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5 Indian Startups To Join The Elite Unicorn Club In 2022

Summary: Seven months into 2022 and India has already added 19 new unicorns.

While 2021 was a blockbuster year for unicorns, the year 2022 has started just on the right track. Just seven months into the year, India has seen 19 startups that have entered the elite unicorn club. The total count of Indian tech startups to enter the unicorn club stands at 105.

Let’s take a look at the number of startups that have made it to the club:

1. FRACTAL

Founded in 2000 by a five-member team, Fractal is an AI and advanced solutions startup. The core team of Fractal is an IIM Ahmedabad alumni- Pranay Agrawal and Srikanth Velamakanni along with Nirmal Palaparthi, Pradeep Suryanarayan, and Ramakrishna Reddy.

Its latest round of funding made it the first entrant into the unicorn club in 2022. Fractal has raised a total of $685 Mn funding over 5 rounds. The Private Equity round saw $360 Mn raised from TPG Capital Asia and secondary share purchases from funds advised by Apax Partners.

This startup of India has also raised $100 Mn from the Malaysian sovereign fund Khazanah in 2016. The 21-year-old startup provides artificial intelligence and advanced analytics solutions to Fortune 500 companies. Fractal Analytics is among a handful of companies that have taken over two decades to enter the unicorn club.

2. LEAD

By raising $ 100 Mn in a round led by WestBridge Capital and GSV, LEAD School has raised a total of $166 Mn in funding over 5 rounds. Founded by Sumeet Mehta and Smita Deorah in 2012, this Mumbai-based startup was the first Ed-tech startup to enter the Indian unicorn club in 2022.

In 2021, edtech startups raised over $4.7 Bn to emerge as the third-most funded Indian startup sector 2021, with only eCommerce ($10.7 Bn) and fintech sectors ($8 Bn) attracting more investment.

This edtech startup of India enables schools to combine technology, curriculum, and pedagogy into an integrated teaching and learning system. It is the country’s sixth edtech unicorn after BYJU’s, Unacademy, Eruditas, UpGrad, and Vedantu. LEAD claims to have more than 5,000 schools from across 500 Indian cities on board, serving more than 2 Mn students across the country.

3. DEALSHARE

2022 saw this Bengaluru-based startup Dealshare entering the unicorn club at a valuation of $1.62 Bn. The Bengaluru-based social commerce startup raised $165 Mn in a Series E funding round. The round saw participation from existing investors, Tiger Global and Alpha Wave Incubation, alongside new investors, Kora Investment, DF International Partners, and Twenty Nine Capital Partners. The segment’s biggest milestone last year was Meesho’s entry into the unicorn club.

DealShare was founded by Vineet Rao, Sourjyendu Medda, Sankar Bora, and Rajat Shikhar in September 2018. Targeting the middle-class population, enables first-time internet users to shop online. The startup’s gross revenue has increased by 10X over the last year with an ARR of $750 Mn for FY22. It sells grocery and household essential products through social media and messenger platforms like WhatsApp.

4. LIVSPACE

With its series F round, Livspace became the sixth unicorn of the year. The Bengaluru-based startup raised $180 Mn from American investment giant KKR & Co, Jungle Ventures, Swedish retail giant Ikea, Venturi Partners, and Peugeot Investments.

Founded by Anuj Shrivastav and Ramkant Sharma in 2014, Livspace is a home renovation and interior platform. It provides an end-to-end home design experience. The startup’s online marketplace also offers software tools that can help designers and homeowners design interiors. Livspace has raised close to $450 Mn across 10 funding rounds. It has raised $90 Mn in a series D round, led by Switzerland-based investment firm Kharis Capital and consumer space-focused Venturi Partners.

5. XPRESSBEES

With its Series F funding round led by private equity funds Blackstone Growth, ChrysCapital, and TPG Growth; the Pune-based startup Xpressbees is the latest entrant to the Indian unicorn club of 2022. The round also saw participation from existing investors Investcorp and Norwest Venture Partners, thus helping the startup’s valuation soar close to $1.2 Bn. With this investment, Xpressbees total funding has touched $500 Mn.

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Vedantu to Nykaa; 5 Startups That Raised Amid COVID-19

The new normal in today’s world is with the least physical contact, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, when everything is unpredictable similarly, seeing the change in consumer behavior is natural. Fighting with odds, many Indian startups continued to raise funds in tough times.

That’s true, the pandemic has unquestionably changed the funding scene in India, but truly has created many new possibilities for those startups that can adapt to the current environment. There are some startups that have already shown a trend- defying growth, which created a benchmark and ray of hope to many startups.

In current time two situations were going on in the startup ecosystem, one where a handful of startup able to raise funds, and the other hands a few startups is still struggling. Hence, we are going to list a few startups which successfully raised millions of funds and blooming in their sector.

Vedantu

The ed-tech sector has come into the spotlight since the lockdown started. Vedantu is one of the online class venture, founded in 2014 by Pulkit Jain, Anand Prakash, and Vamsi Krishna. They provide online tutoring classes from class 1st to 12th and even for medical and engineering exams.

As per this ed-tech startup has raised $100 million and valuing the company at 600 million. The startup owner claimed they have recorded growth of 220% in the period of lockdown, with 2 million students subscribed.

InCred

Mumbai based NBFC InCred, founded in 2016 by Bhupinder Singh, which started with operations with consumer lending then expanded into small business lending in 2017. As per the company stated, they have a loan book over Rs 2,000 crore.
As per the latest reports of April 2019, the digital lending platform has successfully raised Rs 600 crore in led by the Dutch development finance institution FMO.

Dunzo

Dunzo is a hyperlocal delivery app founded in 2015 by Kabeer Biswas currently, Dunzo has a firm place in the hyperlocal delivery space their services available in eight cities Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Gurugram, Pune, and Jaipur. Initially, they started with delivering individual sources, but with time they expanded in categories like groceries, fruits, and vegetables, fish and meat, etc.
In the current scenario, Dunzo has raised $28 million, and their funding round led by Google and Lightstone Fund. If we speak about an existing investor in the company is Google, and it was their first investment in an Indian start-up in 2017.

Nykaa

Mumbai – based e-commerce platform of fashion and beauty, founded by Falguni Nayar in 2012. They have played an instrumental purpose in shaping the beauty and lifestyle industry through its curated product in The Indian market in a great price range.
As per the latest reports in may Nykaa raised Rs 66.64 crore from their primary investor Steadview Capital. Later on, this round of investment company became valued at $1.2 billion, therefore, entering the startup unicorn club.

Unacademy

Another Ed-tech platform Unacademy founded by Gaurav Munjal, Hemesh Singh, and Roman Saini in the year of 2015. The platform was built for educators and new-age learners by focusing on producing educational videos and providing interactive classes to students. During the outbreak of pandemic and complete lockdown, they bulged with 20,000 Free Live Classes on their platform.

Recently, Unacdemy entered the Unicorn club by raising $150 million by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank valuing it at $1.45 billion, in just six months. Which got to them the second Ed-tech startup in the country after Byju’s.

In the gloomy sky, these startups’ growth acted as the silver lining as in these difficult times, not only these, but many more startups from Delhi, Mumbai, Banglore, and other cities were able to raise funds through hard work. We believe after reading the article you find motivation and see the silver lining in these puzzling times.