Ola Electric declared that it secured a 30% market share by registering 3,44,005 electric scooters in the fiscal year 2025. However, even with those impressive numbers, the Bengaluru-based EV manufacturer fell to third place in the race for March 2025 sales. Only Bajaj Auto and TVS managed to sell more units of something in that March than Ola Electric did.
Trailing Bajaj and TVS
Data from the VAHAN portal reveals that Ola Electric sold 23,430 units in March 2025. Meanwhile, Bajaj Auto maintained its lead in the electric two-wheeler (E2W) segment with 34,863 units. Not too far behind, TVS racked up sales of 30,454 units. This puts the market share of Ola Electric in March at 17.9%; Bajaj’s share is 26.76%, and TVS holds 23.3%.
This is not the first time Ola Electric has lagged behind Bajaj. This December, for the first time, Bajaj beat Ola in market share, selling 18,276 units for 24.93% of the market. Meanwhile, in March, Ather Energy sold 15,446 units. Hero MotoCorp and Greaves reported 7,977 and 5,641 units, respectively.
Overcoming Registration Challenges
Ola Electric accepted that the preliminary sales results for February were affected by the transition to vehicle registrations done in-house. The company claims that nearly all the February sales backlog has been completed and that by the end of this month, April 2025, the remaining February to March registrations will all be done.
An Ola Electric company spokesperson stated, “Demand across urban and rural markets remains robust, even in March 2025. We have almost completely resolved our February backlog and are moving quickly to serve the customer registrations that we have yet to fulfill. Our operations are now fully on track.”
Launch of Gen 3 Scooters and Technological Advancements
Notwithstanding the registration challenges it faces, Ola Electric continues to enjoy a strong position in the electric vehicle market. The company has begun fulfilling orders for its latest offering, the S1 Gen 3 scooter, which boasts a number of technological improvements over its forerunner. The new model features a mid-drive motor (a huge step up from the previous model’s hub motor), which, combined with a chain drive, makes for a more reliable e-scooter and a more enjoyable ride.
Ola asserts that the Gen 3 scooters provide a 20% uptick in peak power, an 11% dip in pricing, and a 20% increase in range when stacked against their forebears. But look: they are all but a few PowerPoints and a shiny “new for 2022” paint job distinct from the two other recently refreshed scooters on which they are built. You shouldn’t be fooled, then, into thinking the Gen 3 lineup is a major reworking of the previous models. But even if they are all underwhelming, each scooter still does at least one thing well.
The S1 Gen 3 range is available in three prices, starting with the 2kWh model at INR 79,999. At the high end, the S1 Pro+ 5.3kWh variant, which features Ola’s custom 4680 Bharat Cell, is available at INR 1,69,999. As competition grows stronger, Ola Electric will have to harness its technological progress and operational efficiency to restore its market leadership.
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Ola needs no introduction. The first Indian cab aggregator company, Ola has made availing of cab services a smooth experience. Owned by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd. and formerly known as OlaCabs, Ola was launched in December 2010 by two IIT Bombay graduates. Being a pioneer among cab companies in India, Ola bridges the gap between cab owners and commuters, and it has done so really well!
Instead of buying and renting out its own cars, Ola partners with a number of taxi drivers and owners and adds a touch of modern technology to the whole setup. This allows people to book cabs at short notice through Ola’s app. Ola is India’s homegrown ride-hailing app with users in over 250 cities and employs 2.5 million+ driver-partners.
Driven by a hyperlocal approach, Ola is committed to its mission of building mobility for a billion people. Staying in line with its mission, Ola has also ventured into auto and bike booking services. Ola also started off a bicycle-sharing service called ‘Ola Pedal’ in 2017 to facilitate last-mile connectivity.
Read on to explore the remarkable story of Ola, its history, founders, owners, business model, revenue, growth, and more.
Ola has simplified the process of cab booking. From easy payment options to keeping the passengers entertained on the go with ‘Ola Play’, Ola takes care of everything to ensure a smooth ride. Ola now also operates self-drive cars. Be it self-drive or cab-hailing, Ola Cabs offer a wide range of cars to choose from depending on the number of travelers, budget, and convenience. For traveling within the city, one can hire shared taxis, autos, bikes, and even e-rickshaws through Ola.
One can opt for ‘Ola outstation’ to travel outside the city and ‘Ola rentals’ to rent a cab on an hourly basis. Ola has also launched ‘Ola Select’, a subscription-based membership program that offers premium benefits on rides. ‘Ola pedal’, Ola’s bicycle-sharing service, is already a big hit in the IIT Kanpur and the IIT Madras campuses with over 500 cycles.
In 2016, Ola launched ‘Ola Corporate’. When employees book their rides through Ola Corporate, the fare is deducted from the company’s Ola corporate prepaid account. Hence, companies can easily track the travel expenses of their employees while ensuring their safety.
Ola – Industry Details
India’s ride-hailing market was valued at $6.42 billion in 2023 and is expected to reach $7.6 billion by 2028, with strong growth ahead. The market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.3% between 2022-2024. The increase is supposed to happen due to the changing lifestyles of travelers and the growing disposable incomes of consumers, especially in Tier-I and Tier-II cities.
Ola was founded by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati in 2010.
Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati – Ola Founders
Bhavish Aggarwal
Ola founder Bhavish Aggarwal graduated from IIT Bombay with a B.Tech in computer science in the year 2008. Ola Cabs owner Bhavish worked for Microsoft Research in Bangalore for two years right after college. He filed 2 patents and published 3 research publications in international journals during his stint at Microsoft. While chasing his entrepreneurial dream, he started an online company to sell short-duration tours and holidays before transforming it into Ola Cabs. Bhavish Aggarwal is the Co-founder and the CEO of Ola. Born on 28 August 1985, OLA owner Bhavish Aggarwal’s personal net worth was estimated to be around $350 Million, as per 2019 data. The wealth of Bhavish further increased to stand at Rs 7500 crore ($958.43 million) in September 2021,which also made him grab the 9th position among India’s wealthiest list under 40, which also features Sachin and Binny Bansal, Neha Narkhede, Nakul Aggarwal and Ritesh Arora, and led by Divyank Turakhia, with Rs 12,500 net worth.
The Ola chief Bhavish Aggarwal will reportedly be stepping down from the day-to-day operations of the core business of Ola and will be more involved with the new and upcoming businesses of the company. The Ola company’s day-to-day operations will be taken over by Arun GR, who joined in 2021 from Vedanta Resources and has previously headed as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Ola Electric and Ola Financial Services, as confirmed by an internal organizational mail. Bhavish confirmed that he would not be retiring but will move on to overseeing Ola team building, product building, engineering functions, two-wheelers, car projects, quick commerce verticals, international expansion, and more.
Bhavish Aggarwal is well known for his tweets and remains quite active on Twitter and other social media platforms. He once even remarked jestingly that his tweets receive more replies than even Modiji’s tweets.
In a recent tweet that came from Elon Musk, where the Tesla chief said, “Tesla will not put a manufacturing plant in any location where we are not allowed first to sell & service cars”, Bhavish Aggarwal sarcastically replied with “Thanks, but no thanks!” the very next day on May 28, 2022.
Bhavish Aggarwal, who has been known to remark on Tesla and its likely launch in India, had said again, according to the July 4th, 2022, that the EV manufacturing giant is free to put up a shop in India and sell its cars, but they are not doing that, further adding that Tesla only “want to be treated differently from others, which I believe is not in the interests of India”.
