The start of 2021 came with the news of many unicorns like Meesho, Cred, PharmEasy, Urbancompany, Gupshup, joining the Unicorn club and managing to crash the ceilings and striving in the best possible ways in a pandemic. Where pandemic has brought in the adversity everywhere, some managed to make their ways and create opportunities for them.
We often talk about unicorn business but little do we understand about which all are making an entry in Unicorn Club 2021. Well! Have you ever wondered why some startups are called Unicorns and according to what criteria they are given this title? What are the top 10 Unicorns that have become part of the Unicorn club? If yes, this article is for you!
What Is A Unicorn?
“Unicorn” title is usually given in the venture capital industry to a privately held startup company that has a valuation of over $1 billion.
Aileen Lee, founder of Cowboy ventures propounded this term when she cited the 39 startups that crossed the valuation of over $1 billion as unicorns. Since then, the definition of a unicorn startup has remained.
For the first time, Aileen Lee wrote about unicorns in the venture capital world in the titled name, “Welcome to the Unicorn Club: Learning from Billion-Dollar Startups.” In this article, she looked at those software startups founded in the 2000s and found that 0.07% of them had ever reached $1 billion in valuations. Thus, the startups that managed to reach the $1 billion mark were as difficult to find as the mythical unicorn. But, the trend in the third decade of the 21st century is changing.
As per Lee, the first series of unicorns were founded in the 1990s. Alphabet followed by Google. It was the group that crossed the valuation of more than $100 billion. Many unicorns were born in the first decade of the 21st century, though Facebook (FB) is the decade’s only strong-going-super Unicorn.
Here are the top 10 2021 Unicorn that is levelling up the competition-
1) Meesho
In 2015, Meesho was founded by IIT-Delhi alumni- Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal to connect producers with resellers, who eventually promote the products to its potential consumers through their social networks on platforms like Whatsapp, Facebook and Instagram. It also facilitates the payments and logistics to the resellers, which eases the transactions.
Meesho is bringing together over 13 million individual entrepreneurs providing services to 45 Mn customers across India. In the recent round of funding, it raised $300 million from Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. With this, the valuation of Meesho reached $2.1 billion, a threefold jump from its previous funding round of $125 million in 2019 with a valuation of $700 million.
2) Sharechat
Bangalore headquartered, in 2015 found, ShareChat is an Indian social media that offers content consumption and sharing only in Indian vernacular languages. It caters to over 1.17 billion wireless network Indian users.
It offers its services in 15 Indian languages. In April, it raised $502 million in a fresh round of funding from Tiger Global, Snap Inc and some existing investors like Twitter Inc, with a valuation crossing over $2 billion. Last month funding was led by US-based venture capital firm- Lightspeed Venture Partners and American investment firm Tiger.
3) Innovaccer
Noida and San Francisco-based, founded in 2014, IIT Kharagpur alumni Abhinav Shashank and Kanav Hasija, and IIM- Ahmedabad alumnus Sandeep Gupta started Innovaccer to provide actionable insights healthcare data to healthcare providers, hospitals, insurance companies and other business organisation.
In the recent round of Series C funding, Innovaccer raised $70 Mn from Steadview Capital, Tiger Global, Dragoneer, Westbridge, Mubadala and Microsoft’s venture fund M12. At present, the platform is handling and maintaining medical records of more than 3.8 Mn patients and generating savings of more than $400 Mn for institutions and providers.
4) PharmEasy
2015 born, PharmEasy is an online healthcare service provider founded by Dharmil Sheth, Dr Dhaval Shah. It provides the facility of delivering medicines bought online & diagnostic tests to patients. It is actively operating in eight cities of India including Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Delhi, Noida, Kolkata, and Bangalore.
The e-pharmacy supplies 200,000 products from more than 3,000 drugmakers. In the last month, PharmEasy parent company- API Holdings Pvt., one of India’s largest E-pharmacies, announced raising funds of $350 million with a valuation close to $1.5 billion from Prosus Ventures and TPG Growth LLC. Thus, entering the Unicorn list. With the latest round of funding, this unicorn is targeting over 100,000 pharmacies in 100 cities in the next year and over 20 million patients annually.
5) Five Star
Born in 1982, Chennai-headquartered, Five Star is a non-Banking Finance Company (NBFC) with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), specializing in facilitating financial services to the unbanked, and unserved segment, providing funds to the people who were considered to be non-fundable.
It recently raised ₹1,700 crores ($234 million) from a consortium of global and Indian investment firms with a valuation of the company at ₹10,300 crores ($1.4 billion). It was led by existing investors in the company led by Sequoia Capital India, Norwest Venture Partners, and new investors led by KKR along with TVS Capital.
6) Urbancompany
Urbancompany, formerly known as UrbanClap, is a gig marketplace for freelance labour where local services such as plumbing, electric work, beauty treatments, spa and salon are provided. Founded in 2014 by Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Raghav Chandra, and Varun Khaitan, Urbanclap is backed by some of the prominent marquee investors such as Tiger Global, Accel, and Elevation Capital which was formerly known as SAIF Partners.
Urban Company recently raised $188 million in its latest funding round led by Prosus, also saw the participation of two new investors – DF International and Wellington Management. According to the recent report, This startup is now valued at around $2 billion. UrbanCompany has successfully bridged the gap between freelance workers and consumers.
7) Gupshup
Gupshup has shown a resilient way in which startups can become profitable without raising funds now and then. Gupshup last raised funds in 2011 and 2020 had a revenue run rate of 150 dollars. It has become the tenth startup to enter an elite 1 billion dollar club after its recent funding from Tiger Global Management. Its valuation has exponentially increased tenfold and is now valued at $1.4billion.
Gupshup is a messaging services company that is engaged in enabling businesses to build engaging conversational experiences by offering a comprehensive product portfolio that includes an omnichannel messaging API, mobile marketing tool and advanced bot-building platform. Founded by Beerud Sheth, is a global leader in B2B conversational messaging.
8) Cred
Cred is a credit card bill payment platform which rewards its customers on paying their bill on time. It has also ventured into rent payment and fund lending. This fintech startup founded by Kunal Shah in 2018, recently raised $215 million in its latest series D funding, making it another startup to become a Unicorn in 2021 with a valuation of over $2.2 billion.
9) Groww
Groww, headquartered in Bengaluru, is an online investment platform founded in 2017 which has more than 1.25 crore registered users. Groww app makes it easy for users to invest in stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, IPOs, and gold by simplifying the onboarding process.
In June last year, it launched the D-I-Y user interface for ease of the users. The company is among the growing mutual fund distribution platforms in India where more than 2.5 lakh new SIPs monthly are registered. With the latest funding round from Tiger Global, it has raised around $83 million and now stands at over $1 billion valuations and has entered the coveted group of Unicorns.
10) Infra. market
Founded in 2016 by Souvik Sengupta and Aaditya Sharda, Infra.market is a procurement marketplace that uses technology to enable procurement experience for all those people involved in the construction ecosystem. Infra.market is a one-stop marketplace for construction materials.
It has raised $100 million in the Series C funding round led by Tiger Global along with existing investors Accel Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, Evolvence India Fund, Sistema Asia Fund and Foundamental. With the latest fundraising with a valuation of the company at $1 billion, making it an entrant to the coveted unicorn club.