Feb 23, 2022
By: BI India BureauEven though 44 startups turned unicorns in 2021, the momentum was a little slow in the first two months of January and February, which witnessed only three startups hiring this milestone. This included insurance company Digit, health-focused Innovaccer and ecommerce company Infra.Market.
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The list of 2022, however, includes software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies Fractal, DarwinBox, Hasura and Uniphore, edtech company Lead School, logistics company XpressBees, and ecommerce platforms Livspace, Dealshare and ElasticRun.
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Direct-to-consumer (D2C) Mamaearth too announced its entry into the unicorn club on January 1 this year. However, it was already reported in the media based on regulatory filings of the company.
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Software-as-a-service company Hasura is the tenth Indian startup to join the unicorn club in 2022, after raising $100 million in a funding round led by Greenoaks Capital.
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According to Venture Intelligence data, India is currently home to 91 unicorns. This includes companies like BharatPe, Cred, Groww, Zerodha, Upstox, Spinny, Cars24, ShareChat and more.
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Piyush Goyal, commerce and industry minister, last month said that India should aim to raise 75 unicorns in 75 weeks to the 75th anniversary of Independence. "We have 43 unicorns added in 45 weeks, since the start of 'Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav' on March 12, 2021,” he said.
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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, during the budget speech of 2022, highlighted that “startups have emerged as a driver of growth for our economy”. With that, she had proposed to increase the tax incentives for startups by another year.
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Several Indian tech startups finally flagged off their public ambitions with their successful initial public offering (IPO). This included Zomato, EaseMyTrip, Nykaa, PolicyBazaar and more. Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led Paytm too launched India’s biggest IPO ever last year.
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Payments company Mobikwik, hospitality giant OYO, logistics company Delhivery, epharmacy startup PharmEasy, and ecommerce company Snapdeal, among others, may be going public this year.
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