Ankit Bhati is the Co-founder and the CTO of Ola and heads the technical aspects of Ola Cabs, ensuring a quick, convenient, and instinctive experience for the customers and partners. He joined IIT Bombay in 2004 for a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering and an M.Tech in CAD and automation. By 2009, he had already worked on several freelance projects and with startups like Wilcom, QED42, etc. Ankit finally decided to give up his nomadic professional life for his own start-up. He became part of the Ola Cabs journey in November 2010. There were speculations that Ankit Bhati has left Ola but these were nothing but rumors and falsities, as said by Ola Co-founder Bhavish.
Ola Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Swayam Saurabh and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Gaurav Porwal left the company in the first week of October 2021. Arun Sirdeshmukh, who was the CEO of Ola Cars, resigned from the company within less than a year of his appointment.
The Ola work culture is dominated by the “Act fast, think later” philosophy, as mentioned by the top 10 senior employees of Ola who resigned from the firm.
Ola – Initial Team
OLA Initial Team
After the idea, the design and vision were done by the product manager, Usha Loutongbam, and Bhavish himself. As for the developers who converted these ideas into reality, the first version for Android was built by Ajinkya Potdar and for iOS by Khushal Bokadey. Both of them joined Ola for two months of internship and did an excellent job rolling out the release in real quick time.
The iOS app was then taken over by Atul Manwar and the Android version by Ankit Kumar. Neeti Birla developed thebackend APIs. The main focus of the new releases was to make the app feature-rich and improve the user experience without losing the essence of one-touch cab booking.
Ola – Startup Story | How was Ola Started?
Ola was launched on 3rd December 2010. There is an interesting story behind Ola’s start. Born in Ludhiana, Ola owner Bhavish Aggarwal was just like every other success-driven entrepreneur. Bhavish first started an online site named Olatrip.com that offered holiday packages and weekend trips.
While trying to keep his holiday and tour planning business afloat, Bhavish had to travel from Bangalore to Bandipur for which he rented out a car. The cab experience was horrendous! The driver stopped the car in the middle of the journey and demanded a re-negotiation of what Bhavish was paying. After being refused, the driver proceeded to abandon Bhavish en route to his destination.
This is when he realized how his plight was probably similar to a lot of customers across the country who were looking for quality cab services. Bhavish saw the potential of an extraordinary cab booking service, and he changed Olatrip.com’s business model to the one we know today as Ola Cabs.
Bhavish on-boarded his co-founder Ankit Bhati for taking Ola Cabs forward. Bhavish’s parents didn’t agree with his startup plans in the beginning. They were thoroughly displeased with his decision to become a ‘travel agent’. Nevertheless, his parents became supportive once OLA got its first round of angel investment from Snapdeal founder Kunal Bahl, Rehan Yar Khan, and Anupam Mittal.
Bhavish believes that anyone can have a good business idea but to implement it successfully, one must have a scalable model to power the business. According to him, the best or one of the safest models one can or should adopt is running a business while owning “zero” inventory.
If you believe that Ola is some sort of abbreviation or short form, you are wrong. The name is derived from the Spanish word ‘Hola’ that translates to ‘Hello’.
Ola – Business Model and Revenue Model
Ola has a simple business model. It acts as a facilitator to provide cab-booking services. Customers can book their cabs through the app. Ola does not own any of the cabs. Only those drivers with valid permits duly authorized and verified by transport authorities can sign up with Ola; they could be either self-employed or work for an operator who owns multiple cars.
Just like how we as customers use the Ola app, the drivers get access to a driver-specific mobile app on their smartphone once they register with Ola. This is done only after a thorough check of authenticity and conducting due diligence on the commercial papers and the personal papers of both the driver and the operator. The drivers have the flexibility to decide their own time to log in to the Ola application and accept requests for rides from customers. They may choose to remain logged out of the system at their convenience. Ola takes a commission of 15% on average on all the bookings done through the app.
Ola considers the following factors to create the final bill for the user:
Base Fare – Charged flat
Distance Fare – Charged kilometer-wise (different for different cities)
Ride Time Fare – Charged on the time taken to travel
Peak Pricing – Direct ratio depending on the demand for cabs
Service Tax – 5.6%
Swachh Bharat Tax – 0.2%
Toll Charges – Toll Collection in case you cross toll junctions in the journey
Ola has also got into 3 international markets namely Australia, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. In Australia, it has set up operations in seven cities. It claims to have registered 40,000 drivers on its app in Australia. In India, Ola operates across 250+ cities.
Ola – Funding, Investors and Valuation
Ola’s funding history includes around $5 billion over 29 rounds.
The company’s valuation is $2 billion, as per the news report of November 2024.
Here is a breakup of the total funding raised by OLA to date:
Date
Stage
Amount
Investors/Shareholders
February 22, 2022
Series J
$20.11 million
Arrow Capital, Axis Growth Avenues and more
December 16, 2021
TLB Round
$500 million
–
December 8, 2021
Series J
$139 million
Edelweiss and others
July 9, 2021
Pre-IPO Round
$500 million
Temasek, Warburg Pincus’s Plum Wood and Bhavish Aggarwal
September 2019
Series J
$5.1 Million
ARK Ola Pre IPO Private Investment Trust
July 2019
Series J
$11.4 Million
Deshe Holdings, DIG Investment
March 2019
Corporate Round
$300 Million
Hyundai Motor Co.& Kia Motors Corp
February 2019
Series J
$92 Million
Sachin Bansal
February 2019
Series J
$14 Million
–
January 2019
Series J
$88 Million
Steadview Capital
January 2019
Corporate Round
$1.8 Million
Eternal Yield International
September 2018
Series I
$50 Million
China Eurasian Economic Cooperation Fund, Sailing Capital
August 2018
Secondary Market
$225 Million
Temasek Holdings
October 2017
Series G
$1.1 Billion
Tencents Holdings and SoftBank Group
August 2017
Private Equity
$36 Million
Tekne Capital
May 2017
Private Equity
$104 Million
RNT Capital Advisors and Falcon Edge Capital
April 2017
Series G
$260 Million
SoftBank Capital
February 2017
–
$330 Million
SoftBank
November 2015
Series F
$500 Million
Baillie Gifford, Falcon Edge Capital, Tiger Global, SoftBank Group and DST Global
April 2015
Series E
$403 Million
DST Global, GIC, Softbank and Falcon Edge Capital
October 2014
Series D
$210 Million
SoftBank Group,Tiger Global and Matrix Partners India
July 2014
Series C
$41 Million
Steadview Capital and Sequoia Capital
November 2013
Series B
$20 Million
Matrix Partners, Tiger Global Management
April 2012
Series A
$5 Million
Tiger Global Management
April 2011
Angel
$330K
Kunal Bahl, Anupam Mittal, Rehan yar Khan
Ola – Shareholding
Ola’s shareholding pattern as of March 2023, sourced from Tracxn:
Ola Shareholders
Percentage
Bhavish Aggarwal
8.7%
Ankit Bhati
3.3%
Nuvama Wealth
0.6%
SoftBank
20.4%
Tencent
8.1%
Plum Wood Investment
6.3%
MacRitchie Investments
3.6%
Z47
3.6%
Steadview
3.6%
Falcon Edge Capital
2.8%
DST Global
5.9%
Tiger Global Management
1.6%
GIC
1.3%
Helion Venture Partners
1.1%
Fort Canning Investments
1.1%
UCRNTFund
0.8%
Accel
1.3%
ABG Capital
0.8%
Tekne Capital Management
0.7%
Vanguard
0.8%
Delivery Hero
0.7%
Sailing Capital
0.5%
China-Eurasian Economic Fund
0.5%
Trident Trust
0.5%
Mirae Asset
0.5%
Segantii Capital Management
0.3%
DIG Investment
0.3%
Alpha Wave Global
0.4%
Axis Mutual Fund
0.2%
JSGCL
0.2%
Siddhant Partners
0.2%
Gemini
0.1%
Didi Chuxing
0.1%
Sarin Family India
< 0.1%
J3T Ventures
< 0.1%
ARK Impact Asset Management
< 0.1%
Arrow Capital
< 0.1%
Brand Capital
< 0.1%
The Alka Family Trust
0.1%
Qualcomm Ventures
< 0.1%
Adinath Family Trust
< 0.1%
Lyonsasset
< 0.1%
HBM Partners
< 0.1%
Price Descendant Trust
< 0.1%
THC Ventures
< 0.1%
Sequoia Capital
–
Blume Ventures
–
Bessemer Venture Partners
–
RNT Associates
–
CIM
–
CIIE
–
Angel
2.6%
ESOP Pool
5.4%
Other Investors
0.1%
Total
100.0%
Ola Shareholding
Ola – Growth and Revenue
Ola has covered an interesting journey from being nothing to becoming a company that provides a livelihood to thousands of people. Today, Ola has become a part of people’s everyday life in many cities.
