRED’s shareholding pattern as of March 2025, sourced from Tracxn:
CRED Shareholders
Percentage
Kunal Shah
10.8%
QED Innovation Labs
9.6%
Sequoia Capital
9.3%
Ribbit Capital
8.1%
Tiger Global Management
5.8%
Gemini Investment Management
4.8%
DST Global
4.5%
Alpha Wave Global
4.7%
Coatue
4.0%
Hillhouse Capital Group
2.0%
RTP Global
2.5%
General Catalyst
1.6%
Sofina
1.5%
Greenoaks
1.5%
GIC
0.9%
Prime Venture Partners
0.8%
Dragoneer Investment Group
0.8%
Insight Luxembourg
0.5%
Axiom Asia
0.2%
Marshall Wace
0.2%
Kalaari Capital
0.2%
Dream Duo
0.2%
Rise Global Capital
0.2%
Matrix Partners India
0.2%
SciFi
0.1%
Whiteboard Capital
< 0.1%
Rainmatter
< 0.1%
Greyhound Capital Management
< 0.1%
Bharat Innovation Fund
< 0.1%
Reddy Futures
< 0.1%
Venture Highway
< 0.1%
Future Shape
< 0.1%
Rajaram Family Trust
< 0.1%
Zarringhalam Ventures
< 0.1%
Mission Holdings
< 0.1%
Meridian Fund
< 0.1%
Cupola Venture Opportunites l
< 0.1%
Alteria Capital
< 0.1%
Valiant Capital Partners
–
ReDefine Capital Partners
–
Credence Partners
–
Ganesh Ventures
–
eWTP Capital
–
The Chatterjee Family Revocable Trust
–
AME Cloud Ventures
–
CRED
0.8%
Anxa Holding
0.6%
MVision
0.6%
GRACE software
0.3%
SFSPVI
0.2%
Stak3 International
0.2%
Spenny
< 0.1%
Strategic Asset Management
< 0.1%
Ra Hospitality
< 0.1%
Kuber Technologes
–
SF Roofdeck Capital
–
Angel
0.2%
Other People
1.3%
ESOP Pool
20.4%
Total
100.0%
CRED – Acquisitions
CRED has acquired five companies to date: Hipbar, Happay, smallcase, and Spenny. The recent acquisition is of Spenny on June 23, 2023.
Company Acquired
Date
Deal Value
Kuvera
February 6, 2024
–
Spenny
June 23, 2023
–
smallcase
August 2, 2022
$400 million
Happay
December 1, 2021
$180 million
HipBar
October 21, 2021
–
CRED – Growth and Revenue
CRED has shown steady growth throughout the years. Being a startup that was founded in 2018, it successfully joined the unicorn club on April 6, 2021, closing its Series D round where the company had mopped up $215 million. CRED controls “22% of all credit card payments in India every month,” said Kunal Shah in his statement released in April 2021. CRED’s valuation reached $6.5 billion in 2022 after a $200 million funding round.
Kunal Shah further took to his LinkedIn profile on July 10, 2021, and shared highlights of the milestones reached by CRED in June:
Kunal Shah shared financial progress of CRED on LinkedIn
CRED Financials
CRED saw its operating revenue grow by 71% to INR 2,397 crore in FY24, up from INR 1,400 crore the previous year.
Including other income, CRED’s total revenue increased by 66%, reaching INR 2,473 crore in FY24, compared to INR 1,484 crore in FY23.
However, despite the rise in revenue, the company’s net loss expanded by 22%, reaching INR 1,644 crore in FY24, up from INR 1,347 crore the previous year. CRED noted that its operating loss decreased by 41%, dropping to INR 609 crore from INR 1,024 crore in FY23. The company’s total operating expenditure, including one-time costs, amounted to INR 3,082 crore in FY24.
Whereas, CRED’s operating revenue has increased from INR 393.5 crore in FY22 to INR 1,400.6 crore in FY23. In terms of profit and loss, company losses increased from INR 1,279.5 crore in FY22 to INR 1,347 crore in FY23.
CRED Financials 2024
CRED Revenue Breakdown
Particulars
FY23
FY22
Revenue from Operations
INR 1,400.3 crore
INR 394.4 crore
Other Income
INR 84.4 crore
INR 28.2 crore
Total Revenue
INR 1,484.6 crore
INR 422.6 crore
Revenue more than tripled in FY23, led by a sharp increase in operational revenue from INR 394.4 crore to INR 1,400.3 crore.
CRED Profit/Loss
Losses remained high and consistent, increasing slightly from INR 1,279.6 crore in FY22 to INR 1,347.5 crore in FY23.
CRED Expenses Breakdown
The company’s total expenses rose from INR 1,702 crore in FY22 to INR 2,832 crore in FY23.
Particulars
FY23
FY22
Employee Benefit Expense
INR 788.9 crore
INR 307.6 crore
Finance Costs
INR 3.5 crore
INR 2.4 crore
Amortization & Depreciation
INR 59.4 crore
INR 14.3 crore
Other Expenses
INR 1,980.2 crore
INR 1,377.7 crore
Total Expenses
INR 2,832 crore
INR 1,702.1 crore
EBITDA
With a huge increase in EBITDA margin from -299.24% in FY22 to -86.42% in FY23, the company showed remarkable financial improvement. The ROCE increased from -42.66% in FY22 to -31.95% in FY23, demonstrating good improvement. These adjustments imply that the company’s financial performance is on the upswing.
EBITDA FY22-FY23
FY22
FY23
EBITDA Margin
-299.24%
-86.42%
Expense/₹ of Op Revenue
₹4.33
₹2.02
Roce
-42.66%
-31.95%
Quick Summary: Comparative Insights (FY23 vs FY22)
CRED introduced CRED Mint on August 20, 2021, which will serve as a peer-to-peer lending feature that can be used by the customers of CRED. CRED Mint was launched by CRED in collaboration with RBI-approved P2P Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC), Liquiloans.
CRED Cash
CRED launched CRED Cash, a flexible credit line, in 2020. CRED Cash considers its members pre-approved for an active credit line of up to INR 5 lakhs without any documents, phone calls, forms, or physical visits.
Rent Pay
CRED launched Rent Pay in April 2020, which enables users to pay their monthly rent via credit cards.
CRED Store
CRED launched CRED Store, an eCommerce platform, which is deemed as a haven for customers with over 500 premium brands across a wide range of categories to shop from.
CRED, which was famous as a credit card bill manager, is now up with some more offerings, including mobile, DTH, and FASTtag recharge options. As per the latest reports dated April 1, 2022, the Kunal Shah-led company has launched its utility bill payments segment, with the help of which the users can now pay their utility bills, including electricity, water bills, and municipal tax, via the CRED app.
Tap to Pay Feature
With the Tap to Pay feature Android users with NFC capabilities can pay without physical cards or wallets by tapping their smartphones on merchant terminals. CRED launched this feature in February 2022.
BidBlast
BidBlast is a thrilling bidding game that CRED members can only play, and it was launched in December 2022. This will give the CRED members the excitement of bidding without using actual money by using CRED coins.
CRED Flash
CRED launched CRED flash in February 2023; with this launch, customers can make payments using BNPL products within the app and across more than 500 partner merchants.
CRED Escapes
The launch of CRED Escapes in March 2023 will provide a painstakingly designed platform with premium privileges, exclusive events, and lodging. This is consistent with CRED’s cutting-edge strategy, which offers members benefits like spa credits, hotel upgrades, and theme park admission.
P2P Payments
CRED launched a P2P payment feature in April 2023. With this feature, customers of CRED will be able to send money to other users via UPI IDs or contact numbers using P2P payment.
RuPay Credit card-based payments
In August 2023, CRED, in collaboration with NPCI in August 2023, launched Rupay credit card- based payment, and now customers can make UPI payments using their credit cards. This partnership benefits banks and merchants by increasing spending and credit sector inclusion.
Fourth Edition of AWP program
CRED launched its fourth version of the AWP (Accelerated Wealth Program), giving staff members the opportunity to purchase more ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans) with a quicker vesting period.
According to a March 15, 2024, report, this program gives employees the option to choose to have up to 50% of their pay come from special grant ESOPs. With this initiative, CRED hopes to encourage employee ownership and alignment with the company’s long-term growth trajectory while also rewarding and incentivizing staff members.
Paytm is the top competitor of CRED. It is a fintech app and payments platform that is headquartered in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India, and was founded in 2010.
PhonePe is another notable competitor of CRED. It is also a digital payment and financial services platform headquartered in Bangalore, India, and was founded in 2015. This app has the largest market share of 50% as of December 2022.
Being a UPI platform that is a mass-volume player, Google Pay is another competitor of CRED. This digital payments platform was developed by the Search engine giant Google itself.
Amazon Pay is also a rival of CRED, which is now all set to provide diverse payment options. The online payments processing app was launched by Amazon and founded in 2007.
MobiKwik is yet another fintech company, that supports digital payment options and is a rival of CRED at the same time. It is headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana, India, and was founded in 2009.
Freecharge is also a company that CRED competes with, after the launch of its mobile bills and utility bill payment services. Originally founded by Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon, Freecharge is now owned by Axis Bank.
CRED allows credit card users to pay their bills through its platform and extends rewards for each transaction.The fintech platform also lets the users make their house rent payments, and also avail all the benefits of the short-term credit lines that the app now offers.
Who is CRED founder and CRED CEO?
Kunal Shah is the founder and CEO of CRED.
CRED started in which year?
Kunal Shah founded CRED in 2018.
Is CRED a fintech company?
Yes, CRED is a fintech company founded by Kunal Shah and headquartered in Bangalore.
Is CRED an Indian company?
Yes, CRED is an Indian fintech company.
How does CRED make money?
CRED earns money from listing fees that businesses pay to display their products and offers on its app – CRED collects your financial data as you use the app and continues to pay your bills to offer you better offers in the future. To gain access to this data, banks and credit card companies pay CRED.
Is CRED profitable?
CRED saw its operating revenue grow by 71% to INR 2,397 crore in FY24, up from INR 1,400 crore the previous year. Despite the rise in revenue, the company’s net loss expanded by 22%, reaching INR 1,644 crore in FY24, up from INR 1,347 crore the previous year.
How much is CRED revenue?
CRED saw its operating revenue grow by 71% to INR 2,397 crore in FY24, up from INR 1,400 crore the previous year.
What is CRED tagline?
The tagline of CRED company is Suraksha Aur Bharosa Dono.
Which is CRED parent company?
CRED doesn’t have a parent company. It is an independent fintech platform.
CRED, founded in 2018 by Kunal Shah, is a fintech startup that has revolutionized credit card payments in India. Operating in the personal finance world, CRED has been growing like wildfire, with a monthly active user base of approximately 13 million.
So, what’s its secret sauce?
It’s all about making bill-paying feel exclusive and, dare we say, fun. From quirky ads that’ll make you chuckle to teaming up with big-name brands, CRED’s marketing game is strong. Stick around as we unpack how this company’s unique approach is shaking things up in the crowded fintech scene.
CRED’s target audience primarily consists of affluent, creditworthy individuals in India. Specifically, CRED focuses on people with high credit scores, typically those with scores above 750. These are often urban professionals, high-income earners, and financially savvy individuals looking for exclusive benefits and a premium experience managing their credit card payments and personal finances.
CRED has disrupted India’s credit card payment landscape with its unique approach to the marketing mix and made a name for itself among credit-savvy urban Indians. It’s done this by mixing a few key ingredients: coming up with innovative products, pricing them cleverly, making everything easily accessible online, and promoting to just the right audience. It’s all added up to position them as a go-to premium brand in the market. Let’s delve into the key components of CRED’s marketing strategy.
Product
At its core, CRED’s product is a mobile application that revolutionizes credit card payments by gamifying the experience. The app offers not just bill payment services, but also rewards for timely payments, exclusive deals, credit score monitoring, and additional financial services like rent payments and personal loans.
Price
CRED uses a freemium model. The basic app is free to use, which lowers the entry barrier for potential users. The startup generates revenue via commissions from partner brands, fees from financial products, and a premium subscription tier. This model allows CRED to offer high perceived value to users while maintaining a steady income stream.
Place
CRED’s place strategy is predominantly digital, with the app available on major mobile platforms and the web. Interestingly, CRED creates exclusivity by limiting access to users with credit scores above 750, focusing primarily on affluent, urban customers in India’s major cities.
Promotion
The promotion strategy is where CRED truly shines. The company runs humorous advertising campaigns that feature celebrities, sponsors major events like the IPL cricket tournament, and partners with influencers.
Referral programs, content marketing, and exclusive member events further drive engagement and acquisition. This approach helps create buzz, reinforces the brand’s premium positioning, and fosters a sense of community among users.
CRED’s distinctive marketing strategies have helped it stand out in a competitive market.
Exclusive membership
CRED positions itself as an exclusive club for individuals with high credit scores – it typically requires a credit score of 750 or above for membership. This creates a sense of prestige and aspiration.The brand started out as this super exclusive club where you needed an invite just to join. Pretty fancy, right? But it didn’t stop there. It’s now rolled out something called “CRED Select” for the crème de la crème members. It’s like VIP treatment for the VIPs, offering extra perks and goodies. So even within this already exclusive group, there’s now a special inner circle. Talk about taking exclusivity to the next level!
Quirky, high-production value advertisements
CRED’s ads often feature celebrity cameos and absurdist humor, making them highly memorable and shareable.
One of CRED’s most notable and widely discussed advertising campaigns was the “CRED: Great for the Good” series launched during the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket season in 2020. The ad features legendary Indian cricketer, Rahul Dravid, known for his calm and composed demeanor, in a completely unexpected light, experiencing “road rage”.
The ad escalates quickly. Dravid is shown smashing his rearview mirror with a coffee cup, standing through his car’s sunroof shouting “Indiranagar ka gunda hoon main!” (I’m the goon of Indiranagar), and even destroying vehicles around him with a cricket bat. The ad ends with the tagline “Not everyone gets it,” implying that CRED, like Dravid’s bizarre behavior, is not for everyone.
Rewards-driven model
CREDincentivizes credit card bill payments by offering rewards and cashbacks, essentially gamifying financial responsibility.
CRED incentivizes timely credit card payments through its app by awarding users with CRED coins. These coins serve multiple purposes, including redemption for various rewards or discounts. The platform often provides cashback on bill payments, sometimes offering a percentage of the total bill amount.
Within the app, users can access the CRED Store, where they can utilize their accumulated coins to purchase products at discounted rates. To add an element of engagement, CRED periodically introduces “mystery boxes” that users can unlock using their coins. These boxes contain surprise rewards, effectively transforming the routine bill payment process into a more engaging experience.
Partnerships with premium brands
To reinforce the app’s premium positioning, CRED collaborates with luxury brands like The Taj Group of Hotels, offering CRED members exclusive discounts, upgrades, or special packages at Taj properties. Members might receive complimentary room upgrades, special booking rates, or access to exclusive Taj experiences.
The brand’s partnership with Cure.fit provides CRED users with special offers on Cure.fit’s services. This could include discounted subscriptions to Cure.fit’s digital fitness classes, meal plans, or access to their offline gyms and fitness centers.
CRED also partners with other luxury and premium brands across various categories. For example, access to exclusive Jimmy Choo collections, premium test drives or chef’s table experiences at high-end restaurants.
Experiential marketing
Experiential marketing by CRED
While other fintechs showcased their technology using AI/ML, CRED distributed free beer at the recent Global Fintech Fest 2024 to engage attendees in a fun, interactive activity. Attendees needed 50,000 CRED coins to scan the code, access the CRED bar and redeem the coins for beer.
The disruptive idea reinforced their image as a fintech company that is different, enjoyable, and lifestyle-oriented, rather than just focused on financial transactions.
Word-of-mouth referral program
The company encourages member referrals, leveraging word-of-mouth marketing, social proof and network effects. As more users join through referrals, the value of the platform potentially increases for all users. This could lead to more partnerships, better deals, or enhanced features as the user base grows. While encouraging referrals, CRED maintains its focus on creditworthy individuals by applying its credit score criteria to all new sign-ups.
CRED – Marketing Campaigns
Not Everyone Gets It (2020-2021)
Not Everyone Gets It (2020-2021)
CRED’s IPL campaigns have been particularly noteworthy. The “Not Everyone Gets It” series, launched during IPL 2020 and continued in 2021, featured celebrities like Rahul Dravid, Anil Kapoor, and Madhuri Dixit in unexpected avatars.
The most viral ad from this campaign showed the normally calm Rahul Dravid in an uncharacteristic “angry” persona stuck in Bangalore traffic. Playing on CRED’s exclusivity, it implied that not everyone would understand the app’s benefits.
