8 MOST VALUABLE STARTUPS IN INDIA
Go back a decade and the startup movement in India was barely mainstream. However, just within a matter of a few years, India has become quite a major player in the birth of startups around the world.
Today, India sees the second-highest number of startups in the world according to startupranking.com and this is mainly because the investors from around the world are actively taking part in funding the startups there. While most of the startups in India belong to the tech niche, there are others who are slowly building up to bringing all-new features to the Indian audiences.
Each year, the startups in India are getting more and more rounds of funding and their valuation keeps getting higher. We have listed the top eight most valuable startups in India to give you a better idea of the startup industry in India.
Most Valuable Startups in India
PayTM
PayTM the most successful and well-known startup to have emerged from India founded in 2015 by Billionaire entrepreneur and investor Vijay Shekhar Sharma. PayTM is a financial technology company and an e-commerce payment system. One97 Communications is the parent company of PayTM.
The application allows for everyday financial transactions like mobile recharges, bill payments, travel, movies, event bookings, and in-store payments.
Merchants from all over the country are registered on the platform to receive payments from their customers easily without any cash exchange. PayTM has also started selling mutual funds and there is a facility to open up a bank account with the company as well.
The company is planning an initial public offering in 2022 and the current valuation of the company is estimated to be at $16 billion (INR 1,12,000 crore).
Oyo Rooms
When it comes to hotel chains, there is no name that is more familiar than Oyo Rooms. This hotel aggregator started out as a listing and booking for budget accommodations but soon grew to be the third-largest and fastest-growing hospitality chain of leased and franchised hotels in the world.
Oyo Rooms was founded by Ritesh Agarwal in 2013 and over a span of just a little over six years, the company has grown to have spaces globally with a presence in India, Malaysia, UAE, Nepal, China, Brazil, Mexico, UK, Philippines, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, and many more.
After the last round of funding, the company valuation came at around $10 billion (INR 70,000 crore). The investors include SoftBank, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequioa, Airbnb, China Lodging Group, and Hero Enterprise.
Byju’s
This company started as a simple institution that helped students crack the CAT exam. These simple beginnings for a man, Byju Raveendran, soon turned into a multi-billion dollar company when he thought of taking the idea to every student across the country.
The seed funding for the idea was received from Aarin Capital in 2013. Other investors include Sequoia Capital India, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Tencent, Sofina, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Verlinvest, IFC, Naspers Ventures, CPPIB, and General Atlantic.
The total seed funding secured by Byju’s went up to $785 million. On January 9, 2020, new investment came in which brought the value of the company to $8 billion (INR 57,000 crore).
The company has got Shah Rukh Khan to be its brand ambassador and they also acquired the rights to the jerseys of Indian cricket team in July 2019. Byju’s is the most valued EdTech company in the world ever since March 2019.
Snapdeal
An e-commerce company based in New Delhi, India and co-founded by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal in February 2010. The e-commerce startup is backed by giants such as SoftBank, Alibaba Group and Blackrock.
Snapdeal was considered one of the biggest and most successful startups in India. Snapdeal raised a large round of capital in February 2016 from investors, including Ontario Teachers Pension Plan and according to CB Insights is valued at $7 billion (INR 49,000 crore).
Ola
There was a time when Uber was the most valuable startup in the world when it came to the cab service. However, Ola Cabs has managed to stand up to the giant by bringing in a lot of business of its own.
The company started in Bengaluru, India but now it serves more than 150 cities in India, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
Ola Cabs now has peer-to-peer ridesharing, ride service hailing, taxi, and food delivery too. The online cab aggregator started in Mumbai and records more than 15,00,000 drivers across 250 cities. They also have auto-rickshaws on their docket.
They are also expanding into the electric car for hire service with the Ola Electric Mobility which received a capital funding of $56 million in February 2019.
The company is worth more than $6.32 billion (INR 44,240 crore) today according to the latest valuation reports, making it to the top five most valuable Indian startup.