Some key growth statistics of Ola would reflect that:
It completes more than 1 bn rides each year.
The service of Ola is spread over 250 cities.
Ola has empowered more than 1.5 mn entrepreneurs who are currently with Ola as driver-partners.
The company has 7000+ employees working with OLA.
Ola Cars
Ola has already launched its first electric scooters under Ola Electric and was set to step on a new journey involving used cars, which started in October 2021. According to the reports dated July 27, 2021, Ola looked to start its used car retailing business soon in Bengaluru. The ride-hailing giant aimed for a full-stack model where it will buy cars from the driver partners of the company and other people, and sell them to buyers after they are set right, said a close source aware of the future plans requesting anonymity. The new business was called “Ola Cars,” which was finally launched on October 7, 2021. Ola Cars helped customers purchase new and old vehicles. Furthermore, it also offered many other services like vehicle purchase, finance and insurance for vehicles, and its registration, and maintenance. This business of Ola was decided by the ride-hailing giant to be reoriented, as far as its June 25, 2022 statement goes.
Ola, which suffered heavily due to the coronavirus pandemic, being a ride-hailing app, has seen quite a progress after the lockdown and other strictures have been lifted. The company confirmed that the recovery it has witnessed from the second wave of Covid was 3X faster than what it has seen while shaking off the blues of the first wave.
India is moving again! Our @olacabs GMV crossed pre-covid levels last week. Recovery from second wave is 3 times faster. Clearly India is up and about! Some interesting trends as #IndiaIsMoving👇 pic.twitter.com/ERJfBR5s8f
Ola Co-founder and CEO, Bhavish Aggarwal, has also announced that Ola has seen 10 million users using the app, for the first time ever in FY21. This increase in usage is primarily because most people now are opting to avoid public transport and moving on with personal or shared ways of mobility. Furthermore, Ola Autos, which has seen a 150% rise, are also quite popular.
Bhavish further emphasized that the “Ola rides are safe.” He said that over 3 lakh Ola drivers are currently vaccinated and 100% of drivers are likely to get vaccinated soon.
A warm welcome to the Indian startup expanding its transportation services in foreign countries, now OLA in the UK after Australia and New Zealand markets. Ola is looking at bigger markets. Ola had been working towards this launch for the last year. CEO of Ola, Bhavish Aggarwal said, “It is not just yet another city launch for us. It is a transformative event for all of us at Ola.”
Bhavish Aggarwal, the Indian Entrepreneur, and co-founder of OLA Cabs have expressed immense happiness in bringing OLA to the United Kingdom and calls it a ‘momentous moment’ for everyone associated with OLA.
The United Kingdom has one of the world’s most evolved transportation markets. UK worked with black cabs and private hire vehicles (PHV) round-the-clock catering to people. Then, there came OLA, India based online ride-hailing company marching towards the UK, which will be serving as the only on-demand app to offer both Black cab and PHV facilities to people. With the known fact of the UK with its best-regulated taxi services, OLA is about to enter the market. Britain already is embedded with multi-billion dollar ride-sharing giant apps like UBER on its fast pacing on roads.
Ola obtained the license to operate in South Wales and Greater Manchester as per a press release as it’s the first step as ‘OLA in the UK’. OLA is engaging with policymakers and regulators to expand its network over a period of time. It is currently looking to expand its services throughout the UK. This seems a wise decision entering into the UK market, which faces mobility issues for the people relying on public transport services.
The company has come up with more facilities for commuters as per their convenience and choice. It ensures facilities with 24/7 safety, in-app emergency services, Disclosure and Barring Services (DBS) screened drivers, sharing live location, live tracking, reaching out to emergency contacts if needed, etc. OLA app is user-friendly and is instantaneous in catering to all needs of the people.
OLA in the UK is all set for its second innings globally after launching across seven cities in Australia with its maiden launch. It also has its sketch to launch in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka soon.
Despite the fact that Uber is one of the most sought ride-sharing apps in the UK and its territorial presence in 70+ countries, OLA is enthusiastic and is firm to take a stand globally with 1+ million drivers across various cities. With a huge customer base and the most accessed app in the Indian sub-continent, OLA has an edge over Uber in India. It must have its own strategies to make it successful in the transportation overseas market.
Time for us to wait and watch the Indian-based company establish its market on British grounds.
Ola Answers “Why does my driver cancel my Ola ride?”
Ola founder cum CEO Bhavish Aggarwal has finally replied to “Why does my driver cancel my Ola ride?” by introducing new features to its ride aggregating app on December 21, 2021.
The aforementioned question is the 2nd most popular question that Bhavish gets. Cab cancellation is something that all of the industry’s players face but that issue will soon be bettered with the new feature of the Ola app, which will enable the drivers to see an approx drop location and the payment mode before they accept an Ola ride. Bhavish tweeted, “Enabling drivers is key to reducing cancellations.”
The cab aggregating giant has always kept the drop location and the approx payment method hidden from the drivers, however, that somehow was not working out, as pointed out by Vineeta Singh, Sugar cosmetics CEO earlier in August 2021. However, the working of the latest feature has already been enthusiastically confirmed by Vineeta. Here goes her latest tweet:
My @Olacabs driver told me that they’ve started seeing approximate destinations before accepting a booking! This is fabulous @bhash! Building for India 💪🏻 https://t.co/83uyQwTwSE
In a recent report by ET, OLA chief Bhavish Aggarwal was reported to have met Uber officials in San Francisco, USA. This was the reason why the talks of the Ola-Uber merger circulated. However, Aggarwal dismissed such talks by saying, “Absolute rubbish. We’re very profitable and growing well.” Bhavish also took a dig at the US-based ride-sharing company by mentioning subtly that if any other company wants to exit from India, they can do so wilfully, as per his tweet. The Ola Founder-CEO further claimed that OLA is one of the most profitable ride-hailing companies in the world, and has a strong balance sheet. “We are the market leader in India and are much bigger than other players,” he added, along with mentioning any merger is completely out of the question. Ola is open to acquisitions though to further cement its position in India, as per reports dated July 30, 2022.
Ola Store Renamed as Ola Dash
Ola started a 15-minute delivery or quick delivery service in several parts of Bengaluru. Via this wing of Ola, the company decided to deliver grocery, pet care, and personal care products. Ola decided to start its ‘Ola Store’ initially in a few localities in the city and will have eventually planned to expand its services to other cities in the upcoming months. This new service was availed through the Ola app, which was available for selected customers, who were able to choose from around 2000 items. This made Ola stand as an emerging competitor of brands like Grofers, BigBasket, Swiggy, Dunzo, and more.