CRED Jackpot (2021)
During IPL 2021, CRED launched the “CRED Jackpot” campaign. This initiative offered members a chance to win prizes by paying their credit card bills through the app. The campaign featured cricketer Neeraj Chopra and actor Jim Sarbh in quirky advertisements.
The Jackpot campaign was successful in driving user activity on the app. CRED reported a significant increase in credit card bill payments during the IPL season.
CRED Mega Jackpot (2022)
CRED Mega Jackpot (2022)
Building on the success of the previous year, CRED introduced the “Mega Jackpot” campaign during IPL 2022. This campaign featured a star-studded cast including Kamal Haasan, Vijay Deverakonda, and Kapil Dev in a series of eccentric commercials.
The Mega Jackpot offered even larger prizes, including luxury cars and all-expenses-paid trips. This further incentivized users to engage with the app during the cricket season.
CRED Pay (2023)
To promote its new payment feature, CRED launched the CRED Pay campaign in 2023. The ads featured Ayushmann Khurrana and were designed to showcase how CRED Pay simplifies online transactions. The campaign emphasized how CRED makes payments seamless and encouraged users to adopt the feature.
CRED – The Road Ahead
CRED’s innovative approach to marketing has undeniably disrupted India’s digital finance sector. The company has not only carved out a significant market share but also redefined customer engagement in fintech. As the company continues to evolve, its impact on the industry is likely to deepen. Competitors will need to adapt as part of an evolving creative and customer-centric fintech landscape. While challenges lie ahead, including maintaining growth and navigating regulatory changes, CRED’s success story offers valuable lessons for startups and established players to follow.
CRED allows credit card users to pay their bills through its platform and extends rewards for each transaction.The fintech platform also lets the users make their house rent payments, and also avail all the benefits of the short-term credit lines that the app now offers.
Not many things out there can match the convenience that comes with a credit card. After all, what can be better than spending money- money that you don’t have to hold or carry in your wallet? Moreover, we hover around, get 6-7 weeks to pay back the same, and then also earn rewards, discounts, or cashback on it. Well, these instruments are designed in such a way that they keep you hooked.
Kudos to the noble banks and fintech players, but then – every boon comes with a T&C. Founded in April 2018 by Kunal Shah, CRED has emerged as a pivotal fintech platform that redefines the way credit card payments, rewards, and management are perceived across the nation.
This platform stands out by prioritizing the credibility of its users, employing credit scores as a criterion to curate a community of trustworthy individuals, thereby simplifying the credit card bill payment process and rewarding timely transactions with exclusive offers and discounts.
With a robust user base of almost 16 million and a valuation soaring to $6.4 billion as of June 2022, CRED’s trajectory reflects its groundbreaking approach to imbibing a gated ecosystem that benefits both individual lenders and financial institutions by ensuring a circle of high trust.
CRED’s business model, which pivoted the startup to the much-coveted unicorn status within just over two years of its inception, has been simple yet phenomenal. The USP revolves around offering a meticulous balance between user convenience and enticing rewards. The platform allows users to effortlessly manage their credit card bills, track expenses, and avail themselves of P2P lending at competitive rates, and by doing so – the Fintech major not only enhances financial health but also ingrains a culture of financial responsibility.
The platform’s focus on amplifying user value through exceptional rewards for responsible financial behavior, coupled with its strategic partnerships for exclusive deals, sets a precedence in the CC payments space, accentuating the importance of credibility and trust in the digital era.
In this article, we will be exploring the CRED business model and understanding how CRED makes money and what is its revenue model.
CRED, established in 2018 by Kunal Shah, is an innovative Indian fintech company that offers a reward-based credit card payment application. It started with the idea of targeting creditworthy individuals, specifically those with a credit score above 750, ensuring a community of high trust. However, with time – the credit card payment enabler has become more lenient when it comes to profiling individuals. The platform verifies new members by checking their credit scores with major credit bureaus such as CIBIL, Experian, and CRIF, requiring only their full name and a valid Indian mobile number for initial setup.
Credit Card Payment and Management: CRED simplifies the management of credit card expenses by providing a detailed analysis of spending patterns and efficiency, which aids users in better financial planning.
CRED Protect: An AI-driven feature, CRED Protect, offers automated monitoring of credit card payments, sends due date reminders, and analyses spending habits to prevent fraudulent transactions.
Rewards System: Upon paying their credit card bills through CRED, members gain access to exclusive rewards such as event tickets, experiences, gift cards, and premium upgrades from well-known brands like Diesel, Perfora, The Man Company, AJIO, Myntra, and others.
Additional Financial Services: Besides basic card management, CRED has expanded its offerings to include house rent payments and short-term credit lines, providing more comprehensive financial solutions.
Value of Credit Card Transactions in India
User Impact and Market Presence
User Base and Transactions: As of 2021, CRED has processed approximately 20% of all credit card bill payments in India, with a user base exceeding 5.9 million. The market share has continued to soar and grow.
Investments and Financial Health: Supported by major investors like DST Global and Sequoia Capital, CRED has raised significant funds to fuel its growth, despite reporting substantial losses in 2020 due to aggressive marketing and advertising strategies.
Strategic Acquisitions: In its pursuit to broaden its service spectrum, CRED has acquired startups like Happay, focusing on expense management, and HipBar, a liquor delivery service.
CRED continues to upscale its platform with features that promote good creditworthiness and financial discipline while rewarding creditworthy behavior, positioning itself as a cornerstone in India’s fintech scene.
Understanding the CRED Business Model – How Does CRED work?
The business model of CRED revolves around creating a seamless experience for credit card users while partnering with businesses to provide exclusive rewards and incentives.
Three Pillars of the CRED Business Model
CRED’s Customers: CRED’s customers are an essential component of its business model. While many people use payment apps or log in to their bank accounts to pay their credit card bills, CRED provides an attractive alternative by offering rewards and incentives. As more people use CRED to earn benefits, they share those benefits more widely, creating a network effect that strengthens CRED’s position in the market.
CRED App: The CRED app is a key component of its business model. The app provides users with a user-friendly interface to see all the available offers for paying their credit card bills. As users continue to pay bills, they accumulate CRED coins, which they can redeem for rewards.
Businesses That Provide Offers On The App: This is another important pillar of CRED’s business model. By bringing businesses on board and forming tie-ups with them, CRED provides small and large businesses alike with visibility, as buyers of all types use the app. This partnership is beneficial for businesses, as it allows them to increase their customer base and revenue while also providing users with more rewards and incentives to use the app.
CRED Revenue Model – How CRED Makes Money?
CRED Revenue Model – How CRED Makes Money?
The progressive business model of CRED leverages multiple revenue streams to create a robust ecosystem for creditworthy users. Here’s a detailed breakdown of how cred makes money:
Revenue from Business Listings
Businesses pay to display their products and offers on the CRED app, generating significant listing fees for the platform.
Transaction-Based Earnings
CRED charges a processing fee ranging from 1 to 1.5% on various transactions, which includes payments made through CRED pay.
Additional revenue is earned through commissions on sales from advertisements optimized to encourage spending on the platform.
Interest and Commission from Financial Services
The platform earns interest on loans provided through peer-to-peer lending and CRED Stash.
A commission is also earned from transactions where users redeem CRED coins for offers from partnered brands.
Diverse Financial Offerings
CRED’s array of services, such as CRED Pay, CRED Store, and CRED Escapes, ensures a broad base from which to draw revenue, ranging from payment processing fees to premium subscriptions.
Strategic Revenue Sharing
A revenue share is obtained from partnered brands when users redeem points for rewards, integrating user engagement with profitability.
Thus, by focusing on a trust-based model, CRED not only secures a high-engagement user base but also creates a profitable framework through diverse revenue channels, making it a unique player in the fintech space.
Let’s decode the revenue streams of the Shah-led company and understand how they make the revenue model of CRED a big-time success.
Revenue Composition and Growth
Primary Revenue Sources
CRED’s positioning revolves around multiple income streams that the neo-fintech player has figured out over the years. The majority of its income, nearly 90% – is derived from three key services: CRED Cash, Cred Max, and various insurance products. These services cater to the essential needs of the platform’s creditworthy user base, ensuring a steady influx of revenue.
Operational Revenue Enhancement
CRED saw its operating revenue grow by 71% to INR 2,397 crore in FY24, up from INR 1,400 crore the previous year.
Including other income, CRED’s total revenue increased by 66%, reaching INR 2,473 crore in FY24, compared to INR 1,484 crore in FY23.
However, despite the rise in revenue, the company’s net loss expanded by 22%, reaching INR 1,644 crore in FY24, up from INR 1,347 crore the previous year. CRED noted that its operating loss decreased by 41%, dropping to INR 609 crore from INR 1,024 crore in FY23.
For the fiscal year 2023, CRED reported a substantial increase in operational revenue, which grew by 3.5 times to reach INR 1,400.6 crore, up from INR 393.5 crore in the previous fiscal year. This growth highlights the effectiveness of CRED’s business strategies and its ability to monetize its services efficiently.
Particulars
FY23
FY22
Revenue from Operations
INR 1,400.3 crore
INR 394.4 crore
Other Income
INR 84.4 crore
INR 28.2 crore
Total Revenue
INR 1,484.6 crore
INR 422.6 crore
CRED Financials 2024
Fee-Based Earnings
CRED capitalizes on transactional processes by charging a processing fee of approximately 1-1.5% on various transactions made through the platform. Additionally, the platform earns fees when users select offers from the ‘Discover’ section, further augmenting its revenue.
Interest Income and Financial Services
A significant portion of CRED’s revenue also comes from interest earned on peer-to-peer lending and CRED Stash, which provides an instant credit line to customers. This not only diversifies CRED’s revenue streams but also enhances user engagement by offering financial solutions within the app.
Strategic Financial Management
Despite a notable increase in revenue, CRED’s total operating expenditure, including one-time costs, amounted to INR 3,082 crore in FY24. Whereas, the company’s total expenditure rose by 66.4% to INR 2,832 crore in FY23 from INR 1,702 crore in FY22. The company has strategically reduced marketing and promotional expenses by 26.8% to INR 713 crore in FY23 from INR 976 crore in FY22, focusing more on direct integrations with banks to lessen payment processing charges. Through the continuous evolution of financial strategies and optimization of its service offerings, CRED is not just sustaining but also significantly strengthening its fiscal footprint in the competitive fintech arena.
CRED’s Value Proposition to Users
CRED’s value proposition uniquely intertwines convenience with rewards, offering a robust platform for creditworthy individuals to manage their finances effectively and enjoy exclusive benefits. Here’s how the CRED business stands out:
Kunal Shah Led CRED’s Value Proposition to Users
Rewards for Financial Responsibility: Users earn rewards for timely credit card payments, which not only encourages punctual bill settlements but also aids in maintaining a healthy credit score.
Suite of Financial Management Tools: With features like CRED Protect and Smart Statements, users can effortlessly monitor transactions, identify discrepancies in their credit reports, and initiate disputes to correct them, ensuring financial accuracy and security.
Exclusive Access to Deals and Offers: Membership in CRED opens doors to curated deals and premium packages, allowing users to make significant savings on various purchases, enhancing the shopping experience, and providing real value for money.
More Payment Options with CRED Max: Beyond credit card bills, CRED Max enables users to conveniently pay for rent, utilities, insurance premiums, and even subscriptions, simplifying the management of regular expenses.
Better User Experience: CRED’s interface is designed for ease of use, making financial transactions not just simple but enjoyable. This focus on user experience helps retain members and fosters long-term loyalty.
Security and Privacy: All personal data and transactions on CRED are securely encrypted, ensuring that users’ financial information remains private and protected.
Appealing to Diverse User Needs: CRED appeals to a broad segment of financially savvy users, from those seeking to improve their credit scores to privacy-conscious consumers, all finding value in the platform’s offerings.
Understanding user needs through innovative features and maintaining a high standard of security has led CRED to successfully deliver a compelling value proposition that resonates with its target audience.
Competitive Scenario and Differentiation Challenges
Operating in a Crowded Market: CRED operates in a highly competitive digital finance market in India, where numerous loyalty programs vie for consumer attention. Establishing a distinct presence amidst this crowd poses a significant challenge for how CRED works.
Effective Communication: The crucial task for CRED is to effectively communicate its unique value proposition. Many potential users are already familiar with traditional loyalty rewards programs, making it imperative for CRED to highlight its differences and benefits clearly and persuasively.
Competition and Market Positioning
Facing Established Giants: CRED encounters intense competition from well-established players in the payments and financial services sector, including the likes of companies like Gpay and PhonePe. These competitors offer similar services, which necessitates CRED to continually innovate and offer superior value to retain and attract users.
Differentiation Strategy: To stand out, CRED needs to keep differentiating itself through unique features, exceptional user experiences, and tailored services that resonate with its target audience of creditworthy individuals. It is even trying to do so by constantly gamifying the platform with animated contests, among others.
Future Prospects and Strategic Focus
Sustainable Monetisation: While CRED has successfully attracted a large user base and built a strong brand, the ongoing challenge is to monetize this base in a sustainable manner. The focus must be on creating long-term value for users without compromising upon profitability.
Playing Upon Brand Strength: CRED’s future prospects will heavily rely on its ability to make the most out of its brand and user trust to introduce new revenue-generating services and expand its market reach without compromising on user experience or data security.
CRED plans to grow by tapping into digital payments, promoting financial literacy, and using technologies like AI to enhance user experience. It aims to expand through strategic partnerships and new market entry. Additionally, CRED is part of the RBI’s e-rupee pilot, exploring India’s digital currency future.
CRED needs to address these challenges and capitalize on opportunities. If done in the right way, the CC leader can continue to enhance its market position and achieve sustained growth in the long run.
Looking ahead, the road for CRED is both challenging and ripe with opportunities. As the platform continues to hover through the market dynamics and explores sustainable monetization strategies, its innovation-led approach will be crucial. The significance of the CRED business model lies not just in its current achievements but in its potential to shape future financial behaviors and market trends.
Consequently, the broader implications of the company’s success extend far beyond its immediate ecosystem, potentially influencing the global fintech dream and offering insights into the power of trust and reward in building a financially responsible society.
FAQs
What does CRED do?
CRED is an innovative Indian fintech company that offers a reward-based credit card payment application.
How does CRED make money?
CRED earns money from fees charged to businesses for the privilege of showcasing their products and offers on the CRED app. In addition, CRED earns money from transaction-based earnings, interest and commissions from financial services, and diverse financial offerings.
What is the CRED membership process?
To make the most out of CRED, you must have a credit score (CIBIL) of 750 or simply own a credit card. Upon joining, CRED will request permission to access and verify your credit score from credit bureaus such as Experian, CRIF, and CIBIL to assess what services it would extend to you, based on your rapport.
What issue does CRED aim to address?
CRED was born out of Kunal Shah’s challenges with managing multiple credit cards. The platform aims to tackle the issue of late payments on credit card bills, which can lead to accruing interest and damaging one’s CIBIL score. CRED provides a solution by helping users manage their credit card payments more efficiently.
How does the CRED app work?
CRED is a credit card bill payment app that rewards users with cashback and discounts for timely payments. Users link their credit cards, pay bills through the app, and earn perks from various brands. The app also offers credit score tracking for financial monitoring.
Is CRED a profitable company?
CRED saw its operating revenue grow by 71% to INR 2,397 crore in FY24, up from INR 1,400 crore the previous year. Despite the rise in revenue, the company’s net loss expanded by 22%, reaching INR 1,644 crore in FY24, up from INR 1,347 crore the previous year.
What is the CRED revenue model?
The revenue model of CRED involves revenue generation through diverse channels, including, Revenue from Business Listings and Financial Institutions, Transaction-Based Earnings, Interest and Commission from Financial Services, Diverse Financial Offerings, and Strategic Revenue Sharing.
What is CRED business model?
The business model of CRED is built on three pillars – its customers who pay credit card bills, the CRED app, and the businesses that provide offers on the app.
How CRED works?
CRED is accessible only to individuals with a credit score of 750 or higher (CIBIL). The app verifies your credit score by requesting access from credit bureaus such as Experian, CRIF, and CIBIL. If you meet the eligibility criteria, CRED allows you to link your existing credit cards to your account.
According to a media report, Cred, a credit card payment network, is in negotiations to raise $100–200 million in new capital, mostly from current investors. The startup established by Kunal Shah would be valued down at about $4 billion in the acquisition, compared to $6.4 billion three years prior. The Singapore state fund GIC, which spearheaded the last infusion in 2022, is probably going to lead this financing. Participation is also anticipated from other significant Cred shareholders, including Peak XV Partners, Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital, and QED Innovation Labs. According to many media sources, talks are in progress with investors, but the valuation will be less than its 2022 round. On the basis of better financial performance and a decrease in the company’s financial burn, new funds are to be raised. Three years ago, Cred amassed $140 million in a variety of main and secondary deals, led by GIC, as the fintech company’s valuation increased from $3.8 billion to $6.3 billion.
