The unicorn club may soon be flooded by Indian startups in the not-so-distant future. In a list comprising of 107 global firms that are worth more than $1 billion, created by venture capital tracker CB Insights, eight of them are Indian start-ups. This revelation is a clear representation of the amount of venture capital that is flowing into the Indian startup industry.
The list comprises of 65 companies from the US, 13 from China and 8 from India. Other entries are UK with 5 companies and Israel and South Korea with two each. Among all the companies, Chinese-smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi is leading the pack with $46 billion while taxi-hailing app Uber was valued at $41 billion. However, this may soon change as Uber is swiftly heading towards reaching the value of $50 billion in the near future.
Among the Indian companies, it is not surprising to see e-commerce heavyweights like Flipkart and Snapdeal in the list. Flipkart raised $2 billion last year and currently holds a value of $11 billion. It is followed next by Snapdeal at $2.5 billion while taxi-aggregator Ola is valued at $2.4 billion. Another notable mention is One97 Communications that is valued at $2 billion. It is backed by Alibaba and runs the digital wallet app Paytm. MuSigma, Quikr and InMobi are also in the list with a worth of $1 billion each.
The inclusion of Indian startups show how important consumer-internet startups are in this internet since 6 out of the 8 belong to that category. “When you have consumers using your products and services, you are creating an inherent value. When you have a huge customer base with no substitutes, the valuation soars,” said Ambareesh Murthy, founder and CEO of online furniture marketplace Pepperfry.