Ola Store eventually declared that it would be a 10-minute grocery delivery service and that it had already set up 15 dark stores in Mumbai and Bengaluru, as of November 30, 2021. Ola aimed to establish around 300 dark stores for the delivery of groceries and conveniences by January 2022. The firm also claimed to deliver around 1000 orders per day. The leading online cab aggregator announced having a fixed budget of around Rs 250 crore for their supermarket delivery business. This was the third time that Ola had attempted to foray into the segment. Ola Store had been renamed as Ola Dash, as per the reports dated January 26, 2022. The new name replaced the old one to infuse the element of speed and faster delivery. The Ola Dash network was estimated to expand its network of dark stores to comprise 500 dark stores, which will be spread across 20 cities and will make it the largest dark store network in India, as of January 28, 2022. However, the Ola Dash business failed to succeed in the long run and was suspended by Ola, as per the reports dated June 25, 2022. Ola Dash had last served 9 cities in total and was spread across 200 dark stores, which offered an assortment of 2500+ SKUs. ‘Store to Door’ was also on and was delivered in 10 minutes.
Ola – Financials
Ola has demonstrated significant financial developments over the past few years, with notable changes in revenue and profitability. Below is a detailed breakdown of Ola’s financial performance from FY24 to FY20.
Particulars
FY24
FY23
FY22
FY21
FY20
Revenue
INR 2,800 crore
INR 2,481.3 crore
INR 1,679.5 crore
INR 1,168.2 crore
INR 2,844.1 crore
Expenses
INR 2107 crore
INR 2,858.1 crore
INR 2,268.6 crore
INR 2,007.1 crore
INR 5,058.1 crore
Profit/Loss
INR -10 crore
INR -525.5 crore
INR -961.7 crore
INR -561.3 crore
INR -2,213.9 crore
Ola Financials
Ola Revenue:
Particulars
FY24
FY23
India Mobility
INR 1,761 crore
INR 1,985 crore
Financial Services
INR 227 crore
INR 63 crore
Others
INR 24 crore
INR 81 crore
In FY24, Ola’s India Mobility revenue declined to INR 1,761 crore from INR 1,985 crore in FY23, indicating a slowdown in ride-hailing services. However, Financial Services saw a significant jump from INR 63 crore in FY23 to INR 227 crore in FY24, reflecting strong growth in Ola’s fintech segment. Revenue from Other segments dropped from INR 81 crore to INR 24 crore, suggesting a strategic shift or reduced focus in these areas.
Ola has also introduced Ola money. The products offered under Ola Money are Ola Money credit card, Ola money postpaid, Ola money mobile wallet, and Ola money hospicash. Ola hospicash is a collaboration between Ola and Religare health insurance that allows the policyholders to claim Rs 5000 per day in case of hospitalization. It has further declared that it will invest up to Rs 786.1 crore in this Ola Financial Services subsidiary in December 2021.
Ola operates with transparency. The commission is given to drivers for every sale made. Ola is known to charge far less than many other traditional operators.
Ola Electric
Electric Scooters
Ola launched India’s first multimodal electric vehicle project on 26 May 2017. The project brought together industry experts and the Indian government to pioneer electric vehicles for the public and promote shared mobility in Nagpur. Established as a separate entity, Ola Electric Mobility Pvt. Ltd. also reached unicorn status with a $250 million investment from SoftBank in July 2019.
After exceeding expectations in the pre-booking round, Ola Electric scooters went live for purchase on their website and via the Ola app on September 15, 2021. The company reportedly sold Rs 1100 crores worth of electric scooters in just 2 days.
Electric Cars
Ola has unveiled its plans to launch its first electric car in the next 2-3 years, as per reports dated July 16, 2022. OLA CEO Bhavish Aggarwal teased and announced that his company is gearing up to build the sportiest car that has ever been built in India. Some concept design ideas have been ready already. The first Ola Electric car is to be launched from its new 4W factory that is to be built and would be another factory, separate from Ola’s Futurefactory for 2Ws.
Ola Parcel
In an attempt to challenge Swiggy Genie and Dunzo’s courier service, Ola announced the launched of Ola Parcel, an all-electric on-demand delivery service, on October 6, 2023. As a logistics company playing a role akin to Shadowfax, Shiprocket, etc., it will be onboarding itself to ONDC.
The founders Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati had to face many challenges in the beginning. They worked long hours and sometimes Ankit, the co-founder of Ola, had to code for 48 hours straight. They have had to drive the customer to their desired locations at times because the drivers did not show up. However, this did not dampen their spirits. The duo worked day and night and people started liking their services.
The twist in their story happened when angel investors Rohit Bansal and Kunal Bahl invested Rs 2 crores in their business. This gave them an initial push and there was no looking back for Ola from there.
As much as Ola wanted to meet the needs of the customers by scaling up to different cities, each city faced its own infrastructural challenge. The app required the use of the 2G network. The team had to design an app that could accommodate network connectivity in smaller towns.
Ola incurs RBI penalty for Ola Financial Services
Ola Financial Services, an OLA subsidiary, has been imposed a penalty of Rs 1.68 crore by the RBI, which claimed that the mobility company failed to comply with the RBI norms in association with the latest changes in the prepaid payment instruments (PPIs) and know your customer (KYC) policies.
RBI mentioned that the entity didn’t adhere to “certain provisions of the Master Directions on PPIs dated August 27, 2021, and the Master Direction – Know Your Customer (KYC) Direction, 2016 dated February 25, 2016”. After discovering this, the central bank imposed the penalty, exercising the powers vested to the body under Section 30 of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007. To justify the huge penalty that it had brought down on Ola, RBI stated that it has earlier showcaused Ola as soon as it discovered that the firm was breaching the KYC norms, but Ola failed to provide a suitable response.
Ola Layoffs
Ola is reportedly looking to curb its expenses, for which, it is looking to lay off somewhere between 400-500 employees, as per reports dated July 6, 2022. This has risen up and would affect close to 1000 Ola employees, as per reports dated July 29, 2022. Sources and reports have claimed that Ola has already asked its key managers to prepare a list of employees that the company can let go. The ride-hailing giant has already ceased making investments in international markets like the UK, New Zealand, and Australia, and has also shut down its subsidiaries like Ola Dash and Ola Cars, all of which were cash-burn-heavy lines of business. However, with it, the cab aggregating company has also put a stop to the revenue channels that might have benefited it, thereby solely relying on its mobility services. Ola has laid off a huge number of employees to date. The last known layoffs were from its quick commerce wing, Ola Dash, from where the company reportedly laid off around 2100 employees in April 2022. Though this is still unconfirmed, it might be the largest layoffs that 2022 has seen so far.
Ola had already started terminating its employees and has also deferred their performance appraisal for this year, as far as the July 9, 2022 reports go. Ola has further announced that it would focus on its EV business, and also increase its hiring for the same.
Unfair Trade Practices and Violation of Consumer Rights
Cab aggregators Ola and Uber got legal notices from the Central Consumer Protection Authority that sent Notices to Ola and Uber for unfair trade practices and the violation of consumer rights, as per reports dated May 20, 2022. The central government of India had previously warned Ola and Uber of strict action if they don’t improve their systems and redress the rising complaints. Now, the CCPA has given a 15-day for them to do so.