Cred to Focus on Profitability
Cred is focused on profitability and plans to enter the public markets in around two years. A few profitable quarters prior to its IPO (initial public offering) is the internal strategy. According to a media report, the valuation decrease is consistent with the IPO pricing strategy. The lower valuation coincides with a worldwide reset in the IT industry across all industries. Last year, the payments juggernaut Stripe, based in Silicon Valley, reduced its valuation from its top of $95 billion in 2021 to $50 billion. Employee shares were purchased by investors for $91.5 billion earlier this year through a tender offer. The capitalisation of Swedish finance company Klarna fell from $46 billion to $6.7 billion. Aiming for a valuation of more than $15 billion for its IPO, Klarna has postponed listing.
Cred Cutting Cost to Reduce Cash Burn
Cred has been reducing expenses in an effort to lower cash burn over the past year as it seeks to become profitable. Cred has not yet submitted its most recent financial statements, although its revenue has been increasing year over year. Various media reports state that it recorded total revenues of about INR 3,000 crore in FY25. With operating losses dropping to INR 609 crore from roughly INR 1,024 crore in FY24, Cred claimed total revenue of INR 2,473 crore. As part of a larger plan to expand credit distribution beyond unsecured personal loans, one of the company’s main sources of income, the fintech company introduced loans backed by mutual funds in February.
Cred also runs Newtap Finance, which, as of the end of December 2024, had a net loss of INR 5.3 crore and total assets under control of INR 1,141 crore. Shah, the founder of Cred, owns all of Newtap Technologies, which is the primary owner of Newtap Finance. Originally founded in 2018 as a platform for paying credit card bills, the firm has subsequently expanded into credit, commerce, insurance, and transactions via the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). In terms of the quantity of transactions handled, it is now the seventh-largest UPI payment app. There were 144 million transactions in March. It settled compensation totalling INR 55,000 crore, which is one of the biggest amounts in the sector.
India is becoming theworld’s fastest-growing startup ecosystem with 118 Unicorn Startups, as of January 2025. In today’s world, unicorn startupsare not as uncommon as before; however, building a unicorn startup is not easy. It takes a lot of hard work, commitment, and perseverance throughout the startup’s journey to climb the ladder of unicorns, and the ones that have bagged the title of unicorns are discussed in this article.
Unicorn Startup consists of two words, “Unicorn” and “Startup”. Unicorn is a business term used to define a startup with a valuation of over $1 billion. The term was coined by a venture capitalist and a seed investor, Aileen Lee. On the other hand, Startups are privately owned companies typically at the early stages of their development.
Being hopeful and supportive of the unicorn culture of India, the Union Minister of State for Entrepreneurship, Skill Development, Electronics & Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that India will see a 10X increase in its unicorn count, in the next 2-3 years, which will reach more than 1,000. The Indian government also mentioned that it expects the next wave of startup founders to come from the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities of India.
The Indian startups have reportedly raised around $42+ billion in funding across 1,584 deals in 2021. The startup ecosystem of India, where 90,000+ new startups have been established since 2016, across 56+ different sectors in the country, has also managed to create over 4.5 lakh job opportunities in the country. This has even got a special mention from President Ram Nath Kovind in his Presidential address on 31 January 2022, where he emphasized the new opportunities that the startups of India are ushering in.
A Celebration for 100 Indian Unicorns
With Neobank Open achieving unicorn status, India became a country of 100+ unicorns. The first unicorn was seen in India in 2011, and after a decade, India crossed the mark of 100 unicorns. The boasting of 100 unicorns is not a regular affair, and this is why the startup ecosystem has been tossing in joy and swelling with pride for quite some time now. In the meanwhile, many distinguished founders also voiced their thrill and joy for such an achievement.
“Crossing the 100th unicorn milestone is a proud moment for the country and the entire startup ecosystem. This is just the beginning of a long journey,” said Sujeet Kumar, the cofounder of B2B marketplace unicorn Udaan.
Vamsi Krishna of Vedantu also relished the mood that the startup ecosystem is in, and said, “The rise of India as a global superpower is inevitable and entrepreneurs will be the ones driving it. 100 unicorns are just a start. We will soon become the startup capital of the world.”
Divya Gokunath, the cofounder of Byju’s and the wife of Byju Raveendran also said, “We became India’s 16th unicorn, just seven years after we started operations. The valuation did not matter to us, but the milestone did because it was one of the few at that time which put India on the map. Today, for the first 100 Indian companies which made it, it’s a mark that we are on a mission to create something of value and something from India for the world.”
The faster growth of companies and the sprouting of more unicorns is what India wishes for now. This means that the companies should definitely have to be more serious, and resourceful, and work with an integrated team of specialists to reach the unicorn milestone and beyond. It also means that the Indian startups should forget racial, gender and caste divides, and work with all of their strength, and resources. Here, what is striking among the present unicorns is the apparent gender divide. Yes, only 15% of the present unicorns of India have at least one female founder, while the remaining companies have no female as their founders. This certainly needs to improve to give the upcoming companies a fresh gear of growth. Though the situation is improving, for around 79% of the Indian unicorns with female founders were incorporated after 2011, it still needs to be given considerable thought and a whole lot of action.
Here we have listed 118 Indian Unicorn Startups, which is the total number of unicorns in India at present in 2025! Don’t miss out on the regular updates in this list by bookmarking the article.
The following table is sorted by the year startups are turned into a unicorn (Latest to oldest).
Abhay Singhal, Amit Gupta, Mohit Saxena, Naveen Tewari, Piyush Shah
Founded
2007
Investors
Lightbox, Softbank Group, Kleiner Perkins
Products and Services
InMobi Pulse, Mobile Marketing
Valuation
$12 billion (April 2021)
InMobi is a Bengaluru-based mobile advertising platform that helps in optimizing the ranks of the advertisements offered on mobile phones. InMobi was founded in January 2007 and has been the first unicorn startup of India and thus, a torchbearer of the unicorn league of Indian startups that followed. Glance, a subsidiary company of InMobi, has also turned a unicorn in 2020.
Ecommerce marketplace that offers over 150 million products
Valuation
$37.6 billion (July 2021)
Being the most favored eCommerce marketplace in India, Flipkart needs no introduction simply because the Big Billion Days are one of the most sought-after online events that millions of Indians look up to. Flipkart was among the first Indian unicorns that achieved the unicorn valuation during the 2011-2012 era after inMobi, which was the first Indian unicorn. With over 350 million users, and 150+ million products, which are distributed across 80+ categories Flipkart is a household for the Indian masses. This ecommerce giant was acquired by Walmart in 2018 for a whopping $16 billion, which helped it scale fast and easily. The Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal-founded company currently boasts of a valuation of over $37.6 billion and is the highest-valued Indian company, as of 2023.
BharatPe is an Indian digital payments app, merchant aggregator, and payments platform that encourages digital payments via QR and POS. It is not a government company but a private limited company that goes by the name, Resilient Innovations Private Limited. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company tripled its valuation to $2.85 billion and joined the unicorn club on August 4, 2021.
BharatPe Co-founder Ashneer Grover was recently engaged in a telephone controversy where he allegedly abused a Kotak employee. Grover was also infamously featured on various social media and news platforms several times due to his rash behaviour and his blunt remarks where he also said “naukri dhoond” to one of his fellow pitchers. Furthermore, he is also associated lately with a financial fraud concerning BharatPe along with his wife Madhuri and five others, the investigation of which is continuing, as per reports dated January 29, 2022. Ashneer is currently observing a mandatory leave of absence, as mentioned last by the company and its Board. Grover might not see his place back and is likely to get fired, mentioned sources close to the matter.
Steadview Capital, Tencent, Tiger Global Management, Falcon Edge
Products and Services
Dream11 sports platform
Valuation
$8 billion (November 2021)
Dream11 is an Indian fantasy sports platform, which brings a host of sports including but not limited to cricket, football, hockey, volleyball, handball, futsal, and rugby, for the Indian sports fanatics to delve into their favourite games. A homegrown sports platform, Dream 11, aims to help Indian sports enthusiasts to expand and showcase the sports knowledge they boast of!
Earlier in April 2019, Dream11 raised funding worth $60 million from Steadview Capital and others and joined the unicorn league of Indian startups. The last valuation of Dream11 was recorded at $8 billion, after the company completed an investment of $840 million in November 2021.
PhonePe is a digital payment and merchant aggregator platform that has already had a huge contribution to making digital payments smooth, fast, and easy for Indian customers and merchants. Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Andheri, Maharashtra, India, the company boasts of having the largest market share among the UPI apps. The company showed a huge potential for growth and has already achieved unicorn status before 2020. The company was acquired by Flipkart in April 2016 and has witnessed a considerable amount of growth since then. The PhonePe Business Model and “how PhonePe earns money?” is pretty interesting too.
Byju’s is a Bangalore-based edtech platform. It is an online tutoring and coaching firm that started in 2011 and runs on a freemium model. Launched by Byju Raveendran, Byju’s is used by more than 15 million students all over the world and has over 900,000 paid subscribers. Byju’s Current valuation has reached 16.5 Billion USD. Know in detail about BYJU’s business and revenue model.
SoftBank Group, Tiger Global, Tencent, Matrix Partners, and DST Global
Products and Services
Mobile app, website, Vehicle for hire, Goods and food delivery, Mobile payment and digital wallet
Valuation
$6.5 billion (FY20)
Ola is an Indian ride-sharing company that was launched on 3rd December 2010. As of 2019, Ola has expanded to over 1.5 million drivers across 250 cities. Ola has also expanded its network into its first overseas market, Australia, and New Zealand in September 2018. Ola began its operations in the UK introducing auto rickshaws.
SoftBank Group, Didi Chuxing, Greenoaks Capital, Sequoia India, Lightspeed India, Hero Enterprise, Airbnb, and China Lodging Group.
Products and Services
OYO Rooms, OYO Hotels & Homes
Valuation
$9 billion (July 2021)
OYO is among the top travel startups in India. Founded by 21-year-old Ritesh Agarwal in 2013, India’s largest hospitality startup comprises budget hotels. The startup works in liaison with existing hotels and offers travellers vacant rooms at a cheaper price. OYO rooms start at a nominal price of Rs 999. Besides bulk renting hotels, they have also invested in their own properties as well.
Norwest Venture Partners, Naspers, Accel, SAIF Partners, Meituan-Dianping
Products and Services
Food delivery
Valuation
$5.5 billion (July 2021)
Swiggy is one of the most valuable online food ordering and delivery platforms. Swiggy was founded by Nandan Reddy, Sriharsha Majety, and Rahul Jaimini in 2014. In early 2019, Swiggy expanded into general product deliveries, under the brand name Swiggy Stores. Swiggy today has more than 5,000,000 mobile application installations.
Zomato is an Indian food delivery startup restaurant aggregator. Zomato was founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah in 2008. Zomato primarily provides concrete information, menus, and user reviews of the restaurants. Along with this, Zomato also has food delivery options from partnered restaurants in the selected cities. The pandemic was dangerous indeed for everyone, and it is almost as dangerous to the food tech companies as it is for every other individual and business, if not more. The food delivery unicorn, Zomato also fought the pandemic hard and thrived.
Freshworks offers innovative customer engagement software for a diverse range of businesses of varying sizes and kinds. Founded in 2010 in Chennai, the company now has its headquarters in San Mateo, USA, the products which help provide a 360-degree view of the customers. The Saas products brought in by FreshWorks are designed to be used instantly. Besides, they are easy to use, and also offer quick returns on investments.
Freshworks attained the prestigious unicorn club of the Indian companies in July 2018, thereby becoming the first unicorn startup belonging to the Saas market that the country has seen. Now, increasing the customer engagement and the retention rate for Saas companies is not as difficult as it was earlier
Moglix is an Asia-based B2B E-commerce company that was founded by Rahul Garg in 2017. The company has its headquarters in Singapore and head offices in India. The startup ambitions to digitally change the chain of manufacturing areas in India. Moglix wants to digitize and seriously change every component of the delivery chain, and B2B commerce which is unorganized and increases options to seriously change the grant chain via technology.
Moglix, presently serves the manufacturing sector, institutional clients (B2B), and private clients (B2C). The automotive sector, metals and mining, and FMCDs are the best three sectors they cater to. The platform provides Industrial products and services such industrial products and services such as Safety equipment, Electrical and Lighting products, Cleaning and Laundry products, Office Supplies, and Industrial Tools, among others. Moglix is one of the most trusted eCommerce sites for industries as it is known to deliver world-class services worldwide. So far the company has 150,000 industry essential products from 30 different categories and 25,000 SME clients.
upGrad is an online coaching program for all students opting for higher education. Partnering with some of the top universities of the world, upGrad brings a wide range of industry-ready courses including Bachelor’s degrees, MBA, Data Science, Machine Learning courses, and more. The company has grown to attain unicorn status on August 6, 2021, with the help of a $185 million fundraising.
Prosus & Nasper, Sierra Ventures, Helion Venture Partners, Helion Venture Partners, Tiger Fund
Products and Services
Booking tickets for shows, movies, flights, hotels, holidays, buses, trains, etc.
MakeMyTrip is one of the top online travel companies in India that was founded by Deep Kalra in 2000. The company has its headquarters based in Gurgaon and is known for its services such as booking holiday packages, hotel reservations, movies or even booking tickets for everyday traveling through fights, buses, trains, cars, etc. MakeMyTrip is currently operating in 14+ cities around the world with over 30 franchise stores and in 28 cities in India alone. The MakeMyTrip route planner feature allows its user to access basic information on over one million routes across India.
Steadview Capital, Fidelity, TPG Growth, Hero Corporate Service Private Limited
Products and Services
Cosmetics, skin & wellness products, etc.
Valuation
$2.3 billion (June 2021)
Nykaa is a leading cosmetic-based eCommerce platform that was founded in 2012 by Falguni Nayar. Nykaa has its headquarters based in Mumbai, Maharashtra, and is known for its app and website that sells a wide range of cosmetics, skin, and wellness products. The company also has over 26 offline stores across India and became a Unicorn startup in 2020. The platform has a huge range of 200,000 products from 2000 national and international brands, as of 2020. Many Bollywood actresses like Alia Bhatt and Katrina Kaif have been the brand ambassadors of Nykaa.
Intel Capital, Wellington Management Group, Inventus Capital Partners, Softbank Group True North and IDG Venture Partners
Products and Services
Life, Health, Motor, travel insurance, etc
Valuation
$2.4 billion (July 2021)
Policybazaar is one of the most well-known and trusted insurance companies in India. The company was started in 2008 by Yashish Dahiya, Alok Bansal, and Avaneesh Nirjar. The company initially started out as an insurance comparison website, but later on started providing different types of insurance plans like Life insurance, Health, Motor, and even Travel. Policybazaar.com is currently the largest insurance company in the country and is also popular in UAE. Policybazaar has both a website and an app, which allows its users to compare financial services from the top insurance options. Here’s knowing how Policy Bazaar witnessed an overwhelming growth via its marketing strategies.
CoinDCX is an Indian cryptocurrency exchange aggregator based in Mumbai. The company specializes in crypto-enabled financial services. CoinDCX aims to develop financial services without any borders to enable a simpler and seamless flow of capital powered by impregnable security. CoinDCX raised $90 mn in Series C funding to emerge as a unicorn. Thus, the company became India’s first cryptocurrency unicorn.
Mastercard, Lone Pine Capital, Flipkart, Temasek, Sequoia
Products and Services
POS devices and software solutions
Valuation
$5+ billion (Marh 2022)
Pine Labs is an Indian merchant platform, equipped with financing and last-mile retail transaction technology, which helps merchants and institutions receive their payments via easy and secure POS apps and devices. Pine Labs collaborated with the New-York based financial services giant, Mastercard in January 2020, and shortly after it attained unicorn status. It was the first company to have turned unicorn in 2020.
Highradius
Startup Name
Highradius
Industry
Fintech, AI, Saas, Software
Founder
Sashi Narahari
Founded
2006
Investors
Tiger Global, D1 Capital Partners, ICONIQ and more
Products and Services
AI-based order-to-cash and treasury management software
Valuation
$3.1+ billion (March 2021)
Highradius is an AI-powered, data-driven fintech enterprise software as a service (Saas) platform that extends autonomous software for smooth and easy management of order to cash (O2C), treasury, and record to report (R2R). Headquartered in Houston, Texas, US, Highradius claims to be the world’s number 1 data-driven AI software platform that helps “lower DSO, optimize working capital, fast-track financial close, and improve productivity.”
