Nearly ten days ago, Textile and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal had tweeted a Shark Tank meme to make a point about India’s growing unicorn numbers and opposition parties inability to digest this fact. It certainly seems that Mr. Goyal is one of the outspoken supporters of Indian unicorn startups. This was again proven on Wednesday as Mr. Goyal once again lend his open to the unicorn startups.

This time Goyal celebrated the 10^th unicorn of 2022 –  Software platform Hasura – by tweeting before and after photo featuring Bhuban Badyakar, who shot to fame with his famous ‘Kacha Badam.

Goyal tweeted this meme photo along with a tweet that said “another Kacha Badam has become Pakka. India adds its 10^th unicorn in just 53 days.”

Mr. Goyal’s latest tweet on Unicorn comes a day after GraphQL platform Hasura announced that it has raised $100 Mn in Series C round at a $1 Bn valuation. Hasura is backed by some big VC firms including Nexus Venture Partners, Greenoaks and Lightspeed venture partners.

Mamaearth, Drawinbox, Fractal Lead and Dealshare are some of the other startups that have earned the unicorn tag this year.

Last year proved to be a milestone year for Indian startups as it added dozens of startups to the unicorn club. Even Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has openly said in the parliament that the growing number of unicorn startups are creating wealth for India.

It is expected that by end of 2022, India will add dozen more startups to the unicorn club.

For all those who don’t know unicorn are those startups whose valuation crosses $1 Bn mark.

However, for all the hype around the unicorn valuation, several experts have repeatedly pointed that most unicorn startups carry inflated valuation and these valuations are not representative of their financial fundamentals.

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American venture capital firm Sequoia Capital has been tagged as the most successful unicorn investor of 2021, according to Hurun Research. This is the second straight year that Sequoia Capital has been termed as the most active investor in unicorn by the Chinese media research company.  Hurun Research claimed in its report that the global startup industry added 1,058 unicorns in 2021, compared to only 586 in the previous year.

Out of the 1,058, Hurun claimed that Sequoia Capital helped in creating 206 unicorns across the world. This means that one in every five unicorns had the stamp of Sequoia Capital. It must be noted that Sequoia Capital includes its many sister firms like Sequoia Capital India, Sequoia Capital China, Sequoia Capital Israel and Sequoia Capital Global Equities. Sequoia Capital India has been one of the aggressive investors in India’s startup ecosystem and has played an instrumental role in churning out scores of unicorns in India.

Hurun Research further claimed that Tiger Global and SoftBank ranked second and third in the list. Tiger Global created 147 startups whose market valuation surpassed $1 Bn while SoftBank created 146 unicorns. Cumulatively, Sequoia Capital Tiger Global and SoftBank have contributed more than 50% of unicorns this year.     

Tiger Global has especially played an anchor role in creating scores of unicorn this year in India. So much so that many Indian netzines  have started referring Tiger Global as the Santa Claus of Indian startup industry.

When it comes to unicorns, 2021 Indeed proved to be a prolific year for the Indian startups. India produced record-breaking 41 unicorns this year. 2021 also proved to be a milestone year as many high profile startups like Zomato, Paytm, Naykaa and PolicyBazaar became publicly listed companies.

List of Indian unicorns in 2021           

• Digit Insurance
• Innovaccer
• Infra.Market
• Chargbee
• Cred
• Groww
•  Sharechat
• GupShup
• Meesho
• Groww
• PharmEasy
• Urban Company
• Zeta
• Browserstack
• Zeta
• Moglix
• BlackBuck
• Ofbusiness
• Droom
• Bahartpe
• Eruditus
• CoinDCX
• UpGrad
• Vedantu
• Apna
• MPL
• Coinswitch Kuber
• Rebel Foods
• Licious
• Mobikwik
• Cardekho
• Acko
• MyGlamm
• Cure.fit
• Spinny
• Mensa
• NoBroker
• Slice
• Pristyn care
• GlobalBees
• Mamaearth

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The millennial-focused fintech startup Slice has announced it has raised $220 Mn in a series B with its valuation topping up over $1 Bn in the latest round. With this round, Slice has become the latest entrant in India’s ballooning and fast-growing unicorn club. To be precise, it is the 41^st unicorn of the ongoing year.

Last week, three startups Spinny, NoBroker and Upstox gatecrashed into India’s unicorn club.

Tiger-Global and Insight Partners co-led Slice’s series B round. Sunley House Capital, Moore Strategic Ventures, Anfa while existing Gunosy, Blume Ventures and 8i also participated in the round.  

Slice has witnessed almost a 5x increase in its valuation in the latest round. The fintech startup was valued around barely $200-$250 Mn in the last financing round in June that was co­-led by Gunosy & Blume Ventures.

Interestingly, interestingly earlier this year  Slice’s founder Rajan Bajaj had expressed his unicorn wish aloud on his Twitter timeline. Bajaj wrote that he wanted Slice to turn unicorn before he turns 30.

The screenshot of the tweet has been shown below.

The Bengaluru based startup essentially provides physical and virtual credit cards to students and young professionals. The startup claims that the set of young professionals that it is trying to target are usually found on Instagram and twitter.

Banks with their archaic methodologies to gauge credit worthiness are not able to tap into this young millennial crowd, the startup further claims.

The company provides features like 2% cashback and the flexible option of converting monthly bill into 3 installments with no extra charges.

The four year old company has refrained from sharing any important years, apart from the fact that it currently boosts nearly 5 Mn registered users.

In Fy21, the company earned a loss of Rs 8.1 Cr, with operational revenue standing at Rs 35.35 Cr while the overall expenses stood at about Rs 47.87 Cr.     

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MyGlamm’s parent firm The Good Glamm Group has raised $150 Mn in its Series D round led by Prosus Ventures and Warburg Pincus. The round also saw participation from debt investment firm Alteria Capital while existing investors like Amazon, Ascent Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners.

With this funding round, MyGlamm has become the 35^th and the newest unicorn in 2021. The Mumbai headquartered firm commanded a valuation of $1.2 Bn in its series D round. This is almost a 12x increase in its valuation since its series C in March this year, when it was valued at paltry $100 Mn.          

MyGlamm claims that it is the first D2C brand to turn unicorn. However, notably Licious, which also turned unicorn earlier this year, made a similar claim.    

The Good Glamm Group has said that it will use the latest capital infusion for wide-range of things. This includes product development, supporting data science and development research and augmenting offline expansion.     

MyGlamm’s coronation as the latest unicorn has come at a time when the IPO of Nykaa, an e-commerce platform that sells beauty products through omnichannel model, has received a good response from investors. According to media reports, MyGlamm is looking for an IPO listing in the financial year 2022-23.  

MyGlamm’s strong appetite for growth is also quite palpable in its push for growth through inorganic route. Off late, the Mumbai headquartered company has been picking up quite a few companies, starting from PoPxo, Plixxo, The Moms Co and ScoopWhoop. If the media reports are to be believed then the company is likely to acquire another four brands by the end of this year.

Meanwhile, India’s IPO party continues at an unabated pace. There is every likelihood that few more startups may hit the billion-dollar valuation by the end of December this year.      

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