Ola Resignations
Ola has witnessed numerous resignations lately, which became even more prominent after the increasing fire accidents and amid the preparations for Ola going public sometime soon in 2022. Ola had already seen the resignations of COO Gaurav Porwal, CTO Swayam Saurabh, General Counsel Sandeep Chowdhury, and HR head Rohit Munjal among others, early in 2021. The co-founders of Ola Electric Ankit Jain and Anand Shah had also put down their papers, and now it has been seen that Dinesh Radhakrishnan the CTO of Ola Electric, quit the company on May 8, 2022. Arun Sirdeshmukh, who was the CEO of Ola Cars, also left last week. Already rocked by resignations, Ola’s Head of Talent Acquisition, Shikhar Sood also left the company on July 7, 2022. Ola has seen too many top-level exits already and this brings us to the cause of the exits. As per the surveys of the top 10 senior employees of Ola, the culture of “act fast, think later” has been dominant.
Ola ShutDowns
Ola shutdowns are not something new. The cab aggregating giant has failed to pivot time and again, especially in the food delivery segment. The descaling of the food business is now announced for the third time on May 20, 2022, when Ola said that it would sell most of its cloud kitchen equipment at up to 30-50% discounts.
The first of Ola shutdown in the food delivery segments was witnessed when Ola pulled the plug on Ola Cafes in 2016 after a year since it started in 2015 to take on Uber Eats and foray into the food industry. Ola Stores was also shut down in the same year. It next acquired FoodPanda, which was completed in February 2022, but failed with the same so much so that Ola was left operating with only 50 cloud kitchens. The company later suspended Foodpanda’s operations completely in May 2019 and laid off around 1500 delivery executives and 40 mid-level staff. Ola eventually tried to pivot again with a handful of flagship food brands like the Khichdi Experiment, Paratha Experiment, The Biryani Experiment, and more. The company had also opted for a multichannel approach, set up 50 cloud kitchens, and had also included mom-and-pop stores in this initiative. Besides, Ola also wanted to acquire Freshmenu to scale its food business, but the deal failed to flesh out.
Ola has decided to pull the plug on its used cars and quick commerce business – Ola Cars and Ola Dash, as per reports dated June 25, 2022. These businesses of Ola are shut down with the sole aim of strengthening its EV and mobility businesses, which the company is planning to only focus on for the time being. Though Ola Cars still has hopes of being reoriented, which is expected to help strengthen the go-to-market strategy of Ola Electric, Ola Dash is to be closed down completely.
Here’s briefly looking at the failed ventures of Ola:
Name
Industry
Founded
Shutdown
Ola Dash
Quick Commerce
2015
2022
Ola Foods
Food Delivery
2020
2022
Foodpanda
Food Delivery
2019
2020
Ola Cafe
Food Delivery
2015
2016
Ola – Partnerships
Apart from the drivers that Ola partners with as clients, the most notable partnership that the cab aggregating giant has witnessed is with Siemens. Ola announced a press release stating ‘Ola adopts Siemens’ Digital Enterprise to build India’s most advanced manufacturing facility’ on January 20, 2021. Ola has partnered with Siemens to build its upcoming electric vehicle manufacturing facility. This announcement comes when OLA has an MoU with the government of Tamil Nadu to invest around INR 2,400 Cr towards building this facility.
It is expected that the factory will generate around 10,000 jobs, with an initial capacity of 2 million units a year and making it the largest scooter manufacturing facility in the world. This will serve as Ola’s global manufacturing hub catering to customers in India and across Europe, the UK, Latin America, and ANZ (Australia and New Zealand)
This factory is going to be amazing and technologically advanced with 5,000 robots stationed across various functions and will be built on Industry 4.0 principles. Ola will have access to Siemens’ integrated Digital Twin design and manufacturing solutions to digitalize and validate products and production ahead of actual operations. It will have Ola’s proprietary AI Engine and tech stack deeply integrated into each aspect of the manufacturing process. Thereby, providing unprecedented control, automation, and quality to the operations.
Bhavish Aggarwal, Chairman & Group CEO, Ola, said, ‘‘Ola is delighted to partner with Siemens to build the most advanced manufacturing facility in the country. This will be our global hub and will set a benchmark in quality, scale and efficiency, demonstrating India’s capability to build world class cutting edge products. We look forward to bringing this factory online in the coming months and putting our products in the hands of customers.”
Ola’s scooter blends excellent design, sensational performance, and incredible technology into an amazing product. It has already won several prestigious designs and innovation awards including the IHS Markit Innovation award at CES and the German Design Award.
Sunil Mathur, MD & CEO, Siemens India, said, “Siemens is a global leader in Industry 4.0 and we are proud to contribute to Ola’s vision of creating a factory of the future using our automation and digitalization expertise to ensuring the highest levels of productivity and quality while enabling an agile and flexible production process.”
Ola – Acquisitions and Merger
Ola has acquired 8 organizations in total. The last acquisition of Ola was that of Avail Finance, which is a financial services startup for the blue-collar workforce led by the Ola chief Bhavish Aggarwal’s brother, Ankush Aggarwal. The acquisition of Avail Finance was announced on March 24, 2022, and was finally completed on April 11, 2022, via a share swap deal worth $50 million. The leading cab aggregating giant held a 9% stake in Avail due to its investment in the startup in 2019 before it acquired the company.
GeoSpoc was the previous company that Ola acquired on October 5, 2021. It was the company’s first acquisition in a period of over 2 years after it acquired Pikup.ai on August 13, 2019. ANI Technologies, the parent of the ride-hailing major Ola and Ola Electric, completed its acquisition of Foodpanda from Delivery Hero, the Germany-based parent of Foodpanda.
The acquisition of Foodpanda was first announced by Ola in December 2017 for around $200 mn to reinforce its food delivery service. Fast forward to February 5, 2022, the food delivery giant held an extraordinary general meeting where the shareholders of Ola decided to issue 3,793 Series J2 CCPS to Delivery Hero, for Rs 8.5 crore. Mentioning that to acquire 100% of the shares in Foodpanda, the company stated that it will be finally issuing 3,793 Series J2 CCPS to Delivery Hero instead of cash consideration, which will allow the company to acquire 77,10,564 equity shares, which were held by Delivery Hero in Foodpanda, as per the news dated February 24, 2022.
Founded by Ralf Wenzel, Benjamin Bauer and Felix Plog in 2012 in Germany, Foodpanda was a successful business at that time in India, however, due to piling expenses, miscommunication, technical flaws, lack of ownership, lack of a foolproof business, and revenue model, the startup struggled much in India before it finally got acquired by Ola. Foodpanda reportedly pulled in 30,000-35,000 orders per day when it was at its peak of India operations. Furthermore, it launched “The Crave Party” in the last week of August 2018, which rained a range of discounts for the customers, and multiplied the order volumes of the app by 10X in the same year.
Currently, the Foodpanda app lies suspended after the Ola acquisition of FoodPanda.
Here’s the list of the prominent Ola acquisitions to check out:
Ola had acquired the Pune-based geospatial service provider, GeoSpoc in order to improve their location and geospatial technologies with an undisclosed amount. Talking about the acquisition, CEO and Co-Founder, Bhavish Aggarwal mentioned the need for “better, newer maps and geospatial services” for the “new mobility” and to build the future of location services.
The geospatial sector in India has witnessed quite a growth lately, the market of which, in India, is currently valued at Rs 15,000 crores, and is expected to hit Rs 1 Lakh crores by 2029-2030. The company completes its acquisition of GeoSpoc in full for Rs 26 crore, as per the reports dated December 8, 2021.
Ola had already executed an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), which was worth around $10.5 million (Rs 78.6 crores) for its three former employees and one current executive. Now, the company has further decided to provide ESOP encashment facilities for the former chief executive officer of Ola Foods, Pranay Jivrajka; former chief operating officer of Ola, Pallav Singh; Nimish Joshi, former Vice President, and its current chief product officer, Suvonil Chatterjee.