Raising $125 mn right at the start of 2020, Highradius turned into India’s first unicorn company in 2020 in a Series B funding round led by ICONIQ Capital, along with some of its existing investors like Susquehanna Growth Equity and Citi Ventures.
Zetwerk emerges as a B2B marketplace for manufacturing items. The online marketplace based out of Bengaluru connects large manufacturing companies with vendors and suppliers, who help them get various components of industrial tools and machinery that they require from time to time. The company joined the unicorn club on August 20, 2021, and became India’s youngest billion-dollar company.
Chanakya Hridaya, Rajesh Yabaji, Ramasubramaniam B
Founded
2015
Investors
Trifecta Capital Advisors, Sequoia, Accel, InnoVen Capital
Products and Services
Trucks, logistics and transportation services for shippers and fleet operators
Valuation
$1.02 billion (August 2021)
BlackBuck is a truck aggregator and one of the largest truck aggregators operating in India that aims to solve the transportation and logistics problems of countless Indians. Today, BlackBuck boasts of being the largest trucking network in India that is equipped with freight and fleet management technology platforms. Blackbuck entered the unicorn club on July 23, 2021, after it raised $67 mn as part of its Series E funding round at a valuation of $1.02 bn.
The company currently has a collection of 12,00,000+ trucks and extends its services to over 2000 locations with 15,000+ happy clients.
Lightbox, Toyota Tsusho, SevenTrain Ventures, Integrated Capital
Products and Services
Marketplace for used cars, bikes, scooters and other merchandise
Valuation
$1.2 billion(August 2021)
Droom is a marketplace for used cars, bikes, scooters, and other automotive, along with other products and merchandise. Powered by cutting-edge data science technology, the company helps its customers to buy and sell automobiles and other products seamlessly.
Droom has around 600K automobiles and dominates with a massive 80% market share of the automobile transactions online, Droom is India’s largest automobile platform online and is counted among the biggest E-Commerce companies in the country.
OfBusiness or OFB Tech, as it is often referred to, is a raw material procurement and credit platform for SMEs. The company focuses primarily on the manufacturing and construction industries. OfBusiness leverages state-of-the-art technology to integrate the same into the buying behaviors of the SMEs. This way it makes better products available at better prices and in the right timelines.
Internet, Mobile Apps, Social Media, Social Network
Founder
Ankush Sachdeva, Bhanu Pratap Singh, and Faris Ahsan
Founded
2015
Investors
Lightspeed Venture Partners, Tiger Global Management, Twitter Ventures, SAIF Partners, Shunwei Capital, and Xiaomi
Products and Services
Social Networking and Regional Contents
Valuation
$3.7 Billion (December 2021)
ShareChat is an Indian video-sharing social networking service, developed via Mohalla Tech Private Limited in the year 2015, established by Ankush Sachdeva, Bhanu Pratap Singh, and Farid Ahsan. The company is headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka.
ShareChat App acts as a content consumption and sharing platform solely in Indian vernacular languages, which caters to over 1.17 billion wifi customers of India. The company offers features such as messaging, sharing different kinds of media, tagging, etc. ShareChat enabled user-generated content creation on its platform, permitting customers to share their very own posters and innovative content. The company also has 400 plus employees and more than 50 million creator communities. The company went on to raise $500 mn from investors, which increased its valuation to $3 billion.
Verse Innovation
Startup Name
VerSe Innovation
Industry
Content, Technology, Social Media, Internet
Founders
Umang Bedi, Virendra Gupta
Founded
2007
Investors
Google, Sequoia Capital, Microsoft, ByteDance, B Capital and more
Products and Services
Powers Josh, Dailyhunt with technological support and expertise
Valuation
$5 billion (April 2021)
VerSe Innovation is the parent company of the leading vernacular news aggregating platform, Dailyhunt. Headquartered in Bengaluru, Verse Innovation is a local language technology platform that is currently powering two of the leading names among the Indian applications – Josh and Dailyhunt and boasts of an amazing reach of over 300 million users.
VerSe Innovation has raised funds close to $100 mn in December 2020 from a clutch of investors including Google, Microsoft, Falcon Edge’s Alpha Wave Incubation, Sequoia Capital India, Sofina Group, and others to enter the coveted club of unicorn companies in India. With this, Verse became the 10th Indian startup to attain the unicorn valuation in 2020.
B Capital, Prosus, Temasek, Think Investments, Tiger Global, A Velumani, etc.
Products and Services
Online pharmacy services, medicines, healthcare products, diagnostic test, etc.
Valuation
$5.6 billion (JuOctoberne 2021)
PharmEasy is an online healthcare delivery platform that was founded by Mikhil Innani, Dharmil Sheth, and Dhaval Shah in 2015. The company has its headquarters in Mumbai Maharashtra and is currently the leading online healthcare aggregator in India. Besides selling medicines online, the platform also helps connect patients with the closest local pharmacy and diagnostic center based on their medical needs. It delivers medicines in over 1000 plus cities and across 22,000 pin codes. PharmEasy claims to have delivered more than 1.5 crore orders and has over one lakh medicines available on its website.
MyGlamm (The Good Glamm Group)
Startup Name
MyGlamm
Industry
Cosmetics, Beauty, Marketplace
Founder
Darpan Sanghvi, Priyanka Gill
Founded
2015
Investors
Prosus, Warburg, Trifecta, Amazon and more
Products and Services
Beauty and cosmetics products marketplace
Valuation
$1.2+ billion (November 2021)
MyGlamm is a direct-to-consumer (D2C) beauty and cosmetics startup that extends an e-commerce marketplace with a wide range of products for stylists, beauticians, and others. The Mumbai-based D2C brand combines technology with content and social media in order to help the customers to shop for their preferred products along with gaining rich, personalized content and tutorial from the experts.
MyGlamm has turned into a unicorn company when it raised $150 mn in funding from Prosus Ventures and others on November 9, 2021. MyGlamm was the 34th Indian startup to turn a unicorn in the year 2021 and the 76th Indian company overall to enter the coveted club of unicorn companies of India.
Rentpay, CRED Stash, Store, Credit Card Payments and Cred Pay
Valuation
$2.2 billion (April 2021)
CRED is an upcoming Fintech startup that was started by Kunal Shah in 2018. The company has its headquarters in Bengaluru, Karnataka, and is known for its app that allows users to make credit card payments and even get rewarded. Besides rewards, CRED also gives its customers access to a wide range of additional services such as credit and a premium catalog of products from top brands. So far the platform has over 5.9 million users and has processed about 20% of all credit card bill payments in the country. CRED services are divided into five major products which are CRED RentPay, CRED Cash, CRED Pay, CRED Store, and CRED Travel Store. The Cred Business and Revenue Model depends on the app, its customers, and the business partnerships it sees.
Meesho is a popular Indian social ecommerce company that was founded in 2015 by batchmates, Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal. The company has its headquarters in Bengaluru Karnataka. Meesho helps small and medium businesses or even individuals to start their online stores through social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp. Meesho also has an online reselling website and app that allows people to sell their products without investments. So far it is known to have 2.6 million resellers across the country.
Meesho became a unicorn on April 6, 2021, after raising $300 mn in funds in a funding round that was led by Japan’s Softbank Corp. Group. Know more about Meesho Business Model & Revenue Model.
professionals for cleaning, beauticians, masseurs, carpenters, etc
Valuation
$2.8 billion (June 2021)
Urban Company is said to be Asia’s largest home services company as it is an all-in-one platform that helps users find professionals for different home services. The platform has its headquarters in Gurgaon and offers professional home cleaning services to beauticians, masseurs, and even carpenters. Urban Company was founded in 2014 by Abhiraj Bhal, Varun Khaitan, and Raghav Chandra, while the platform currently has served over 5 million customers across India, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sydney, and Singapore. As of 2021, it is also known to be the UAE’s largest home services company. Here’s knowing all about Urban Company’s business model, and the marketing strategies that Urban Company uses.
Construction Materials, Infrastructure, and Heavy Equipment Rental
Valuation
$2.5 billion (August 2021)
Infra.Market is one of the best construction solutions companies and an online procurement marketplace that uses technology to provide an enhanced procurement experience. The company provides its services to the real estate and construction materials industry. The company was started by Souvik Sengupta in 2016 and has its headquarters in Thane, Maharashtra. Infra.Market specializes in manufacturing construction materials, infrastructure, and heavy equipment rental for all the sectors of a construction ecosystem. It caters to both institutional customers and the construction materials sector to build their projects. Infra.Market turned unicorn with a $100 mn funding on February 25, 2021
Insurance for Car, Health, employee, 2 Wheeler, 3 Wheeler, etc.
Valuation
$4 billion (May 2022)
Digit Insurance is one of the top general insurance companies offering health, car, bike, and travel insurance. The company was founded in 2016 by Kamesh Goyal, and has its headquarters in Bengaluru, Karnataka. The company is popular for Go Digit Mobile Insurance, a tailor-made mobile insurance that covers damages related to different mobiles or Smartphones such as accidental damage, etc. Digit Insurance was the first Indian Unicorn of 2021 and has been successful in achieving the feat in less than 4 years. Besides, Digit Insurance is one of the companies that are endorsed by Virat Kohli, who is the brand ambassador of Digit.
Innovaccer
Startup Name
Innovaccer
Industry
Healthcare
Founders
Abhinav Shashank, Kanav Hasija and Sandeep Gupta
Founded
2014
Investors
Steadview Capital, Dragoneer, B Capital Group, Mubadala Capital Microsoft Venture Funds.
Products and Services
Clinical Integration, Health Management, Big data analytics, Quality Reporting, Healthcare data platform
Valuation
$1.3 billion (February 2021)
Innovaccer is one of the top healthcare companies that is known for its top-notch healthcare services and products that are done through pioneering analytics and accurate data. Innovaccer was founded in 2014 by Sandeep Gupta and has its headquarters in San Francisco. It has head offices in India and America. Innovaccer products are available in over 500 locations and it also has more than 10,000 providers. The company has helped thousands of institutions, governmental organizations, hospitals, clinics, and healthcare organizations such as Mercy ACO, StratiFi Health, Catalyst Health Network, and Osler Health Network.
Innovaccer has turned into a unicorn after it received $105 mn of funding from Tiger Global Management on February 24, 2021. With this, Innovaccer also became the first health tech unicorn in India to turn unicorn.
Sequoia Capital India, Norwest Venture Partners, KKR, TVS Capital, Matrix Partners
Products and Services
Small Business Loans, Mortgage Loans, Home Loans, Property Loans
Valuation
$1.4 billion (March 2021)
Five Star Business Finance (FSBF) is one of the oldest Indian investment firms that was started by V.K Ranganathan in 1984. The company provides different kinds of loans like Small Business Loans, Mortgage Loans, Home Loans, Property Loans, among others. The company has been making strides in the financial industry over the last three decades. Five Star Housing Finance Private Limited which is the company’s subsidiary is designed to help its clients with small housing loans.
Stock broking services, direct mutual funds, IPO, ETF, digital gold
Valuation
$1 billion (May 2021)
Groww is one of the most popular online investment platforms in India. The company was started in 2017 by Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Ishan Bansal, and Neeraj Singh. The company has its headquarters in Bengaluru, Karnataka, and has so far raised over $14 million as of April 2021. This mutual fund investments platform started out by offering wealth management and currently offers direct investments in mutual funds, stocks, digital gold, and exchange-traded funds, among others. The parent company of Groww is Nextbillion Technology.
Tiger Global Management Llc, Think Investments, Malabar Investments, Harbor Spring Capital, White Oak , Fidelity Management
Products and Services
Chatbots
Valuation
$1.4 billion (July 2021)
Gupshup is an upcoming Software company that provides services such as SMS, email, voice, and IP messaging. Gupshup company operates in India, America and UK and is known for its chatbox development services to retail and eCommerce companies. The company developed a smart messaging app called Teamchat and handles over 6 million messages every month. Gupshup is one of the first companies to launch the chatbot building platforms known as gupshup.io which currently offers its services to over 30,000 developers. The platform also has 30,000 chatbots across 22 different social media channels.
Eruditus is an Edtech platform headquartered in Mumbai. Founded in 2010, the company collaborates with the leading universities from across the globe in order to make executive education accessible globally. Eruditus Executive Education boasts of partnering with over 30 universities with a collection of more than 100 courses that extends to the students of around 80 countries. The company has recently turned into a unicorn with a $650 million fundraise as part of its series E funding round!
invoicing, taxes, SaaS metrics, accounting and customer management.
Valuation
$1.4 billion (April 2021)
Chargebee is a SaaS Company with its headquarters in San Francisco, California. The company specializes in providing subscription and recurring billing based SaaS and E-commerce services like invoicing, taxes, SaaS metrics, accounting and customer management. The company also supports over 100 currencies and numerous well-known payment gateways such as Stripe, Braintree, WorldPay and PayPal. The SaaS startup has gathered 3,000 customers most of whom are from America, Europe, and India.
cloud-native, API-first neo-banking and other Fintech services.
Valuation
$1.45 billion (May 2021)
Zeta is a financial technology company that provides a full-stack, cloud and API first neo banking services. The fintech company was founded in 2015 by Bhavin Turakhia and Ramki Gaddipati with its headquarters based in Los Angeles, California, and has head offices in India. It is known for its Omni stack that includes modern credit and debit processing, BNPL, banking, and mobile experiences. The company products are used by banks like RBL Bank, IDFC First Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank, along with 14000 corporates. So far Zeta has over 2 million users with over one million transactions per day.
Zeta is a budgeting app for couples. It integrates personal and shared accounts, which include bank accounts, loans, and credit cards. Connect your account immediately for automated updates or manually add an account to manage it yourself.
You can see your joint incomes, expenses, and financial savings in one place. It lets you create more than one budget for private and shared expenses. Plus, you can set precise monetary goals for you and your partner, such as saving for a holiday or placing up an emergency fund.
BrowserStack is a cloud net and mobile testing platform, which is used by two million developers in around a hundred thirty-five countries. The product’s price proposition is to assist groups to fasten up launch cycles and develop websites and mobile app that work seamlessly on any user interface. The aim is to limit the time, price, and protection overhead related to testing.
More than 25,000 world corporations use BrowserStack, which includes Microsoft, ING, MasterCard, Dow Jones, Garmin, National Geographic, Volvo, NRK, HubSpot, Walt Disney, and AngularJS. BrowserStack has offices work in San Francisco, Mumbai, Dublin, and is privately held and backed by Accel.
Paytm Mall, Paytm Payments Bank, Paytm Money, Gamepind, Paytm Smart Retail, Payment system, Mobile payments, Online shopping
Valuation
$16 billion (June 2021)
Paytm is one of the biggest unicorn startups in India. It is among the largest digital payment service providers in India with a market share of 11.63% and is currently in the third position in the list of top UPI apps in India, as recorded in June 2021. The fintech startup is famous for its payment gateway service, which helps consumers to make seamless payments to the seller from their bank accounts. Paytm entered the unicorn club in 2015. Paytm’s valuation was over $7 billion, and it has now increased to $16 billion in 2020.
Paytm Mall is a B2C model inspired by China’s largest B2C retail platform TMall. Paytm Mall was launched by Paytm in 2017. Launched in 2016, as a hyperlocal offline-to-online (O2O) business, Paytm Mall turned unicorn in 2018 on raising half a billion from Softbank and others.
Kite, Coin, Console, Varsity, Equity Trading, Currencies and Commodities Trading, Mutual Funds and Bonds
Valuation
$2 billion (June 2021)
Zerodha is an Indian fintech startup that offers retail and institutional broking, currencies and commodities trading, mutual funds, and bonds. The Company was founded in the year 2010 in order to achieve the goal of breaking all the barriers traders and investors face in India. Zerodha is headquartered in Bangalore and has a physical presence in several major Indian cities.
In Dec 2020, Zerodha was the largest retail stockbroker in India by active client base and contributes upwards of 15% of daily retail volumes across Indian Stock Exchanges. Zerodha entered the unicorn club in July 2020 with a self-assessed valuation of about $1 billion. This valuation was based on the ESOP buyback exercise the company undertook valuing each share at more than four times the book value of ₹700 per share. Know why is Zerodha not raising funds for its operation?
Disruptive pricing models and in-house technology have made Zerodha the biggest stockbroker in India in terms of active retail clients. Over 5+ million clients place millions of orders every day through our powerful ecosystem of investment platforms, contributing over 15% of all Indian retail trading volumes.
ReNew Power Limited is an Indian renewable energy company. It is an independent power producer which was founded by Sumant Sinha in 2011. ReNew Power has a pipeline of close to 1400 MW solar and wind projects. It has a current valuation of $8 billion, which makes it one of the most valuable startups in India in 2021.