Udaan
Udaan was the fastest Indian startup to reach a valuation of a billion dollars in 2018. This platform was built to provide a B2B trading platform for the small and medium business of India.
Everyone from traders, wholesalers, retailers, and manufacturers come together on a single platform and connect and trade among themselves, eliminating the need for the middle man.
One of the greatest features for this platform is that businesses from all across the country can connect and discuss trading among themselves on a single platform. There is also an option to buy and sell on this platform, with the payments being secured and the logistics being quick.
The company was founded by Sujeet Kumar, Amod Malviya, and Vaibhav Gupta, all of whom worked with Flipkart previously. Today, the valuation of Udaan is more than $2.3 billion (INR 16,100 crore).
In 2019, this Bengaluru-based platform raised a funding of $585 million when investors like Tencent, Altimeter, Footpath Ventures, Hillhouse, GGV Capital, and Citi Ventures invested in the company. This was in addition to the investment already done by Lightspeed Venture Partners and DST Global.
Martin Lau, President of Tencent, said, “Udaan’s unique approach can enhance the capabilities of millions of retail stores across India. It represents a powerful example of how technology can empower the business of small merchants, improve the efficiency of industries and bring benefits to consumers.”
The company achieved the status of a startup unicorn in September 2018. The founders believed that the platform could be a game-changer one day and they were quite right.
Zomato
According to the latest valuation, the company Zomato is worth more than $2.18 billion (INR 15,260 crore).
The company started as a loyalty aggregator for the restaurants and simply listed all the restaurants in a city. With time, as funding came in for the company, Zomato started to deliver food for the restaurants.
Today, Zomato has its own loyalty program for its customers, the Zomato Gold program, where the customers can enjoy freebies with each order.
Zomato also runs Hyperpure, a subsidiary that provides restaurants with an option to order fresh ingredients.
People can view the menus of different restaurants in their area, get an estimate of what it would cost for them to have a meal at them, and read and leave reviews for different restaurants.
The company has come a long way from just listing restaurants on its application. Starting from India, Zomato is now available in 24 countries and in more than 10,000 cities worldwide.
Delhivery
Latest reports suggest that Delhivery is valued at $1.5 billion (INR 10,500 crore).
The company was founded in 2011 by Sahil Barua, Mohit Tandon, Bhavesh Manglani, Suraj Saharan and Kapil Bharati. During its early years, the company was simply acting as a third-party logistics company, delivering shipments for e-commerce giants like Amazon and Flipkart in Delhi-NCR.
The company saw a great growth sprout, to the point where it had delivered 250 million shipments in 2018 and by 2020 the number had gone higher than 600 million.
Delhivery provides parcel delivery, transportation, warehousing, freight, reverse logistics, cross-border and technology services. Their clients include some of the largest e-commerce giants in India today.
Just last year in March 2019, the company raised its largest round of investment of $413 million from SoftBank. This brought the total funding of the company to more than $670.6 million.
Startup to look out for…
Sneed
Sneed is the workspace, where all your search ends. You can find the Coworking space for your business at any city in India and it is like the next-gen workspace genie, allowing you to discover and book spaces on the go by the hour, day, week or month. Sneed.in is one of the best places to book shared office space for your Startup in India. Entrepreneurs, Corporates and Business professionals can find the best coworking space that matches their team size and budget.
Sneed was founded in 2015, by Amit & Ankit, who were CA’s In Profession, and started an online platform for shared workspaces. It is headquartered in Bangalore. The founders call Sneed “Space for your Need”. Sneed is like Airbnb for the Coworking spaces. One can list the Unused shared workspace and generate Money
Sneed aims to make the pain stacking search for the coworking space, Shared workspace into a simple one where one can select the space at a click of a mouse and the best part is that Sneed has a list of coworking spaces not just in the Tier 1 cities, but also Tier 2 cities like Gurgaon, Coimbatore, etc.
This is the list of the top most valuable startups in India.
N/B – This list is updated as the startup valuation changes.