Among all of them, Jivrajka has emerged as the biggest beneficiary of the ESOP encashment program of Ola with Rs 38.17 crore, who is followed by Pallav Singh, Suvonil Chatterjee, and Nimish Joshi, who possess Rs 24.8 crore, Rs 8.5 crore, and Rs 7.08 crore respectively. Ola declared this development soon after it announced the expansion of its ESOP pool to Rs 3,000 crore. Furthermore, the company also noted that it will have some fresh stocks, worth Rs 400 crore allocated for the employees in the run-up to its IPO. Ola currently boasts of having one of the largest ESOP pools among the late-stage startups of India, which also includes companies like Paytm, OYO, and BYJU’S.
Ola – Competitors
Ola directly competes with Uber; the world’s most well-financed startup having raised more than $24 billion in equity and debt on a recent valuation of $82 billion. Other players in India include:
Meru Cabs Company Pvt. Ltd., which owns Meru Cabs
Carzonrent (India) Pvt. Ltd., which owns Carzonrent
In the bike taxi segment, Rapido is slowly capturing Ola’s market share.
InDriver, the international ride-hailing app is the hot favorite today in India, which was founded in Russia and is headquartered in Mountain View, California, US.
Ola – Future Plans
Ola’s future plans focus on expanding its ride-hailing business, investing in electric mobility, and developing battery cell manufacturing. Its ride-hailing division in India is profitable and market-leading, with CEO Bhavish Aggarwal stating that the cab business has recovered to pre-pandemic levels. In electric mobility, Ola Electric is investing in R&D and its battery cell manufacturing unit to make its scooters more affordable. The company aims to start commercial production of battery cells by early 2025. A significant portion of its IPO proceeds will be used for battery cell manufacturing, reinforcing its focus on sustainable EV solutions.
FAQs
Is Ola a Chinese Company?
Ola is an Indian Company but is funded by Chinese investors like Tencent Holdings, Steadview Capital, Sailing Capital, Eternal Yield International Ltd, and China-Eurasian Economic Co-operation Fund with an estimated investment of $500 million.
Who are the Ola shareholders?
Ola’s major shareholders/investors include SoftBank Group (Japanese), Tiger Global (US-based), Tencent (Chinese Venture Capital), Matrix Partners (US-based), and DST Global (Russia).
Ola was founded in 2010 by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati as an online cab service. It started as Olatrips.com, offering intercity rides, but soon shifted to ride-hailing for city travel. The company quickly expanded, becoming a market leader in India’s mobility sector.
Who is the founder of Ola Cabs?
Ola was founded by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati in 2010.
What is the full form of OLA?
There is no full form as such. The name is derived from the Spanish word ‘Hola’ which translates to ‘hello’.
How to become a partner of Ola?
You can easily be a partner of Ola by simply going to www.partners.olacabs.com. There you will find 3 options to become an Ola Partner. You can be an Ola Partner:
If you already have a car and you want to attach that car with Ola
If you know driving, but lack a car
If you have a fleet and you want to attach the same with Ola
When was OLA Electric founded?
Ola Electric was founded in 2017, as a new subsidiary of the Ola company that caters to the new-age, sensible users of electric vehicles.
What is Ola Dash?
Ola Dash was an Ola service that the cab aggregating giant founded in 2015, to provide quick commerce service. However, the service was suspended as per the Ola statements dated June 25, 2022.
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:
Sebi has approved six companies’ plans to go public, including Oswal Pumps, EV player Ather Energy, and Schloss Bangalore. An update with the markets regulator revealed on December 30 that the six businesses submitted their draft initial public offerings (IPO) documents to Sebi between September 10 and 23 and received the regulator’s comments on December 23–27. Fabtech Technologies, Oswal Pumps, Ather Energy, Ivalue Infosolutions Ltd., and Schloss Bangalore Ltd. are the corporations in question. Getting observations is Sebi’s way of saying that it’s okay to raise public concerns.
The proposed INR 5,000-crore IPO of Schloss Bangalore Ltd., the company that runs Leela Palaces Hotels & Resorts, consists of an offer for sale (OFS) of stocks valued at INR 2,000 crore by promoter Project Ballet Bangalore Holdings (DIFC) Pvt Ltd. and a new issue of equity shares worth INR 3,000 crore.
Schloss Bangalore Plans to Utilise Proceeds
Schloss Bangalore might be the biggest initial public offering (IPO) in the hotel industry in the nation. The proceeds of the new issuance, according to Schloss Bangalore, which has the support of Brookfield Asset Management, will be utilised for general corporate objectives as well as the repayment of loans taken out by the company and its subsidiaries.
With a portfolio of 3,382 keys spread across 12 active properties, Schloss Bangalore is well-known for its opulent hotels and resorts under the “The Leela” brand. The Leela Palaces, Leela Hotels, and Leela Resorts are part of its portfolio as of May 31, 2024, and are spread across ten locations in the nation.
Ather Energy’s IPO
The proposed IPO by Ather Energy, maker of electric two-wheelers, consists of an Offer For Sale (OFS) of 2.2 crore equity shares by promoters and investors, as well as a new issue of equity shares valued at INR 3,100 crore. Caladium Investment Pte Ltd, National Investment and Infrastructure Fund II, 3State Ventures Pte Ltd, IITM Incubation Cell, and IITMS Rural Technology and Business Incubator are among the companies offering shares in the OFS for sale.
The new issue’s proceeds would be utilised for marketing campaigns, loan repayment, research and development, capital expenditures to build electric two-wheeler manufacturing in Maharashtra, and other corporate needs. Following Ola Electric Mobility’s INR 6,145-crore IPO in August, this will be the second electric two-wheeler startup aiming to go public.
Oswal Pumps’ IPO
An offer-for-sale (OFS) of up to 1.13 crore equity shares by promoter Vivek Gupta and a new issue of equity shares valued at INR 1,000 crore comprise the Haryana-based Oswal Pumps IPO.
The proceeds from the new issue will be allocated to the following purposes: the financing of specific capital expenditures, the establishment of new manufacturing facilities in Karnal, Haryana, the payment of debt, the investment in a wholly-owned subsidiary, Oswal Solar, in the form of debt or equity, and the funding of general corporate purposes. Beginning with the production of low-speed monoblock pumps in 2003, Oswal Pumps has now grown to include the production of electric motors, grid-connected submersible pumps, and high-speed monoblock pumps.
Fabtech Technologies’ IPO
The proposed initial public offering (IPO) of Fabtech Technologies, a turnkey engineering solutions provider for the biotech, pharmaceutical, and healthcare industries, is a completely new issue of up to 1.20 crore equity shares.
Eligible employees can also reserve a subscription as part of the offer. As a member of the Fabtech Group, Fabtech Technologies provides a wide range of clients with full start-to-finish solutions that include the design, engineering, procurement, installation, and testing of specific pharmaceutical equipment.
iValue Infosolutions’ IPO
According to the Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP), the private equity company Creador-backed iValue Infosolutions’ proposed inaugural share sale is an Offer for Sale (OFS) of up to 1.87 crore equity shares by promoters and investor stockholders. Sundara (Mauritius) Ltd, a Creador affiliate, will sell 1.11 crore equity shares in accordance with the OFS. As an expert in enterprise technology solutions, iValue Infosolutions provides complete, custom-designed solutions for protecting and handling digital apps and data.
Ola Electric announced on 26 December that it now has 4,000 stores nationwide, a four-fold increase from the 800 stores that were previously disclosed on December 2 of this month. In less than a month, the firm reported adding 3,200 additional stores to its current network.