Hari Menon, V.S. Sudhakar, Vipul Parekh, Abhinay Choudhari and V.S. Ramesh
Founded
2011
Investors
Alibaba, CDC Group, Ant Financial, Intel Capital, and Berkshire Hathaway
Products and Services
Grocery Delivery
Valuation
$1.85 billion (March 2021)
BigBasket is India’s largest online grocery store which was founded by Hari Menon, V.S. Sudhakar, Vipul Parekh, Abhinay Choudhari, and V.S. Ramesh in 2011. BigBasket founder Hari Menon is one of the most revered entrepreneurs, who deserves a place among the top entrepreneurs of India. It has gained popularity among the Indians and receives over 100,000 orders per day. BigBasket has also launched 3 new businesses BB Daily, BB Instant, and BB Beauty. Here’s something that might interest you – JioMart VS BigBasket: Top Contenders Of Online Grocery Market
Udaan is a B2B e-commerce platform that provides a wholesale product solution to different vendors in all categories. It was founded by Sujeet Kumar, Amod Malviya, and Vaibhav Gupta in 2016. Udaan is a B2B (Business to Business) marketplace for trade that is working for connecting retailers, wholesalers, traders, and manufacturers using technology as the main tool. Udaan turned a startup unicorn in 2018, which is just after 2 years and 2 months since it was launched in 2016. It is thus, the first startup to be called the fastest unicorn.
SoftBank, Tiger Global, Ratan Tata, Hyundai Motors, Matrix Partners, Tiger Global and The Munjal Family.
Products and Services
Electric two and tree wheeler vehicles
Valuation
$5+ billion (January 2022)
Ola Electric is a brainchild of Ola which is currently one of the largest ride-hailing companies. Ola Electric is a tech mobility startup that provides transit services. Besides that, the company also offers a platform to work with driver-partners, vehicle manufacturers, and battery companies and also advance into making future technology for daily mobility. The company was founded in 2017 by Ankit Jain and Anand Shah and had its headquarters in Bengaluru, Karnataka. Ola Electric is also known to be the fastest unicorn after Udaan.
Lightspeed Ventures, Tiger Global, Twitter, India Quotient,
Products and Services
MOJ and Sharechat
Valuation
$3.7 billion (December 2021)
Mohalla Tech is a software company that was founded by Ankush Sachdeva, Farid Ahsan and Bhanu Singh in 2015. The company has its headquarters in Bengaluru, Karnataka, and is known for its platforms – MOJ and Sharechat. Mohalla Tech designs and develops social media platforms for sharing various quotes, videos, images, and news content. Currently, Moj and Sharechat are known to have a combined user of 340 million. According to some reports, an average user will spend over 34 minutes on the MOJ platform every day, which also gets 4.5 million views every day.
TPG, Chrys Capital, Premji Invest, Elevation Capital, MegaDelta and Vertex
Products and Services
Baby and Kids Products
Valuation
$2 billion (March 2021)
FirstCry is one of the top E-commerce companies for Baby and Child products. The company was founded by Supam Maheshwari, Amitava Saha, Prashant Jadhav, and Sanket Hattimattu in 2010, with its headquarters based in Pune, Maharashtra. Currently, the company has 380 plus stores across the country and also has a hospital contact program that helps in reaching out to more than 70,000 new parents every month. Firstcry has over 100,000 plus baby, kids, and new mom products from more than 1000 international and national brands.
Temasek, Falcon Edge Capital, KKR, Bay Capital, and Chiratae
Products and Services
Eyewear, opticians
Valuation
$4.32 billion (April 2022)
Lenskart is a leading eyewear company that was started by Peyush Bansal, Amit Chaudhary, Sumeet Kapahi in 2010. The company has its headquarters in Faridabad and has manufacturing facilities in Delhi, Zhengzhou (China). The company is known to manufacture over 300,000 eyewear every month, as it has more than 500 stores in over 70 cities across India. Besides having a huge range of eyewear it also offers its users branded contact lenses and sunglasses.
And this is not the end of the story. There are many new entrants to this unicorn club. Multiple startups strive hard to reach the top 10 unicorn startups but only a few make it to the top. India is the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world. It can be said that India is the future of great startups.
Grofers is an Indian online supermarket that helps in the home delivery of food, grocery products, and essentials. Founded in 2013, Grofers started with groceries and gradually expanded to a whole list of categories that includes beauty products, household care, baby care, and more. The company is now a unicorn with a $120 million fundraising round from the food aggregator, Zomato. Grofers was rebranded to Blinkit after a rebranding attempt on December 13, 2021.
A subsidiary company of inMobi, Glance is an artificial intelligence platform that offers customized lock screen content to the owners of the smartphones of the present. The company was founded in 2019 as a subsidiary of inMobi, a Bengaluru-based mobile ad network, and turned unicorn on December 22, 2020. Its parent company had already become a unicorn company back in 2011.
Google, Alphawave, Microsoft, Sequoia Capital, Falcon Capital
Products and Services
Dailyhunt app
Valuation
$1 billion (March 2021)
Dailyhunt is an Indian content and news aggregator services platform that helps its users access updates on trending topics along with online news, books, and magazines. The company is popular for offering content in 14 different local languages for a wide variety of Indian readers. The company raised around $100 million from Google and Microsoft and Falcon Edge’s Alpha Wave to become India’s first tech unicorn focused on vernacular content on December 22, 2020.
Accel, Norwest Venture Partners, Steadview Capital, Tiger Global Management
Products and Services
Salon software, spa software, med spa software
Valuation
$1.5+ billion
A cloud-based software platform for spa and salon services of the country, Zenoti was founded in 2010 with its headquarters in Bellevue, Washington, United States, and Hyderabad. Zenoti has been since the day it was founded and is now used by over 10,000 customers and has already established its presence in 50+ countries. With a fundraise that amounted to $160 million, the company entered the unicorn club on December 15, 2020.
Cars24 website/app, cars buying and selling service
Valuation
$1.6 billion (July 2021)
Cars24 is an online marketplace that encourages the buyers and sellers of used cars and helps them to buy and sell automobiles online without any hassles. Via an AI-enabled pricing algorithm, Cars24 displays the appraisal price along with the market price of the vehicles. Furthermore, it also arranges appointments for vehicle inspection, thereby making the selling process as transparent as possible.
The Gurgaon-based company, Cars24 was founded in 2015 and has already become a unicorn on November 24, 2020, with the $200 million Series E funding round led by Yuri Milner’s DST Global fund, Exor Seeds, Moore Strategic Ventures, and more. The company was valued at over $1 billion when assessed in November 2020.
RazorPay is a digital payment gateway that enables businesses and individuals to process, receive and disburse payments smoothly and securely. Razorpay accepts a wide range of the latest payment devices and platforms to improve the customer’s payment journeys online.
RazorPay is among the last year unicorn companies in India, which joined the unicorn club of Indian startups on October 11, 2020, when the company raised around $100 million. The company was valued at around $3 billion in April 2021.
Gaurav Munjal, Hemesh Singh, Roman Saini, Sachin Gupta
Founded
2015
Investors
Temasek Holdings, Dragoneer Investment Group, Softbank, Facebook, Sequoia Capital
Products and Services
Courses and classes
Valuation
$3.44 billion (August 2021)
Unacademy is an Indian unicorn Edtech company based in Bangalore, which climbed to unicorn status on September 2, 2020, thereby becoming the second e-learning startup to achieve the status.
Founded in 2015, Unacademy offers educational content for competitive examinations and other video lectures, some of which are also freely accessible for students. With the latest fundraise where the company received $440 million, Unacademy is now valued at $3.44 billion, as of August 2021. Here’s a List of Startups Acquired by EdTech Giant Unacademy
Postman raised $150 million in June 2020 to turn into a unicorn. The API development environment is used by around 6 million developers worldwide across 200,000 companies located globally. Postman serves as a platform that makes it easy for developers and enterprises to build, test, and debug their APIs.
With a valuation of $5.6 billion, as per the reports in August 2021, after the company received funding of around $225 million, Postman is presently acknowledged as the most valued Saas startup in India.
CitiusTech
Startup Name
CitiusTech
Headquarters
Princeton, New Jersey, United States
Industry
Healthcare Technology
Founders
Jagdish Moorjani, Rizwan Koita
Founded
2005
Investors
Baring Pvt. Equity Asia, Bain Capital
Products and Services
Consulting, Digital & Product Engineering, Data & Analytics
Valuation
$2.4 billion (May 2022)
CitiusTech is a major technology service and solution provider for the healthcare industry. CitiusTech boasts of having over 4000 professionals worldwide. With its workforce, the company aims to empower the healthcare and life sciences companies with reassuring consultation and digital technology services and drive clinical value chain excellence across integration and interoperability, data management, data science, performance management, and more.
CitiusTech was acquired by Baring Private Equity Asia, after the Hong Kong-based company signed a definitive agreement on July 12, 2019. This deal has valued the company at a little over a billion dollars, thereby granting its entry into the unicorn club of Indian companies.
As per the news dated May 5, 2022, Bain Capital has bought 40% of the stakes of CitiusTech from Baring Private Equity Asia, as the latter sold half of its tech to the American private investment firm. Apax Partners and Fujitsu of Japan were the other contenders for the stake. The 40% stakes of CitiusTech were valued between $960 mn to $1 bn, which has successfully catapulted the valuation of CitiusTech to around $2.4 bn, as of May 2022. The other 40% stakes of the firm are with Baring, while the remaining stakes are held by the company’s founders.
B Capital Group, Ignition Partners, Eight Roads Ventures
Products and Services
Contract Management Software
Valuation
$2.8 billion (March 2021)
Icertis is designed as a powerful AI-enabled contract management platform that promises ultimate compliance and aims to reduce the risks involved in it. Being an enterprise contract management platform, Icertis extends easy solutions to hard contract management issues.
When the company raised $80 million in March 2021, at a valuation of $2.8 billion, Icertis was declared as the second most-valued startup unicorn of India. The company turned into a unicorn even before that in 2020.
Druva
Startup Name
Druva
Headquarters
Sunnyvale, California, United States
Industry
Software, Cloud Data Services, Cloud Security, Saas
Sequoia Capital India, Viking Global, Indian Angel Network
Products and Services
Data protection solutions
Valuation
$2 billion (April 2021)
Druva is an Indian enterprise software platform that is designed to protect and manage enterprise data across endpoints, data centers, and cloud workloads. Built on AWS, Druva offers a Saas platform that extends superior data resiliency options, which is infinitely scalable, for the companies operating across the globe.
The India-based Saas company headquartered in the US is one of the earliest companies of India that turned into a unicorn. Druva attained unicorn status in 2019.
Rivigo is a logistics platform empowered by the latest technologies that extend effective transport services for a wide range of industries including clothing, eCommerce, automotive, automobiles, and more. The company was founded in 2014 in Gurgaon, Haryana, and was valued at $1.05 billion when it turned unicorn in September 2019.
Polygon or Matic Network, as it was named previously, is a Bengaluru-based blockchain startup that was founded as a result of the infamous RBI ban of cryptocurrencies that came in April 2018. Founded by Jaynti Kanani, Sandeep Nailwal, and Anurag Arjun, Matic Network focussed on solving the “scalability and usability issues, without compromising on decentralization”. It was on February 9, 2021, that Matic was renamed into Polygon.
Polygon is already a unicorn when last reported in May 2021 and is currently valued at over $10 bn, as of February 2022. The market capitalization of its native MATIC token has crossed the $20 billion mark once in December 2021.
MindTickle is a sales readiness platform founded in 2011, which helps in onboarding, product training, coaching, and ongoing readiness. The company offers a vital sales solution to the fast-growing startups to prepare their sales team in a scalable and effective way. MindTickle was founded in 2011 and turned a unicorn on August 6, 2021, with the influx of $100 mn in Series E funding led by Softbank Vision Fund II.
Bhavesh Manglani, Kapil Bharati, Mohit Tandon, Sahil Barua, Suraj Saharan
Founded
2011
Investors
FedEx, Fidelity, Steadview Capital, Tiger Global management
Products and Services
Cargo and freight services
Valuation
$4 billion (June 2021)
Delhivery was founded in 2011 in Gurgaon, Haryana, as a logistics and supply chain startup that aims to provide seamless transportation, warehousing, freight, and order fulfillment services. Delhivery Pvt. Ltd. turned unicorn back in 2019 where it raised around $413 million and was valued at $1.5 billion.
Billdesk is a company conceived in 2000 as IndiaIdeas.com Ltd., which helps Indian customers pay their bills safely and easily. Powered by the latest advancements in the electronic medium, BillDesk offers its customers better ways to organize and manage their payments online. Billdesk has already achieved unicorn status in 2018 when it mopped up nearly $300 million in a fundraising round led by Visa.
The company is currently acquired by PayU, a Prosus-owned company headquartered in the Netherlands via a deal worth $4.7 billion, one of the biggest deals in the Fintech range of India.
Mu Sigma was founded in 2014 as a data analytics services platform that offers data analytics services along with developing decision support system tools and software for Fortune 500 companies. Mu Sigma offers a range of services including market measurement, product/customer segmentation and profiling, prospecting, RFM analytics, and more. It was in 2016 when Fortune declared Mu Sigma a unicorn company.
Info Edge
Startup Name
Info Edge
Headquarters
Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
Industry
Enterprisetech
Founders
Sanjeev Bikhchandani
Founded
1995
Investors
Temasek Holdings, Lightbox
Products and Services
Employment, Education, Real estate, Matrimonial service
Valuation
$6.6 Billion (May 2023)
Info Edge, founded by Sanjeev Bikhchandani in 1995, is a technology-driven Indian internet company offering a wide range of online services in sectors such as recruitment, matrimony, real estate, and education. The company is well-known for its flagship platforms, including Naukri.com for jobs, Jeevansathi.com for matrimonial services, 99Acres.com for real estate listings, and Shiksha.com for educational resources.
The company attained a valuation of over $1 billion in 2014 and became an elite member of the Indian unicorn club.
Sai Srinivas Kiran G, Shubh Malhotra, Shubham Malhotra
Founded
2018
Investors
Sequoia, Moore Strategic Ventures, Legatum Capital
Products and Services
EGaming platform
Valuation
$2.3 Billion (September 2021)
Mobile Premier League, now if the name rings a bell, then you’re right! MPL is another fantasy gaming and esports platform from India after Dream11 that has turned unicorn. The Sequoia Capital and Moore Strategic Ventures-backed startup was founded in September 2018, just 3 years ago by Sai Srinivas Kiran G and Shubh Malhotra, which emerged as the second gaming unicorn from the subcontinent.
Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management, Lightspeed
Products and Services
Professional networking platform and job portal
Valuation
$1.1 Billion (September 2021)
Apna is a leading professional networking platform that helps the rising workforce of India stay updated in terms of professional requirements and recruitment and grab them anytime and anywhere. Apna is currently available across 28+ cities in India for students and blue-mand gray-colored working professionals to get the best communities and land jobs.
The Series C round was on September 15, 2021, where Apna raised around $100 million from investors like Tiger Global, Sequoia, and others and turned into a unicorn within just 21 months of its foundation. This makes Apna the fastest unicorn in India.
Vamsi Krishna, Pulkit Jain, Saurabh Saxena, and Anand Prakash
Founded
2011
Investors
Coatue, Tiger Global Management, WestBridge Capital, Accel Partners
Products and Services
Online tutoring, courses and classes
Valuation
$1 Billion+ (September 2021)
Vedantu is an Edtech platform that offers online e-learning courses and classes to empower real-time personalized learning experiences. Vedantu believes in bridging the gaps between a student and his/her tutor to enjoy the benefits of real-time one-to-one teaching. Vedantu can help students pursue online tuitions for Maths, Physics, Chemistry, English, French, Hindi, Social Studies, German, Computer Science, and more.
Vedantu raised $100 mn via its Series E round led by ABC World Asia, Coatue, Tiger Global, WestBridge, and others on September 29, 2021, and became the 27th Indian unicorn of 2021 and the 69th unicorn startup in the country.
Bertelsmann, Mayfield Fund, Vertex Growth Fund, 3one4 Capital
Products and Services
Meat, fish, eggs packaging and delivery services
Valuation
$1 Billion+ (October 2021)
Licious was founded in 2015 and headquartered in Bengaluru as a Direct-to-consumer brand that offers fresh meat, eggs, fish, and seafood, which the customers can order online to receive the same at their doorsteps. The meat industry in India is largely unorganized and Licious is born out of the sole aim of organizing this sector and delivering fresh, trustworthy, delicious meat and fish to the house of the Indians.
