There are around 250 startups around the world which are called unicorn startups. India is home to 12 such startups as of date, including the 2019 entries in the club such as BigBasket and Delhivery.
A unicorn startup is the one which is privately-held and valued at $1 billion or more.
Since last year, many popular startups such as Swiggy and PolicyBazaar, have entered the unicorn club. There is no dearth of funds for these unicorns as all these startups have gained scale and are raising huge amount of capital by attracting investors’ interest.
But who identified them first?
For instance, ecommerce portal Flipkart, India’s biggest unicorn startup by valuation, got its early stage capital from US-based venture capital firm Accel Partners. The venture capital firm had invested around $1 million in Flipkart way back in 2009.
Paytm, India’s second-most valued startup, was backed by SAIF Partners in 2008 when no one had even heard about Paytm.
Accel Partners and SAIF Partners were also the early investors behind food-tech startup - Swiggy, a recent addition to India’s unicorn club. They had together invested $2 million in 2015 and three years later, Swiggy is valued at more than $1 billion.
Here is a complete list of investors which were able to catch the Indian unicorns at an early stage.
First Published: Jul 10, 2018 11:23 AM IST
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