The corporation stated that it was dedicated to promoting widespread EV adoption, which would allow for wider penetration into practically every town and tehsil in India, going beyond tier-1 and tier-2 cities. The business has now fulfilled its promise. Bhavish Aggarwal, chairman and managing director of Ola Electric, stated that today is a major turning point in India’s EV journey as the company extends its network to every city, town, and taluk.
Aggarwal added that Ola has entirely redesigned the EV buying and ownership experience with its recently launched stores that are also service centres, setting new standards with its “SavingsWalaScooter” campaign.
New Offers and Benefits Rolled Out by Ola
Ola Electric has launched promotions with advantages up to INR 25,000 on the S1 portfolio, which will only be accessible on December 25, 2024, to commemorate the network’s expansion. Consumers can receive a flat discount of up to INR 7,000 on the S1 X portfolio by visiting the closest newly opened Ola Store. Customers can also take advantage of other perks up to INR 18,000, such as INR 5,000 on certain credit card EMIs and INR 6,000 on MoveOS benefits.
Introducing the Ola S1 Pro Sona Limited Edition
According to the firm, the Ola S1 Pro Sona was also introduced with genuine 24-karat gold-plated components to commemorate the significant network development. The immersive “Sona Mood,” which includes a personalised MoveOS dashboard, a gold-themed Ola app interface, and an enhanced riding experience, is included with Ola Sona. By customising riding modes and settings on the dashboard, consumers can improve their travel experiences.
Additionally, the business is now accepting priority registrations for its MoveOS 5 beta software platform, which offers features aimed at improving the whole riding experience. Features like group navigation, real-time position sharing, and road trip mode enabled by Ola maps are now available to Ola riders. These features also include TPMS (tyre pressure monitoring system) alarms, smart charging, and smart parks.
Ola Gig, Ola Gig+, Ola S1 Z, and Ola S1 Z+ are the scooters in the company’s new Gig and S1 Z series. They are priced at INR 39,999 (ex-showroom), INR 49,999 (ex-showroom), INR 59,999 (ex-showroom), and INR 64,999 (ex-showroom), respectively.
With features like detachable batteries, the new line of scooters provides versatile and reasonably priced options to meet the needs of rural, semi-urban, and urban consumers for both personal and business purposes. Delivery of the Gig and S1 Z series will start in April 2025 and May 2025, respectively, and reservations are available for INR 499.
Additionally, Ola Electric provides a wide range of S1 products at different pricing points to meet the needs of different types of customers. The mass market offerings include the S1 X portfolio (2 kWh, 3 kWh, and 4 kWh) priced at INR 74,999, INR 87,999, and INR 101,999, respectively, while the premium offerings, S1 Pro and S1 Air, are priced at INR 134,999 and INR 107,499, respectively.
Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal is said to have threatened employees with severe repercussions if they fail to report for duty amid rumours that the company is laying off about 500 workers. Aggarwal brought attention to the problem of low office attendance and urged staff members to put their work obligations first in an internal email. The Ola chief, who was disappointed, urged employees not to defraud the company by failing to show up for work, claiming that this was insulting to other workers who put in a lot of effort and make valuable contributions.
Aggarwal added that starting on 23 December, Ola will have a stricter attendance requirement. The email allegedly stated, “HR will be having a conversation with those of you who have misused the freedom so far.” Since then, the aforementioned email has been making the rounds on social media and generated a contentious discussion, with some people accusing the business of defrauding clients by offering inferior products.
Ola in the Pool of Controversies
One user observed that Aggarwal should have been more professional while expressing his displeasure with the firm’s rising employee absenteeism, saying, “This is the kind of email that would make a good employee leave the company.” Aggarwal’s warning letter to employees annoyed some users, but some defended him by stating that respect is reciprocal and that workers should be disciplined at work.
This is the most recent time the Ola chief’s divisive opinions have drawn attention. Aggarwal received harsh criticism from online users earlier this year for advocating for a 70-hour workweek. He also challenged stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra more recently after Kamra brought attention to the company’s poor after-sales support. The Central Consumer Protection Authority began a thorough investigation into consumer complaints against Ola in November, which made the company’s problems worse.
Ola Electric Plans to Expand its Network of Stores to 4,000
By December 2025, Ola Electric intends to have four times as many company-owned stores as it currently has. According to a statement from Ola Electric, the company now operates 800 stores and plans to establish over 3,200 more. According to the statement, all of the recently opened stores will be situated next to service facilities, enhancing the company’s nationwide service network. Regarding the projected network expansion, Bhavish stated that the brand will reach every city in the nation outside of tier-I and tier-2 cities thanks to the company’s extensive D2C network and the touchpoints under its “network partner program.” By the end of 2025, the business intends to onboard 10,000 partners in sales and service under its network partner program.
The popular ride-hailing service Ola plans to soon extend its food and beverage (F&B) vertical throughout India via the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC). Ola is one of the top two platforms on ONDC that creates significant demand in the F&B market, according to Thampy Koshy, managing director and chief executive officer of the organisation, who was speaking at the launch of the ONDC white paper, “Driving Digital Inclusion: Open Networks and Zero-Commission Mobility Apps.” Ola has notified ONDC that they will shortly expand its F&B business throughout India. Additionally, it just began providing groceries and plans to add other divisions shortly, Koshy stated. It is important to remember that Ola only provides F&B services in a few cities at this time through ONDC.
Offering Last-Mile Logistics Services
Ola provides last-mile logistics services for every category, including grocery shopping, food delivery, and pharmaceuticals through ONDC, in addition to food delivery. This occurs as Uber and Rapido, Ola’s fiercest competitors, have also jumped on the ONDC bandwagon to increase the range of services they offer. Uber signed a deal with the Chennai Metro Rail (CMRL) earlier this year to broaden its mobility capabilities, while Rapido sells tickets for the service directly through the ONDC platform. Namma Yatri, a union-backed ride-hailing business, also joined forces with ONDC a few months ago to launch its taxi and car rental services.
ONDC’s Performance
According to the recently released ONDC report, since December of last year, the volume of transactions on ONDC has increased by about three times. By December 2025, it is anticipated that the number of transactions would have increased by 7-8X. It is important to note that in October, ONDC saw 14 million transactions. The mobility segment accounted for over 5.5 million of these transactions, while the non-mobility categories accounted for 8.4 million. As this number has increased, ONDC has also been modifying its commission structure. It reduced the incentive for network participants earlier this month from INR 60 lakh for the October holiday season to INR 40 lakh for December.
Open Network Models will Reap Benefits
The Government of India launched ONDC with the goal of decentralising e-commerce by giving local vendors and small enterprises an equal opportunity to compete with larger platforms. The drawbacks of the present ride-hailing systems, including low driver pay and poor customer service, are examined in a recently released white paper.
According to the findings, India’s economy might benefit from an annual contribution of INR 51,000 crore to INR 67,000 crore if open network models are used in the country’s mobility sector. A 30% increase in driver wages is also possible, which may enhance their annual income by INR 1.36 lakh.
From orders over INR 250, ONDC will start charging a transaction fee of INR 1.50 from January 1, 2025. This fee, intended to guarantee the platform’s financial stability, will be borne by sellers, including logistics companies, lenders, and insurers.
To offer an alternative to commercial platforms, the Telangana Gig and Platform Workers Union (TGPWU) has demanded the creation of a government-run ride-hailing app. Additionally, it called on the government to establish a Welfare Board to provide equitable salaries, social security benefits, and open fare regulation, as well as to enact legislation to safeguard the rights of gig and platform workers.