The company raised $52 million in its latest funding round led by IIFL AMC’s Late Stage Tech Fund, emerging as the 29th Indian unicorn company of 2021 so far, and the first unicorn from the D2C segment, as of October 5, 2021.
Paradigm, Ribbit Capital, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management
Products and Services
Cryptocurrency exchange platform
Valuation
$1.9 Billion (October 2021)
CoinSwitch Kuber is hailed as a cryptocurrency exchange platform that encourages users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies via their platform, ensuring secure and convenient transactions. The company supports a wide list of over 100 cryptocurrencies from which the customers can buy cryptos at the best rates, through a range of payment options.
CoinSwitch Kuber turns into India’s 30th unicorn startup in 2021 so far. The company raised a Series C funding round worth $260 million on October 6, 2021, led by a16z (Andreesen Horowitz) and Coinbase Ventures to join the coveted club of the unicorn companies. CoinSwitch Kuber boasts of being the second crypto unicorn of India, which crossed the 1 billion dollar mark in less than 2 months after CoinDCX was hailed as the first crypto unicorn of the country in August 2021. CoinSwitch Kuber is reportedly valued at $1.9 billion on October 2021, which is higher than what CoinDCX announced in August, which was $1.1 billion.
Rebel Foods, also termed Faasos Food Services Pvt. Ltd., is a food delivery platform of India that takes care of the food delivery requirements across the country, delivering food products at the doorsteps of the customers. Besides, the company also boasts of a huge network (over 450) of dark kitchens that operates in over 10 countries. Rebel Foods currently serves over 10,000 Indian customers, the numbers of which are jumping rapidly.
The Indian cloud kitchen and food delivery startup becomes the 31st unicorn of India in 2021. Rebel Foods has raised $175 million via its Series F funding round led by the investors like Qatar Investment Authority, Coatue and Evolvence, and more, to be valued at $1.4 bn, as of October 7, 2021.
Sequoia Capital India, HDFC Bank, LeapFrog Investments
Products and Services
Cars, Used cars retailing services
Valuation
$1.2 billion (October 2021)
CarDekho is a leading name in the used car retailing space. Headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana, CarDekho helps users browse through a wide selection of cars and select one that fits them in all aspects. The platform of CarDekho is equipped with the relevant details about the car, along with other detailed specs, experts’ reviews, comparisons, and more. All of these further ease the selection process of the car models and are some of the reasons that have contributed to the rising popularity of the company.
CarDekho has turned into a unicorn following its recent Series E and Debt financing rounds dated October 13, 2021, and led by LeapFrog Investments. The company has successfully raised around $200 mn and $50 mn respectively, with the last funding rounds that it saw. With the recent funding, CarDekho becomes the 33rd unicorn and the 3rd unicorn startup in the used car retailing space in India so far in 2021.
Sequoia Capital India, Hindustan Media Venture, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority
Products and Services
Digital payments platform
Valuation
$1 billion (October 2021)
MobiKwik is a Fintech company founded in 2009 as digital payments platform that offers phone-based payment options along with the facility of a digital wallet for its users. Headquartered in Gurgaon, MobiKwik is one of the trusted names in the digital payments space that also provides payment gateway and other financial services.
MobiKwik turned unicorn on October 12, 2021, after the conclusion of its secondary ESOP sale round led by Mathew Cyriac, former Head of Blackstone India.
Insurtech, Insurance, Health insurance, Auto insurance
Founders
Ruchi Deepak, Varun Dua
Founded
2016
Investors
Munich Re Ventures, Amazon, General Atlantic, Multiples Alternate Asset Management Private Limited
Products and Services
Car, bike and health insurance products
Valuation
$1.1 billion (October 2021)
Acko is a digital insurance provider of India, dubbed as the first insurance startup that efficiently processes car, bike, and health insurance without any paperwork. Furthermore, Acko also possesses the license, which allows the company to underwrite and distribute bite-sized insurance products.
Acko raised around $255 million in its Series D round led by General Atlantic and Multiples Private Equity and turned a unicorn on October 27, 2021. The unicorn insurance provider is the 34th Indian company to join the unicorn club in 2021 and is currently valued at $1.1 bn.
CureFit
Startup Name
CureFit
Headquarters
Bengaluru, India
Industry
Healthcare, wellness
Founders
Ankit Nagori, Mukesh Bansal
Founded
2016
Investors
Temasek Holdings, Accel, Tata Digital, Zomato, Axis Bank
Products and Services
Nutrition products, Consultation services for mental and well-being
Valuation
$1.5 billion (November 2021)
CureFit is a health and fitness company that extends online and offline experiences to bring in adequate nutrition, foster physical fitness, and mental well-being via improved yoga and meditation, medical and lifestyle care consultation.
The Bangalore-based fitness brand turned unicorn on November 10, 2021, in a deal where the foodtech giant Zomato sold its fitness facility arm Fitso for $50 mn and infused another $50 mn in CureFit. This helped Zomato own 6.4% shares in CureFit, worth $100 mn. As a result of the cross-selling, CureFit joined the unicorn club of Indian startups as the 36th company to turn unicorn in 2021 and the 77th company overall among the Indian startups.
Mensa
Startup Name
Mensa
Headquarters
Bengaluru, India
Industry
Financial services, Venture capital
Founders
Ananth Narayanan, Pawan Kumar Dasaraju
Founded
2021
Investors
Alpha Wave Incubation, Norwest Venture Partners, Accel, Falcon Edge Capital
Products and Services
finance, working capital
Valuation
$1 billion+ (November 2021)
Brands’ aggregator and roll-up firm, Mensa has been founded by former Myntra CEO and Medlife cofounder, Ananth Narayanan and Pawan Kumar Dasaraju. Mensa Brands stands as an investment firm that strives to partner with entrepreneurs to build digital brands and scale them. The company embraces a Thrasio-based model via which it invests working capital and picks up equity in other D2C startups, thereby scaling the presence of the brands online. The platform that Mensa offers helps in driving growth, product, merchandising, technology, supply chain, product, and access to global markets, which eventually lets the founders get lucrative financial exits along with transforming their business through a stable and successful partnership.
Mensa raised $135 mn in a new Series B funding round led by Alpha Wave Ventures (Falcon Edge Capital) on November 16, 2021, and has joined the coveted club of unicorn companies in India. The company turned unicorn within just 6 months since it started its operations, thereby emerging as the fastest Indian startup to turn unicorn.
Tiger Global Management, General Atlantic, Trifecta Capital, BEENEXT
Products and Services
Peer-to-peer property listings platform
Valuation
$1 billion+ (November 2021)
NoBroker, as the name states, is designed on the concept of building a brokerage-free real estate platform, which will take care of the entire journey of a customer from choosing a house, listing it, securing a home loan, contacting the packers and movers, opting for painting and other services and more. Founded by Akhil Gupta, Amit Kumar Agarwal, Saurabh Garg in 2014, NoBroker is based in Bengaluru and is currently hailed as a unicorn.
NoBroker is, in fact, India’s first proptech (property tech) startup that has achieved a unicorn status on November 23, 2021. The company is the 38th Indian startup to emerge as a unicorn in 2021. The unicorn valuation of the company was disclosed after it raised around $210 Mn in its Series E funding round on the same date.
Tiger Global Management, General Atlantic, Trifecta Capital, BEENEXT
Products and Services
Used car listing and selling platform
Valuation
$1.7 billion+ (November 2021)
Spinny is a used-car buying platform that is powered by new-age technologies and enables reliable and hassle-free transactions in used cars. Founded in 2015 in Gurgaon, Haryana, India, Spinny is built on a full-stack business model with the aim of making the process of buying used cars simple and transparent and ultimately helping the customers to buy cars that match their aspirations.
Spinny has turned unicorn after it received its Series E funding round of $248 million (Rs 1,849 crore), as of November 24, 2021. The company received an investment of Rs 739.7 crore each from Tiger Global and Abu Dhabi Growth Fund, while the remaining funds poured in from Somerville SPV and Aveni Spinny. Spinny is now officially the fourth Indian startup from the used car space to join the unicorn club, where Droom, CarDekho, and Cars24 have already joined earlier.
Upstox is a fintech company that offers innovative investment solutions for users, including securities brokerage and stock trading services. Based in Mumbai, Maharashtra, the company extends equity trading opportunities for retail investors via the platform, promising their clients to be benefited from their cutting-edge trading platform that brings in the best-in-class services.
Upstox turned unicorn with the recent fundraising round led by Tiger Global Management, as of November 25, 2021. The company agreed to allot around 18761 Series C preference shares at an issue price of Rs 98,608 in order to raise the sum of $25 million (Rs 185 crore) from Tiger Global. Upstox has raised the recent funds at a post-money valuation of an estimated $3.4 bn, which pushes it past its rival Groww, which was recently valued at $3 bn in October 2021. Upstox thus became the 40th unicorn startup in India in 2021.
Slice is a financial startup based out of Bengaluru, India that focuses on payment cards/credit cards, and extends them to their target audiences, mostly comprising Gen Z and millennials.
Slice has mopped around $220 mn in the recent funding round dated November 29, 2021, led by Tiger Global and Insight Partners to achieve a unicorn valuation. The series B round that Slice witnessed included participation from Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal and Checkout co-founder and CEO, Guillaume Pousaz, along with a list of existing investors that includes Sunley House Capital, Moore Strategic Ventures, Anfa, Gunosy, Blume Ventures, and more. Slice is currently the 41st Indian startup unicorn of 2021.
Pristyn Care
Startup Name
Pristyn Care
Headquarters
Haryana, India
Industry
Healthtech, Health care
Founders
Harsimarbir (Harsh) Singh, Dr. Garima Sawhney and Vaibhav Kapoor
Founded
2018
Investors
Tiger Global Management, Hummingbird Ventures
Products and Services
Healthcare services
Valuation
$1.2 billion (December 2021)
Pristyn Care is a healthcare startup founded in September 2018, which is designed to disrupt elective surgery procedures. Headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana, India, Pristyn Care believes in leveraging cutting-edge technology and advanced procedures to simplify medical care and surgery experiences.
The startup successfully raised $84 Million on December 7, 2021, via new funding round, Series E, led by Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, Hummingbird Ventures, Epiq Capital, QED, and others to enter the unicorn club of Indian startups. With its unicorn valuation, the health tech startup from Gurgaon has turned to be the fourth startup to achieve the feat in its space in India after Innovaccer, PharmEasy, and CureFit.
Founded in 2021, GlobalBees is a Thrasio-style startup focused on acquiring other companies, especially startups, and scaling them with adequate funds and resources to extend joyful product experiences. GlobalBees can also be considered as the venture arm of FirstCry.
GlobalBees has already been in talks ever since it raised $150 mn in India’s largest Series A funding round. Furthermore, the company has become a unicorn when it again raised around $111.5 mn in a mix of equity and debt round of Series B led by a clutch of investors including FirstCry, SoftBank, Premji Invest, Chiratae Ventures, Trifecta Capital, and others.
Beauty, baby care, skin care, body care products and more
Valuation
$1.1 billion+ (December 2021)
Founded in 2016, Mamaearth is a personal care brand that was established as an organic alternative to the baby, hair, face and skincare products in the market. Headquartered in Gurgaon, Haryana, Mamaearth extends the best organic products for babies and their mothers.
Mamaearth turned unicorn after the latest funding round that it raised on December 28, 2021, worth $80 million led by Sequoia Capital. Gurugram-based organic skincare, haircare, and body care brand, Honasa or Mamaearth became the first unicorn in India in 2022.
Fractal Intelligence is a Mumbai-based analytics startup founded in 2000 by Ramakrishna Reddy, Pranay Agrawal, Srikanth Velamakanni, Nirmal Palaparthi, and Pradeep Suryanarayan and is currently headquartered in New York, US. Primarily established as a strategic analytics partner to the most sought-after Fortune 500 companies globally, Fractal empowers every human decision by bringing analytics, AI, and other cutting-edge technology to the decision-making process.
Fractal Analytics currently has its presence across 15 countries including the United States, UK, Ukraine, and India. The company has recently turned unicorn by raising $360 million from a fundraising round led by TPG Capital, and Apax Partners, as per the reports dated January 5, 2022. Fractal is one of the leading players in the AI space with Qure.ai, Crux Intelligence, Theremin.ai, Eugenie.ai and Samya.ai as its flagship products. It is also important to note that Fractal is the second Indian unicorn of 2022.
LEAD School is a Mumbai-based edtech company that helps bring in improved marketing and academic solutions for educational institutions to transform their school education in India. Founded in 2012 by Smita Deorah and Sumeet Mehta, LEAD School helps digitize and transform private schools to help them serve students from varying economic backgrounds better.
LEAD School turned unicorn on January 13, 2022, thereby becoming the first Indian edtech startup to achieve a unicorn valuation in 2022. LEAD raised a funding round worth $100 mn today, led by GSV Ventures and WestBridge Capital to attain unicorn status. The Deorah and Mehta-led startup has thus become the third unicorn startup in India in 2022.
Darwinbox has been founded by Chaitanya Peddi, Jayant Paleti and Rohit Chennamaneni as a cloud-based Hr technology product, which serves as an end-to-end HR software that helps enterprises automate the entire employee lifecycle. The HR software that the company provides the organizations, helps them manage all of their HR requirements including recruitment, payroll, employee engagement, talent management, and people analytics across the employee life cycle under one platform.
Darwinbox has already served 1.5 million employees across 650+ organizations from over 90 different industries. The company claims to be the third-largest HRTech platform after SAP and Oracle. The growing HR Tech platform has raised $72 million in its Series D funding round from TCV on January 25, 2022, to attain the unicorn club of Indian companies. The unicorn valuation obtained by Darwinbox has made it the first Indian Saas unicorn of 2022 and the fourth unicorn overall that the country has seen this year.
DealShare
Startup Name
DealShare
Headquarters
Bengaluru, Andhra Pradesh, India
Industry
Ecommerce, Grocery
Founders
Rajat Shikhar, Sankar Bora, Sourjyendu Medda, and Vineet Rao
Founded
2018
Investors
Tiger Global, Alteria Capital, Alpha Wave Global, Innoven Capital and other
Products and Services
Grocery and other consumer products via its ecommerce business
Valuation
$1.62 billion+ (January 2022)
DealShare is a social eCommerce startup based in Bengaluru. Founded in 2018 by Rajat Shikhar, Sankar Bora, Sourjyendu Medda, and Vineet Rao, DealShare boasts of having multi-category consumer goods that are available at affordable prices.
DealShare has turned into a unicorn, as per the reports dated January 27, 2022. The Bangalore-based grocery and essentials delivery eCommerce platform have raised $130 million via a Series E funding round led by Tiger Global, Alpha Wave, Kora Investment, and others for this recent round in funding.
ElasticRun
Startup Name
ElasticRun
Headquarters
Pune, Maharashtra, India
Industry
Ecommerce, Logistics, Transportation
Founders
Sandeep Deshmukh, Saurabh Nigam, Shitiz Bansal
Founded
2015
Investors
Softbank, Kalaari, Prosus, Innoven, Norwest Venture Partners and more
Products and Services
Online system, logistics and transportation support
Valuation
$1 billion+ (February 2022)
ElasticRun is an eCommerce logistics and transportation-based startup headquartered in Pune, Maharashtra, which is designed to serve as an online system that will empower the eCommerce and distribution industry of India by improving the reception of orders from customers and the dispatch of delivery drivers.
In a recent round of funding dated February 8, 2022, ElasticRun has raised over $300 million from SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Goldman Sachs with some of its existing investors including Prosus Ventures. At the conclusion of the fresh funding round, the company posted a post-money valuation of $1.44 bn. ElasticRun was just valued at $400 mn during the last round that it saw in April 2021, thereby implying that the valuation of the company saw a 3X rise. With this round, the Kirana commerce platform becomes the 6th unicorn startup in India in 2022.
Trifecta, Saint Gobain, Bessemer Venture, Helion Venture, Kharis Capital, and more
Products and Services
Interior Design solutions
Valuation
$1.44 billion+ (February 2022)
Built with an aim to connect individuals with designers, services, and products, Livspace is an interior designing startup that works as an omnichannel home interior and renovation platform. Headquartered in Bengaluru, Livspace helps homeowners to find pre-created looks for rooms, kitchens, and storage areas on the platform. Furthermore, Livspace also extends the opportunities to its customers to choose and buy the designs they want, along with further options for customization.
