10 Mumbai-based Startups That Made it Big These startups have shaped India's startup ecosystem from scratch

India is currently bustling with tech startups popping from every nook and corner of the nation, thanks to the abundance of skilled professionals and government's push to the business scope in varied spaces. Youngsters are adopting the culture and taking the lead with the only challenge of the right location to establish their organization.

Bengaluru is, of course, the most preferred choice for setting up tech firms due to its flourishing corporate culture. However, Mumbai has grabbed a significant amount of eyeballs due to its high-end lifestyle, mushrooming investor focus and intellectual background. The city has been birth ground for many startups that have shaped India's startup ecosystem from scratch. Here are 10:

Quikr

Among the most successful startups from Mumbai is the online classified advertising platform, Quikr. Established by Pranay Chulet in 2008, the startup, now headquartered in Bangalore, has so far raised $350 million from investors such as Tiger Global Management, Matrix Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, eBay, Nokia Growth Partners and others. It last raised $150 million in early 2015 from Kinnevik, Tiger Global and Steadview Capital at a post-money valuation of nearly $1 billion.

Pepperfry

One of the biggest names in the Indian e-commerce sector, Pepperfry was founded in 2012 by Ambareesh Murty and Ashish Shah to offer consumers a variety of lifestyle products. It then evolved to sell furniture and home décor products, creating its own niche in the market, only to become a household name in most of India's big cities. Initially funded by the founders themselves, the company managed to raise $100 million in 2015.

Ola Cabs

India's most favourite ride-hailing startup was launched in December 2010, from Mumbai, by Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati. Now India's 2nd most valuable startup, Ola has raised funding from Sachin Bansal, Hyundai and Kia Motors, reaching $6.2 billion valuation mark. Separately, Ola's Electric Mobility arm had independently raised INR 400 crore from Matrix Partners India and Tiger Global, among other investors, a couple of months ago.

Toppr

The adaptive test preparation platform for students preparing for various entrance exams is rapidly scaling up, expanding the geographical footprint and accelerating user acquisition. Founded by Zishaan Hayath in 2013, the startup has 2x growth in last 12 months. The company has received $2 million seed funding from SAIF Partners and Helion Ventures. It recently raised $35 Million in Series C funding round led by Eight Roads Ventures.

Bookmyshow

The app entire nation uses to book movie and play tickets was started by 3 friends – Ashish Hemrajani, Parikshit Dar and Rajesh Balpande in 1999. India's largest online movie ticketing brand was initially based in Mumbai. Bigtree Entertainment Pvt Ltd, the parent company for Bookmyshow, received backing from the Network18 group and Accel Partners. In 2018, after raising $100 million in its Series D funding round led by TPG Growth, BookMyShow is now valued at $850 million.

Justdial

Endorsed by Amitabh Bachchan, Justdial is marketed as India's No.1 local search engine as it provides search services across the country. The information can be relayed to customers via the phone, internet, mobile app or SMS. Founded by V S S Mani in 1996 with an initial investment of just INR 50,000, Justdial launched their web-based version in 2007 and their android app in 2011. Once valued at $1 Billion in 2013, JustDial has been struggling to tackle competition from its rivals UrbanClap, HouseJoy and LocalOye. The hyperlocal search engine launched its IPO in 2013.

Nykaa

Changing the way India shops for beauty was not an easy task but Nayar took up the challenge and came on top. Nykaa has been EBITDA-positive in the last two quarters (Q2 and Q3) of 2018 and has plans to grow 100 per cent revenue in FY19. The recent funding by American private equity firm TPG Growth has taken its valuation to $724 million.

Haptik

Founded in 2013 by Aakrit Vaish and Swapan Rajdev, the B2B chatbot solution for enterprises recently caught the eye of Mukesh Ambani. Reliance Industries Ltd made a strategic investment of about $100 million in the startup for around 87 per cent stake. Using a mix of AI, ML and natural language processing for its chat platform, Haptik builds chatbots that companies can deploy on websites, apps and other platforms.

Fynd

The online fashion retail start-up which lets offline retailers sell online, raised an undisclosed amount of funding in its Series C round led by Google in 2018. Co-founded by Farooq Adam, Sreeraman M.G. and Harsh Shah, Fynd provides an omnichannel retail product to brick-and-mortar stores, allowing stores to list their entire channel inventory on Fynd's online e-commerce marketplace.

InCred

Incred Finance is a Non-Banking Financial Company in India. The company focuses on Consumer Loan, Home Loan, Education Loan, and SME Lending. It is headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. It was founded by Bhupinder Singh, ex-head of the Corporate Finance division of Deutsche Bank. It recently raised INR600 crore in a funding round led by Dutch development finance institution FMO.