Shaik Salauddin, the founder and president of TGPWU, urged the state government to give the Telangana Gig and Platform Workers (Rights and Welfare) Bill, 2024, top priority in its drafting and introduction. According to him, the bill would establish a precedent for the protection and empowerment of gig workers nationwide and serve as a model for other states. According to him, the Telangana Congress government will set an example by establishing a strong and welcoming structure to guarantee gig and platform workers stable incomes.
Applauding Rahul Gandhi’s Letter to CM
He praised Rahul Gandhi’s letter to Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, in which he urged him to enact a comprehensive policy for gig and platform workers, in a statement released on November 20. This development occurs one month after the labour and employment ministry was reported to have initiated the development of a social security framework for contract workers, which is scheduled to be implemented in early 2025.
Furthermore, in September, the Ministry of Labour and Employment urged platform aggregators to register their employees on the e-Shram portal. Upon successful registration, gig and platform workers will be eligible for important social security benefits. Consequently, it is important to mention that the working conditions of contract workers in India have been rated as “zero” by Fairwork in the ratings of ride-hailing companies Ola and Uber, as well as logistics startup Porter.
Drivers Protesting Against Ride Aggregators
The strikes against private ride-hailing services like Ola and Uber have been occurring around the nation on a frequent scale regarding various issues. Drivers of cab aggregators Ola and Uber, for example, went on strike in Chennai in October, calling for pricing regulation and a ban on bike taxi services, which they say are undermining their income.
Additionally, they were looking for a solution to the problem of these aggregators charging exorbitant charges, which they say are hurting their ability to make a living. Before that, in August, auto and taxi drivers in Delhi NCR went on strike for two days to express their disapproval of app-based taxi services like Ola and Uber. They stated that the prevalence of these private apps has negatively impacted their livelihoods by reducing traditional drivers’ income and clientele.
E-two-wheeler retail sales reached their second-best monthly performance, only missing March’s 140,333 units, thanks to festive season demand and alluring OEM discounts. While Ola has recovered to levels above 41,000, TVS and Bajaj are still engaged in a fierce war.
This segment all set to reach a million sales for the first time in a calendar year in November, as the top six OEMs each surpass their CY2023 retails in the first 10 months of 2024.
What Spiked the Sales of EV 2Wheeler?
In spite of the reduced subsidy, the buyer-friendly festive season schemes, attractive deals offered by e-two-wheeler OEMs, and the availability of customised financing, retail sales were the second-highest in this calendar year to date, following the FAME II subsidy-ending month of March 2024 (140,333 units). The new PM E-Drive Scheme went into effect on October 1. The PM E-Drive Scheme aims to assist 24.79 lakh e-two-wheelers, 316,000 e-three-wheelers, and 14,028 electric buses with an expenditure of INR 10,900 crore over two years and subsidy/demand incentives of INR 3,679 crore. The PM E-Drive Scheme, which runs from October 1, 2024, to March 31, 2026, does not apply to passenger cars.
The largest volume driver of the Indian EV market is the electric two-wheeler market. According to the most recent data accessible on the Vahan websites of the Indian government, it made up 64% of India EV Inc.’s total volumes of 217,621 units in October.
Ola Electric Back in Form
Ola Electric will be relieved that it sold 41,605 units in October 2024, following two turbulent months of low sales of fewer than 28,000 units (August: 27,615 and September: 24,716), which caused the company’s market share to drop to less than 30%. This represents a 74% YoY gain and a 68% month-over-month increase. Additionally, the company has sold an additional 96,885 units through the end of October, surpassing its total CY2024 retail sales of 267,376 units.
Ola experienced a strong month-over-month growth from April through July until the steep decline in August and September. The company had started CY2024 with 32,424 units (up 77%) in January and reached a peak of 53,640 units (up 150%) in March. Numerous complaints from customers regarding poor service were blamed for Ola’s August and September sales drop. However, sales have increased in October after the recently listed business promised that it has satisfactorily resolved 99.1% of consumer concerns through its redressal procedure.
TVS Regaining its Spot by Taking Over Bajaj
In October, TVS Motor Co. reclaimed the second position on the e-two-wheeler podium after being hurt by Bajaj Auto’s September takeover. The iQube producer saw a robust 81% YoY rise with retail sales of 29,890 units (October 2023: 16,507 units), and last month’s market share was 21%. TVS’s market share for the first ten months of this year is 18.41%.
The effort paid off, as TVS Motor’s October retails are its greatest monthly numbers to date. Like Bajaj Auto, TVS Motor sent the most iQubes to its dealers in October, totalling 28,564 units.
These two legacy OEMs are still engaged in a fierce struggle; in CY2023, TVS sold 166,581 iQubes, which was 94,641 more than Bajaj Auto’s 71,940 Chetaks. In the current calendar year, such an enormous disparity has significantly decreased to 27,164 units.
Three battery options are available for the TVS iQube: 2.2 kWh, 3.4 kWh, and 5.1 kWh. The business reports that the market is responding favourably to the complete portfolio. With a 2.2kWh battery, the standard model can travel 75km in real life and takes two hours to fully charge using a 950W charger. At INR 94,999, this base version of iQube is now the most economical. This model comes with a 5-inch TFT display, turn-by-turn navigation, and theft and tow alarms, along with the 3.4 kWh iQube.
According to reports, Sidharth Shakdher has been named the new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and Business Head of Paytm, a fintech company.
Within nine months of joining the company run by Bhavish Aggarwal, Shakdher left Ola. Among other accomplishments, he was instrumental in the establishment of the consumer loans section, the Ola Loyalty programme, and the ONDC food delivery service.
Shakdher’s New Role
Shakdher will collaborate closely with Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the CEO of Paytm, in his new position to grow the company and increase profitability. Shakdher has over 25 years of experience and has held important executive positions at Disney+Hotstar, Samsung, Canon, HP, Xerox, and Amazon, among other large corporations.
He served as Disney+ Hotstar’s EVP and CMO prior to joining Ola, where he helped with the platform’s global expansion and direct-to-consumer approach.
Before that, Shakdher oversaw Amazon’s US category marketing and third-party marketplace. In addition to his many responsibilities, he spearheaded innovation for Reckitt’s main brand, Dettol, in North America. He launched and successfully established Dettol in the US personal care market.
Shakdher oversaw marketing, category operations, growth, and revenue in both India and foreign markets in his capacity as CBO at Ola. With international teams directly answering to him, he also led new business endeavours in e-commerce, financial services, and AI cloud services.
Paytm’s Current Financial Report Card
The parent company of the digital payments platform Paytm, One 97 Communications Ltd., announced a notable improvement in its financial results for the second quarter that concluded in September 2024. In sharp contrast to the INR 290 crore loss reported a year earlier, the company reported a profit of INR 930 crore during the period.
The company’s one-time gain of INR 1,345.4 crore from the sale of its event and movie ticketing services to Zomato Limited was the main driver of its profitability. With a loss of INR 495 crore, Paytm’s core business operations remained negative, excluding this extraordinary item. The company’s revenue from operations decreased by 34% year-on-year to INR 1,659 crore, a modest increase from the INR 1,501 crore reported in the previous quarter.
Paytm Receives NPCI Approval to Onboard New UPI Customers
Nearly nine months after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) imposed a ban on the addition of new customers, One97 Communications (OCL), the firm that runs the Paytm brand, announced on 22 October 2024 that it has been given permission by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to onboard new UPI users. In a letter to Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the founder and CEO of the Noida-based company, NPCI chief Dilip Asbe gave the company permission to start onboarding new users. The NPCI’s procedural rules and agreements with Payment Service Provider (PSP) banks govern the permissions.