The Anuj Srivastava and Ramakant Sharma-led startup raised $180 Mn in a Series F funding round led by American investment giant KKR & Co. and other existing investors of Livspace including Jungle Ventures, Venturi Partners, Ingka Group (Ikea), and Peugeot Investments. This has lifted the valuation of Livspace to $1.44 bn. With the unicorn valuation that Livspace attained with the funding round dated February 8, 2022, the company witnessed a 2X jump in its valuation since December 2019, when it was valued at $500 million. The company became the 7th Indian unicorn in 2022 and is the 50th unicorn since January 2021.
Founded by Supam Maheshwari and Amitava Saha, Xpressbees is an eCommerce logistics platform that extends reliable delivery solutions to its partners along with customized delivery solutions. Headquartered in Pune, India, the company offers a wide range of delivery and logistics-oriented services including comprehensive last-mile delivery, reverse logistics, payment collection, drop shipping, vendor management, cross-border services, fulfilment services, and more. Furthermore, Xpressbees also boasts of bringing in tailored software solutions to clients.
Xpressbees is the 8th unicorn company in India, which raised $300 million worth of funds in its latest Series F funding round led by Blackstone Growth, TPG Growth, and ChrysCapital on February 9, 2022. The funding round via which it raised the funds that will support the next phase of business growth of Xpressbees also saw participation from its existing investors including Investcorp and Norwest Venture Partners.
Uniphore
Startup Name
Uniphore
Headquarters
Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India and Palo Alto, California, USA
Industry
AI, Saas, Software
Founders
Ravi Saraogi, Umesh Sachdev
Founded
2008
Investors
IIFL, Sorenson, March Capital, Chiratae Ventures and more
Products and Services
auMina and akeira and other software products
Valuation
$2.5 billion+ (February 2022)
Uniphore is a Conversational Automation platform founded by Ravi Saraogi and Umesh Sachdev in 2008. The customer service platform developed by Uniphore is powered by AI and automation technologies the vision of which is to bridge the gap between people and machines through voice. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Uniphore extends first-rate customer service to global businesses and helps them benefit from the integrated suite of software products for conversational analytics, assistance, and security that Uniphore provides. auMina and akeira, two proprietary AI solutions are already developed by Uniphore in the speech analytics and virtual assistant verticals.
Uniphore raised $400 million in a Series E round led by NEA, March Capital, and others to become the eighth unicorn of India in 2022, as per the reports dated February 16, 2022, at the end of which the company was valued at $2.5 billion.
Hasura
Startup Name
Hasura
Headquarters
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Industry
Software
Founders
Rajoshi Ghosh and Tanmay Gopal
Founded
2017
Investors
Greenoaks, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Vertex Ventures and more
Products and Services
GraphQL development platform
Valuation
$1 billion+ (February 2022)
Hasura is a Bengaluru-based GraphQL development platform that has built its platform with an aim to boost web application development. The Rajoshi Ghosh and Tanmay Gopal-led startup plan to do this by reducing the roadblocks, thereby making data access easy for the frontend and full-stack developers. The platform turned into an open-source platform in July 2018 and since then developers from around the world have used Hasura to help themselves build the data layer for modern applications.
This developer-focused tooling products platform turned into a unicorn on February 22, 2022, thereby becoming the 10th Indian startup to enter the coveted unicorn club in 2022. It raised a funding of $100 million to obtain unicorn status in its Series C funding round.
CredAvenue
Startup Name
CredAvenue
Headquarters
Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Industry
Fintech, Finance, PaaS
Founders
Gaurav Kumar and Vineet Sukumar
Founded
2017
Investors
Dragoneer, B Capital Group, Insight Partners, Sequoia Capital and more
Products and Services
CredLoan, CredCo-Lend, Plutus
Valuation
$1.3 billion+ (March 2022)
Termed as a complete corporate debt solution, CredAvenue is founded by Gaurav Kumar in 2017 and is designed as a fully integrated, unified digital platform, which helps investors discover, trade, execute and fulfil debt solutions for investors. Vineet Sukumar, who joined the startup in October 2020 also stands as the Founder and Director of CredAvenue.
CredAvenue turned into a unicorn on March 6, 2022, by raising $137 million worth of funds in a series-B round led by Insight Partners, B Capital Group, and Dragoneer. The company is currently valued at over $1.3 billion, which is more than double the valuation of CredAvenue that was measured in September 2021. The Chennai-based debt marketplace startup becomes the 11th Indian startup to attain unicorn status in 2022.
Baskar Subramanian, Srinivasan KA, Srividhya Srinivasan
Founded
2008
Investors
Accel, Mayfield, Premjiinvest, Emerald Media and more
Products and Services
Cloud solutions for broadcasting
Valuation
$1 billion+ (March 2022)
Founded in 2009, by Baskar Subramanian, Srinivasan KA, Srividhya Srinivasan, and originally headquartered in Bengaluru, Amagi is a media-tech and broadcasting startup that helps target TV advertisements geographically. As a Cloud Saas technology provider, Amagi offers a mix of media and innovation to bring services that are powerful, cost-effective, and result-oriented, thereby making a way for a new TV-media advertising platform.
Amagi raised $95 million in funding on March 16, 2022, led by Accel and a clutch of existing investors like Norwest Venture Partners and Avataar Ventures, which helped it attain a unicorn valuation. With this funding round, Amagi becomes the 12th Indian startup to enter the unicorn club in 2022. It is also presently hailed as one of the highest valued media tech companies in the world.
Started as Boomerang Commerce, founded by Guru Hariharan, CommerceIQ is an omnichannel management platform that is currently headquartered in Palo Alto, California, US. Founded in 2012, CommerceIQ uses cutting-edge technologies including Machine Learning and Automation to multiply e-commerce sales.
CommerceIQ raised $115 million in its Series D funding round dated March 21, 2022, led by Softbank to turn a unicorn. This funding round made CommerceIQ the 13th unicorn that India has seen so far in 2022 and the second Indian company to turn unicorn by a funding round led by SoftBank after ElasticRun.
Alpha Wave, LLC, Matrix, Capital Management, Tiger Global, Norwest and more
Products and Services
Financial Services
Valuation
$1 billion+ (March 2022)
Oxyzo is a credit solutions provider, working as the lending arm of the unicorn industrial goods and services procurement platform, OfBusiness. Founded by Asish Mohapatra, Ruchi Kalra, with a deep understanding of the SMEs’ business trends, Oxyzo aims to transform small and medium-scale enterprises into something bigger in terms of operations, revenue, and profit margins.
In the latest Series A funding round that Oxyzo witnessed on March 23, 2022, where it received $200 million from a clutch of investors including Alpha Wave Global, Tiger Global, Matrix Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, and more, the company turned unicorn. This was the first external round of investment that Oxyzo received that has made it attain unicorn status. Owned by OfBusiness, Oxyzo is the second unicorn of the group. Raising such a large amount in the Series A round, Oxyzo has also been recorded as the first Indian startup to do so to date.
Games 24×7
Startup Name
Games 24×7
Headquarters
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Industry
Gaming, Fantasy Sports
Founders
Bhavin Pandya, Trivikraman Thampy
Founded
2006
Investors
Malabar Investment and more
Products and Services
Gaming platform
Valuation
$1 billion+ (April 2022)
Games 24×7 is India’s leading scientific gaming company. Founded by Bhavin Pandya and Trivikraman Thampy, on June 1, 2006, headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, Games 24×7 offers real money skill gaming, daily sports fantasy games, and casual gaming for its users.
The leading games platform recently turned unicorn on March 30, 2022, by raising $75 mn of funds led by Malabar India Fund and is currently valued at $2.5 billion. Tiger Global was an existing investor who also took part in the same funding round. Games 24×7 is currently hailed as India’s 99th unicorn company, as per the reports dated 30th March 2022.
Open is a neobanking startup that was founded in 2017 and is headquartered currently in Bangalore. Ajeesh Achuthan, Anish Achuthan, Deena Jacon, and Mabel Chacko were the minds behind the foundation of Open.
The neobanking culture is rapidly influencing the Indian banking and financial system and Open has been one of the major players in this growing culture. Open is currently powering 2.3+ million SMEs and processing over $30 billion in annualized transactions, which is certainly huge. This neobanking startup has put another feather in its cap by raising $50 mn in its Series D round on May 2, 2022, and turning into a unicorn, led by IIFL, Temasek, 3one4 Capital, and Tiger Global. With this, Open has seized the title of being the 1st Indian unicorn from the neobanking space and the 16th unicorn that India has seen so far in 2022.
It is also important to note here that Open has resumed India’s unicorn streak, which showed an unprecedented pause towards the end of March 2022, after Games 24×7 achieved the unicorn status.
Tutoring, Study materials for Classes 6-12, and Live Courses for them and for the other entrance examinations like JEE, NEET and more
Valuation
$1.1 billion+ (June 2022)
PhysicsWallah is an edtech company founded by Alakh Pandey in 2016, where Prateek Maheshwari. It offers online and offline courses and study materials for engineering and medical entrance examinations like JEE and NEET along with various entrance and state board exams. Video lectures, live classes, test series, and dynamic exercises are some of the main services that PhysicsWallah offers.
PhysicsWallah had last seen the Series A funding round, which was the maiden fundraising round that poured $100 mn into the startup. This round was led by Westbridge and GSV Ventures and helped the bootstrapped startup turn into an Indian unicorn company on June 7, 2022, thereby making PhysicsWallah the 101st Indian unicorn. PhysicsWallah, which was valued at $1.1 bn post the infusion, is currently hailed as the second bootstrapped Indian company that turned a unicorn. PhysicsWallah belongs to the edtech space that is seeing a huge upheaval after the unwinding of the country post-pandemic. Losses rage the edtech sector now, and layoffs are the new normal for the Edtech space in India.
Blume Ventures, Kedaara Capital, PremjiInvest, Goldman Sachs and more
Products and Services
Ecommerce platform for cosmetics and beauty products including haircare, skincare products and more
Valuation
$1.1 billion+ (June 2022)
Purplle is an Indian multi-brand beauty retailing online marketplace that was founded in 2011. Founded by Rahul Dash and Manish Taneja, Purplle is an online store that offers a wide range of products spanning numerous categories like fragrances, cosmetics, hair and skincare, and more.
The Mumbai-headquartered D2C cosmetic ecommerce brand turned unicorn on June 7, 2022, by raising $33 mn of funding from South Korea-based Paramark Ventures and its existing investors including Kedaara Capital, Blume Ventures, and PremjiInvest.
LeadSquared
Startup Name
LeadSquared
Headquarters
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Industry
Saas, Technology
Founders
Nilesh Patel, Prashant Singh, and Sudhakar Gorti
Founded
2011
Investors
WestBridge Capital, International Finance Corporation, Gaja Capital and more
Products and Services
Marketing Automation, Field Force Automation, Self-serve Portal, Sales Execution CRM, Sales Performance Suite
Valuation
$1 billion+ (June 2022)
Raising $153 mn in its Series C funding round from WestBridge Capital and others, LeadSquared turned unicorn, thereby becoming the 103rd Indian unicorn, as of June 21, 2022. With this latest funding in its arsenal, LeadSquared is planning to invest more in its business in India and North America. It is also looking to foray into the APAC and EMEA regions ahead, and would also fund some acquisitions. Besides, it is also looking to increase its workforce, and might even double its headcounts in the next 18 months.
LeadSquared was founded by Nilesh Patel, Prashant Singh, and Sudhakar Gorti in 2011, and is currently headquartered in Bengaluru. New Jersey, Philippines, South Africa, Australia, and Indonesia are some other territories where the company has seen its expansion to date. As a company, LeadSquared offers solutions for end-to-end sales, marketing, and onboarding automation, making these processes easy for its customers. LeadSquared already has 2,000+ customers, which belong to a variety of industries, including education, BFSI, healthcare, real estate, automotive, hospitality,and more. Some of its customers include biggies like Byju’s, Godrej Housing Finance, Olx, Dunzo, Practo, Kotak Securities, Amazon Pay, NIIT, Uni,and more.
OneCard
Startup Name
OneCard
Headquarters
Pune, Maharashtra, India
Industry
Financial Services, Credit card challenger
Founder
Vaibhav Hathi, Rupesh Kumar, Anurag Sinha
Founded
2018
Investors
Sequoia Capital, Ocean View Investment, QED Holdings, Matrix Partners, Hummingbird and more
Products and Services
Metal credit cards, Visa credit cards, OneScore
Valuation
$1.3 billion (FY22)
OneCard was founded in 2018 by Vaibhav Hathi, Rupesh Kumar, and Anurag Sinha, and is a subsidiary of FPL Technologies. Being an Indian startup from the credit card challenger space, OneCard competes with companies like Slice, Karbon Card, Uni Card, and more. OneCard rolled out its first mobile metal credit card in 2020, which it offers as a service along with Visa credit cards in partnership with numerous banks, and OneScore, a digital credit score checking platform that helps users check their credit scores without paying anything and without even any spams. OneCard currently extends its services in 12+ states across India.
OneCard turned unicorn after it raised $100 mn in funds via its Series D funding round led by Temasek, Sequoia Capital, QED Holdings, Matrix Partners, Hummingbird, and others, on June 13, 2022. With this fundraising round, OneCard is now valued at around $1.3 bn, thereby turning into the 104th Indian unicorn in 2022. Its total funding now crossed $225 mn, as of July 14th, 2022. After Slice, OneCard is now the second unicorn Indian startup in the credit card challenger space now.
5ire
Startup Name
5ire
Headquarters
London, England, UK
Industry
Blockchain Network
Founder
Pratik Gauri, Prateek Dwivedi, and Vilma Mattila
Founded
August 2021
Investors
SRAM & MRAM, GEM Global Yield LLC SCS (GGY), Launchpool, Sanctum Global Ventures
5ire is a London-based 5th generation Layer-1 (L1) blockchain network founded by Pratik Gauri and Prateek Dwivedi, who are of Indian origin, and with the help of web3 financier Vilma Mattila, in August 2021. 5ire aims to build a space in the web3 revolution, just like Google did in the case of web1 revolution and Facebook revolutionised the web2 space, mentioned the company CEO Pratik Gauri. The name “5ire” came from the idea of the 5th industrial revolution.
5ire raised $100 mn in Series A funding from UK-based conglomerate SRAM & MRAM at a valuation of $1.5 Bn to be listed as the 105th unicorn of India.
Shiprocket
Startup Name
Shiprocket
Headquarters
New Delhi, India
Industry
Ecommerce, Logistics, Supply Chain Management
Founders
Gautam Kapoor, Saahil Goel, Vishesh Khurana and Akshay Ghulati
Founded
2017
Investors
Tamesek Holdings, Lightrock, Bertelsmann, Moore Strategic Ventures
Products and Services
Ecommerce Logistics and Shipping Software, Courier Delivery App
Valuation
$1.2 billion (August 2022)
Shiprocket was founded in 2017 by Gautam Kapoor, Saahil Goel, Vishesh Khurana and Akshay Ghulati. The startup is a developer of an eCommerce shipping and enablement application and is headquartered in New Delhi. The platform makes use of a machine learning-based data engine to recommend the best courier service for a business and select a courier company. Apart from this, it offers benefits like packaging, warehousing, printing shipping labels, and tracking orders from a single panel. This helps the merchants and sellers to manage the deliveries smoothly.
The Zomato-backed logistics startup has become the 106thunicorn startup in India after raising $33.5 million from Temasek Holdings and Lightrock raising its valuation to $1.2 billion. This makes it the 21st Indian startup to turn unicorn in 2022.
Tata 1mg (formerly 1mg) was founded in the year 2015 by Prashant Tandon, Gaurav Agarwal, and Vikas Chauhan. The startup is headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana. It is an online drug delivery platform that intends to make healthcare more accessible and affordable. The platform is known to offer medicines and other healthcare products, lab tests, and online consultations from healthcare professionals. All this makes it a one-stop solution for all of the customers’ healthcare needs.
The Tata-owned health tech platform has become the 107th unicorn startup in India after raising $40 million in an internal round of funding led by Tata Digital, raising its valuation to $1.25 billion.
Molbio Diagnostics
Startup Name
Molbio Diagnostics
Headquarters
VERNA, Goa, India
Industry
HealthTech, MedTech
Founders
Chandrasekhar Nair, Sriram Natarajan
Founded
2010
Investors
Temasek Holdings, Motilal Oswal Private Equity
Products and Services
Medical Diagnostics, TB Diagnostic Tools, RT-PCR
Valuation
$1.53 (September 2022)
Molbio Diagnostics is a manufacturer of molecular diagnostics. The company was founded by Sriram Natarajan and Chandrasekhar Nair and is headquartered in Verna, Goa. It operates as a platform that specializes in providing affordable diagnoses for tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.
After raising $85 million from Temasek and existing investor Motilal Oswal Alternates, Molbio Diagnostics became India’s 108th unicorn startup in September 2022 and the first unicorn startup from Goa, increasing its valuation to $1.53 billion.
