New India’s greatest wealth creators are 90s babies, born without a silver spoon

• Radhakrishna Damani’s DMart, and Binny Sachin Bansal-founded Flipkart are the most valuable companies of the millennium created by self-made entrepreneurs.
• A third of the 405 founders featured in the list are under 40, and over half of them are engineers.
• Only 25% of the companies are publicly listed, and the rest are privately-held.
  

This millennium’s wealth creation story is written by startups — well mostly. According to a report by Hurun and IDFC First, India’s top 200 companies of self-made entrepreneurs created wealth to the tune of ₹30 lakh crore – that’s equivalent to the GDP of Denmark.

Founded at the start of the millennium, Radhakrishna Damani’s DMart sits at the top of the list with a value of ₹2.3 lakh crore. It’s followed by Flipkart created by Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal. The rest of the top-10 list is dominated by startups like Zomato, Swiggy, Dream11, Razorpay and more. The only exception being Max Healthcare Institute founded in 2001.

Beyond the top 10 too, the list is dominated by startups be it Ola, Oyo, Daily Hunt, Meesho, Udaan, Lenskart and more. Most of them were started in the early or mid-2010s with digital and new-age businesses like fintechs, app-driven business D2C brands and more.

V Vaidyanathan MD & CEO of IDFC FIRST Bank said that India is developing a modern digital architecture, which is a marvel of the world. “This economic progress naturally offers opportunities for entrepreneurship and wealth creation,” he added.

The other sector, apart from digital businesses, which features heavily in the list is pharma and healthcare with Global Health, Laurus Labs, Molbio Diagnostics and Anthem Biosciences.

Young wealth creator profile: Engineer with an IIT degree

The average age of the entrepreneurs in the list is 44, and a third of the 405 founders featured in the list are under 40.

“We are particularly proud to highlight the presence of 32 founders born in the 1990s and 20 women entrepreneurs, reflecting the diversity and inclusivity of India's entrepreneurial ecosystem,” said Anas Rahman Junaid, founder & managing director of Hurun India.

The pedigree of founders is also interesting as over half of the entrepreneurs — over 200 of them, are engineers. Around 82 of them are from the IITs of Delhi, Mumbai and Kharagpur. Doctors and chartered accountants are other popular professional degrees, though their number is very low at seven and ten, respectively.


Top 10 Companies created by self-made entrepreneurs this millennium
Source: Hurun

A lot of wealth is private, not public

Yet another key feature of the list is that most of the wealth created by the founders of the list is private not public. Only a quarter of these companies are publicly listed, and the rest are privately held by founders, private equity and venture capital investors and more.

The profile of top-10 listed companies in the list also veers heavily towards startups like Nykaa, PayTm, Delhivery, Policybazaar and Makemytrip. Dmart, Vedant Fashions, Star Health Insurance and Max Healthcare are the only exceptions.

As many as 156 founders of 68 unicorns made it to the list. So did soon-to-be-unicorns including 40 gazelles, and 23 cheetahs. As many as 58 of the 200 companies are valued under ₹5,000 crore.