In May this year, India became home to 100 unicorns, positioning itself as the hub for start-ups. The same year in August, 20 start-ups were granted unicorn status. The collective valuation of these start-ups was $341 billion.
Additionally, these companies were able to raise over $94 billion in external funding, despite the so-called domestic funding winter.
However, behind this success story of India churning out unicorns at a rapid pace, there remains a grim reality plaguing the start-up ecosystem: endemic losses.
Over 10 Indian unicorn start-ups are making huge losses.
BYJU: ₹4,588,000,000
OYO: ₹3,944,000,000
Udaan: ₹2,482,000,000
Flipkart: ₹2,446,000,000
Scholar: ₹1,934,000,000
PhonePe: ₹1,728,000,000
Payout: ₹1,710,000,000
Swiggy: ₹1,617,000,000
Unacademy: ₹1,537,000,000
Freshworks: ₹1,499,000,000
The numbers are significant given that many of these unicorn companies are expected to launch initial public offerings (IPOs) soon.
As Indian startups struggled to secure more funding, a series of layoffs, closures and multiple government raids on crypto startups also made headlines in August.
Edtech start-up Vedantu is said to have laid off 100 employees for the third time in 2022.
Nearly 300 Meesho employees were after the closure of the company’s Superstore vertical grocery store, according to a report by Inc42.
Agritech startup DeHaat reportedly laid off a significant number of employees recently.
Another company LEAD and social media platform Koo also joined the list.
Meanwhile, at the city level, Bengaluru remained the top unicorn maker as 38 of the 100 unicorns are based out of the city.
Delhi-NCR comes second in the list as 30 startups from the region managed to make it to the 100 unicorn list.
While Mumbai, Chennai, Pune and Hyderabad collectively produced 32 unicorns.
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