Zepto was founded by Kaivalya Vohra and Aadit Palicha, both Stanford students who decided to drop out of the university to pursue entrepreneurship. The startup was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in Mumbai. It is a quick commerce platform designed to deliver groceries to your doorstep within 10 minutes, ensuring convenient access to essential food items.
Zepto became India’s first unicorn in 2023 after a long 11-month unicorn drought. The startup raised $200 million in a Series E funding round led by StepStone Group with participation from Goodwater Capital and existing investors in August 2023. This funding round increased Zepto’s valuation to $1.4 billion, making it an exclusive member of the unicorn club.
Krutrim
Startup Name
Krutrim
Industry
Research Services
Founder
Bhavish Aggarwal
Founded
2023
Investors
Matrix Partners India and others
Valuation
$1 billion (January 2024)
Krutrim is an artificial intelligence startup launched by Ola founder and Chairman Bhavish Aggarwal in 2023. Krutrim AI is a part of the Ola group and is committed to building the entire AI computing stack for the future. It aims to provide an advanced AI computing stack for India, including infrastructure, cloud services, foundational models, and AI-powered applications. By offering a comprehensive AI computing stack tailored for the Indian market, Krutrim aims to empower consumers, startups, enterprises, and scientists with cutting-edge technology.
India’s own AI, Krutrim AI, raised $50 million at a valuation of $1 billion in a funding round led by Matrix Partners India and others. This not only makes Krutrim India’s first unicorn of 2024 but also represents a historic achievement as India gets its first artificial intelligence unicorn, marking it as Bhavish Aggarwal’s third unicorn startup.
Real-Time Credit Decisioning, Analytics, Onboarding Automation, SME Lending Solutions, and More
Valuation
$1 billion (March 2024)
Perfios Software Solutions is India’s leading B2B fintech software company. Headquartered in Bangalore, Perfios specializes in credit decisioning, analytics, and onboarding automation. Their core data platform seamlessly aggregates and analyzes both structured and unstructured data, providing tailored solutions for the BFSI sector. Perfios empowers financial institutions to make informed decisions while enhancing customer experiences across the banking, financial services, and insurance sectors.
Perfios raised $80 million from Teachers’ Venture Growth (TVG), the late-stage venture and growth investment arm of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. This deal has raised Perfios’ valuation to $1 billion, making it a unicorn startup in India.
Porter
Startup Name
Porter
Headquarter
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Industry
Logistics, Transportation
Founder
Pranav Goel, Uttam Digga, Vikas Choudhary
Founded
2014
Investors
Tiger Global Management, Vitruvian Partners
Products and Services
Two-wheelers, Trucks, Packers and Movers, Porter for Enterprise, Courier Service
Valuation
$1 Billion (May 2024)
Porter is an online logistics marketplace that simplifies truck booking for businesses. They offer mini trucks and tempo rentals based on date and location, with real-time tracking for efficient logistics management.
Founded in 2014 by Pranav Goel, Uttam Digga, and Vikas Choudhary and headquartered in Bengaluru, Porter has disrupted logistics with its on-demand marketplace for LCVs, bikes, and specialised services like Enterprise and Packers & Movers.
Porter became the third unicorn startup in India in 2024 following a recent friends and family round, during which individuals purchased shares from the company’s employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) at a valuation of $1 billion. This came after a successful funding round in 2021, where Porter raised $100 million from investors like Tiger Global Management and Vitruvian Partners.
RateGain
Startup Name
RateGain Travel Technologies Limited
Headquarter
Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
Industry
SaaS, Travel Technology, Hospitality Solutions
Founder
Bhanu Chopra
Founded
2004
Investors
Pinebridge Global Funds, Troo Capital, ICICI Prudential MF, Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance
Products and Services
Hotel Distribution, Hotel Booking Engine, Travel-Intent, Competitor Pricing Intelligence
Valuation
$1 Billion
RateGain Travel Technologies Limited is a SaaS company in the travel and hospitality industry. It offers solutions for hotels, airlines, online travel agents, and more. Founded in 2004 by Bhanu Chopra, RateGain operates in over 100 countries.
In 2024, RateGain became the only listed company to reach unicorn status in India, with a valuation of $1 billion. Headquartered in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, the company helps businesses grow revenue through acquisition, retention, and wallet share expansion. It was one of the six companies that entered the Indian startup unicorn club in 2024.
Rapido
STARTUP NAME
Rapido
Headquarter
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Industry
Transportation, Mobility Tech
Founder
Aravind Sanka, Pavan Guntupalli, Rishikesh SR
Founded
2015
Investors
WestBridge Capital, Nexus Venture Partners
Products and Services
Bike Taxi Service, Auto Rickshaw Services
Valuation
$1 Billion (July 2024)
Rapido is India’s largest and fastest-growing bike taxi app service. Headquartered in Bengaluru, Rapido offers two-wheeler ride services with transparent fares, making intra-city travel and last-mile connectivity affordable and fun. The platform also includes app-based auto rickshaws and delivery services, quickly expanding into various transportation solutions.
Founded in 2015 by Aravind Sanka, Pavan Guntupalli, and Rishikesh SR, Rapido raised $120 million in a Series E funding round in July 2024, led by WestBridge Capital. This funding round boosted Rapido’s valuation to over a billion, making it a unicorn startup in India.
Ather Energy
Startup Name
Ather Energy
Headquarters
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Industry
Automotive, Electric vehicles, Motor Vehicle Manufacturing
Ather Energy is a leading electric two-wheeler manufacturer in India, headquartered in Bengaluru. The company is known for its innovative and eco-friendly scooters, including the Ather 450 series and Ather Rizta, which feature advanced lithium-ion battery packs and digital management systems. Ather Energy’s products are designed to offer a cleaner, smarter mode of transportation.
Founded in 2013 by Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain, Ather Energy secured $71 million in a funding round led by the existing investor National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) in August 2024. This funding round increased Ather Energy’s valuation to $1.3 billion, making it a unicorn startup in India.
Moneyview
Startup Name
Moneyview
Headquarters
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Industry
FinTech, Digital Lending, Personal Financial Management
Founder
Puneet Agarwal, Sanjay Aggarwal
Founded
2014
Investors
Accel India, Nexus Ventures, Tiger Global Management
Products and Services
Loans, Investments, Personal Finance Management Solutions, Smart Pay, Credit Tracker
Valuation
$1.2 Billion (September 2024)
Moneyview, a leading consumer lending platform, offers personalised financial products such as loans, credit tracking, investments, and personal financial management solutions. Headquartered in Bengaluru, the company enables users to access instant personal loans, track finances, and manage expenses through a seamless, paperless process.
Founded in 2014 by Puneet Agarwal and Sanjay Aggarwal, Moneyview became a unicorn startup in September 2024 after raising $4.6 million in a funding round from Accel India and Nexus Ventures, bringing its valuation to $1.2 billion.
Fleet Camera System, Driver•i One, Driver•i Hub-X, Driver Drowsiness with Driver Monitoring System (DMS) Sensor
Valuation
$1.34 Billion (January 2025)
Netradyne is a leading logistics AI startup, transforming fleet management with advanced technology. The company utilises artificial intelligence, machine learning, and edge computing to enhance driver safety by minimising accidents, identifying risky driving behaviours, and shielding drivers from false claims. Its flagship product, Driver•i, collects and analyses vast amounts of data to set new safety standards for commercial vehicles, helping businesses enhance safety, boost profitability, and build a driver-focused culture.
Founded in 2015 by Avneesh Agrawal, Netradyne became India’s first unicorn of 2025 in January after securing $90 million in a Series D funding round led by Point72 Private Investments, alongside Qualcomm Ventures and Pavilion Capital, bringing its valuation to$1.34 billion.
Former Indian Unicorn Companies
India has seen many unicorn companies to date and the above list containing is a testament to that. However, if you wonder about the total number of unicorns in India, then the numbers would be even more than what reflects in the list above because many of the unicorn companies in the country have either gone defunct or devalued thus, lost their unicorn status. Here’s remembering the prominent ones among them:
Quikr is a Bengaluru-based Indian online marketplace and classified advertising company that was founded in 2008 by Pranay Chulet. Quikr boasts of having its listings in over 1000 cities in India across a wide range of product categories including cars, mobile phones, household products, education, jobs, services, and more.
The online classified ads major was valued at over $1.5 billion on October 8, 2015. However, the company lost its unicorn status in February 2020.
Started as a social media instant messaging app, Hike Messenger was beyond a craze when it first launched. It was the time when Whatsapp was launched recently in India and was far from gaining the popularity that it is currently known for. Kavin Bharti Mitta, who was the founder and CEO of Hike, founded the company in December 2012.
Hike raised $175 million in a Series D funding round, which valued the startup at $1.4 billion in just under 3.7 years in August 2016, thereby becoming the then youngest startup in India to achieve the feat!
However, the company saw a massive drop in its revenue as Whatsapp rapidly rose to fame and dominated the market. The company tried some strategies to lift its brand value. It even tried a sticker-centric experience by rebranding itself as Hike Sticker Chat in April 2019. The company finally announced its shutdown on January 15, 2021.
ShopClues was founded by Sanjay Sethi, Radhika Aggarwal, and Sandeep Aggarwal in 2011 and has claimed to be India’s first and largest managed marketplace. It was once a promising company with over 2.5 crore listed products and 6,00,000+ merchants. Shopclues also turned into a unicorn back in 2016 and was hailed as the fourth unicorn startup in India. However, ShopClues has slowly and steadily collapsed from being a promising unicorn to an also-ran by the company and was finally sold to Singapore-based Qoo10 Pte Ltd at a valuation of just $70-100 million in an all-stock deal.
FAQs
What is the meaning of a Unicorn startup?
Startups with a valuation of over $1 Billion are known as Unicorns.
How many unicorn startups are there in India in 2024?
As of September 2024, there are 117 unicorns in India.
Which are the top Indian unicorns?
Some of the top unicorns that India boasts of today are:
Zomato
Nykaa
PolicyBazaar
OYO
Ola
Paytm
Swiggy
BYJU’S
FirstCry
Lenskart
Freshworks
Moglix
Nykaa
Swiggy
Pine Labs
BlackBuck
Which is India’s first unicorn startup?
InMobi, a Bangalore-based multinational mobile advertising technology company, founded in 2007 is the first to enter the unicorn club. InMobi became the first unicorn in 2011.
Is Nykaa a unicorn?
Nykaa entered the unicorn club in 2020.
Which country has the most unicorns?
The United States is at the top of the list with over 650 unicorns as of August 2023.
What is the obsession with unicorn startups?
Unicorn startups boast of their valuation, which has crossed the $1 billion mark, and are always at the edge of their gameplay. The companies grouped in as unicorns are forever in competition with each other, and always stand as inspirational figures for the rest of the startups and other budding companies.
How many companies turn unicorns?
Though startups are everywhere now around us, as per the recently conducted surveys, 9 out of every 10 startups fail. Therefore, being a successful startup and turning it into a unicorn is always difficult for startups. AngelList says that a venture-backed seed-stage startup has a 1 in 40 shot, which is equivalent to a 2.5% chance of achieving unicorn status today.
Is Zerodha a unicorn?
Yes, Zerodha entered the unicorn club in 2020 with a valuation of about $1 billion.
Which Indian startups became unicorns in 2020?
Pine Labs
FirstCry
Nykaa
Unacademy
Zerodha
Razorpay
Postman
Cars24
Dailyhunt
Glance, InMobi, and more.
Which Indian startups became unicorns in 2021?
BrowserStack
Moglix
PharmEasy
CRED
Meesho
Urban Company
Digit Insurance
Groww
Gupshup
Chargebee
Zeta
Infra.Market
Innovaccer
Five Star Business Finance
Licious
Vedantu and more.
How many startups turned unicorns in India in 2024?
As of September 2024, six startups turned unicorns including Krutrim, Perfios, Porter, Rapido, Ather Energy, and Moneyview.
What are the Indian companies that turned unicorns in 2022?
The Indian companies that turned unicorns in 2022 are:
Four individuals from Gujarat were recently apprehended by the Bengaluru city police for the theft of INR 12.5 crore from CRED, a credit card payments company. Among those detained was Vaibhav Pitadiya (33), a relationship manager at Gujarat’s Axis Bank and the suspected mastermind.
During the inquiry, the police found two cell phones, counterfeit CIB forms, and INR 1.28 crore in cash. “The remaining sum that was defrauded is being recovered. On Corporate Internet Banking (CIB) forms, they falsified seals and signatures. The accused moved INR 12.50 crore to 17 mule accounts in Gujarat and Rajasthan using these falsified documents, the source claimed, gaining unauthorised access to the company’s online banking credentials.
Modus Operandi
Pitadiya found that CRED‘s nodal account handled more than INR 2 crore in transactions per day. He found ways to take advantage of the two linked company accounts that were dormant. A media report claims that Pitadiya came up with a plan and persuaded Neha Ben, an Instagram friend, to pose as the managing director (MD) of the business. In order to present Neha as the MD, he falsified board resolutions and letterhead documents.
Neha asked for a new user ID connected to CRED’s account with updated email and phone information by submitting a fictitious CIB form and falsified papers to the Axis Bank branch in Ankleshwar, Bharuch, Gujarat. The group started the fraudulent transactions with these credentials. According to the authorities, two accomplices, Shubham and Shailesh, opened mule accounts and produced fake paperwork in order to transfer the stolen money.
How the Issue got Highlighted?
On November 13, when CRED was performing a bank account reconciliation, the fraud was discovered. It was found that 17 unauthorised transactions totalling INR 12.5 crore had been made to questionable accounts between October 29 and November 11. On November 15, CRED complained to the East CEN Crime Police Station in Bengaluru and brought the matter to the attention of Axis Bank.
Neha had filed the documents in the Ankleshwar branch, which is where the police were able to trace the fraud. After Neha was taken into custody on December 21, the police found Pitadiya and the others through her interrogation. According to investigations, the suspects tried to activate a second CRED-related account by submitting a new CIB form to a separate Axis Bank office. An official declared, “The fraud was stopped after this attempt was intercepted.”
They made fake CIB documents and board resolutions and gained access to private information. The fraudulent transactions were made possible by the submission of these documents to the Ankleshwar branch of Axis Bank. The officer further stated that the accused had been remanded to police custody for additional investigation after confessing to the crime during questioning.
On 17 November 2024, online travel agency MakeMyTrip announced that it would purchase CRED’s Happay Expense Management Platform. MakeMyTrip hopes to establish itself as the leading platform for all-inclusive business travel and cost management solutions with this acquisition. “By concentrating on innovation and a smooth user experience, we have continuously outpaced industry growth in the corporate travel sector over the past few years,” MakeMyTrip said in a statement.
Happay, an expense management platform that simplifies corporate spending, reimbursements, and expense tracking for organisations, was founded in 2012 by Anshul Rai and Varun Rathi. In 2021, CRED purchased the company for $180 million.
Details of the Agreement
The Happay brand, its cost management division, and its committed staff will switch to MakeMyTrip in accordance with the terms of the agreement. The team and payments division of Happay, which has concentrated on creating a cutting-edge technological stack and business payments solutions, will stay with CRED.
By emphasising innovation and a smooth user experience, MakeMyTrip has continuously surpassed industry growth in the business travel sector over the last four years, according to Rajesh Magow, the company’s co-founder and group CEO.
It makes sense for MakeMyTrip to take the lead in this market by acquiring Happay’s name and spending management system. He claimed that MakeMyTrip is poised to once again raise the bar for corporate travel and cost management in India by incorporating Happay’s experience, which includes more than 900 corporate clients.
In the following 90 days, the deal should be finalised. According to Kunal Shah, the creator of CRED, the organisation is committed to creating solutions that facilitate financial advancement. The business is putting both teams, who have developed industry-leading products and capabilities, in a position to grow in their respective fields by allowing each vertical to play to its strengths. The company is thrilled about the payments team’s chance to make B2B payments a smooth, dependable, and quickly expanding experience.
Financial Dynamics of MakeMyTrip
In addition to providing services including airline tickets, hotels and other lodging, vacation planning and packages, rail and bus tickets, auto rentals, and forex services, MakeMyTrip is the owner and operator of several web brands, including MakeMyTrip, Goibibo, and RedBus. In the second quarter of this fiscal year, it reported revenue of $211 million, up 24% year-over-year, and a profit of $17.9 million, up from $2 million in the same period last year.
The company’s official financial statement claims that MakeMyTrip currently serves over 450 major corporate clients through Quest2Travel, a platform designed for large corporations, and over 59,000 corporate clients through MyBiz, a platform designed for small and medium-sized corporates.
