Startups That Have Entered The Unicorn Club So Far In 2022 This year, 19 startups have already turned unicorns
By S Shanthi
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In 2021, 44 Indian startups turned unicorns, that is, startups valued at more than $1 billion. This is a huge number considering the fact that only 33 companies turned unicorns from 2011 to 2020.
This year, 19 startups have already turned unicorns. This is in spite of the funding winter and negative market sentiments. In fact, according to a report by PwC, more than 50 Indian startups have the potential to enter the unicorn club in 2022.
Here is a brief on each startup that has turned unicorn so far in 2022.
Amagi
Amagi is a cloud-based media Saas technology company that raised $95 million in March 2022, in a funding round led by Accel. This investment brought Amagis's valuation to more than 1 billion dollars, making it a unicorn. The startup was founded in 2008 by Baskar Subramanian, Srinivasan KA and Srividhya Srinivasan.
CredAvenue
CredAvenue, an enterprise debt marketplace, became one of the fastest fintech startups to join the unicorn club after a Series B fundraising round of $137 million, led by New York-based global private equity and venture capital firm Insight Partners, B Capital Group, and Dragoneer, with participation from existing investors. With this, the company's post-money valuation grew to $1.3 billion. The startup aims to revolutionize and deepen debt markets by leveraging its five tech platforms that have been designed to cater to the requirements of both borrowers and investors.
Darwinbox
The Hyderabad-based startup became the third Indian unicorn of 2022 in January. The startup was founded in 2015 by Chaitanya Peddi, Jayant Paleti and Rohit Chennamaneni. It is a cloud-based HRtech startup that supports enterprises to automate the entire employee lifecycle in one HR platform The startup has clients like Adani, Mahindra, Kotak, TVS, Swiggy, Bigbasket and others.
DealShare
This social commerce startup achieved a valuation of $1.62 Bn this year after raising $165 Mn in a Series E funding round. The round saw participation from existing investors, Tiger Global and Alpha Wave Incubation, alongside new investors, Kora Investment, DF International Partners and Twenty Nine Capital Partners.
ElasticRun
ElasticRun was the first startup to turn a unicorn this year. This Pune-based Kirana commerce startup is backed by SoftBank, New York-based Goldman Sachs, Prosus Ventures, Innoven Capital, and Abu Dhabi's Chimera Investment, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi's Royal Group.
Fractal
The unicorn offers artificial intelligence and advanced analytics solutions to Fortune 500 companies. The startup has been around for more than two decades and is backed by TPG Capital Asia, Apax Partners, among others.
Games24x7
The startup turned a unicorn after raising $75 million in a round led by Malabar India Fund. It also saw participation from existing investor, US-based hedge fund Tiger Global. The gaming startup was founded in 2006 by Bhavin Pandya and Trivikraman Thampy.
Hasura
In February this year, GraphQL developer platform Hasura announced that it has secured $100 million in funding in a round led by Greenoaks with participation from existing investors Nexus Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Vertex Ventures. Hasura is designed to make web application development faster than ever before by eliminating bottlenecks to data access for frontend and fullstack developers.
LEAD
In January, LEAD became the first edtech startup to enter the unicorn club in 2022. The platform raised $100 million in Series E funding led by WestBridge Capital and GSV Ventures. Founded by Sumeet Yashpal Mehta and Smita Deorah in 2012, LEAD has been transforming core schooling in India with its innovative full-stack solution. Over the years, LEAD has been making global-standard education accessible and affordable to students, especially in non-metro cities, added the statement.
LeadSquared
In June 2022, Bengaluru-based sales automation SaaS platform, LeadSquared announced that it has joined the unicorn club by securing an investment of $153 million from WestBridge Capital, in a Series C funding round. The startup was founded by Nilesh Patel, Prashant Singh, and Sudhakar Gorti in 2011. The SaaS unicorn aims to make high-velocity sales execution software a growth engine for companies all over the world.
Livspace
The home interiors startup was founded in 2014 by Anuj Srivastava and Ramakant Sharma. Livspace became an unicorn of the year after raising $180 Mn from KKR & Co, Ikea, Jungle Ventures, Venturi Partners and Peugeot Investments in a Series F round.
OneCard
The startup became India's 104th unicorn after raising $100 Mn in a Series D round. The startup was founded in 2018 by Anurag Sinha, Rupesh Kumar, Vibhav Hathi. It has launched the mobile-first metal credit card 'OneCard' in 2020 and also offers Visa credit cards.
Open
On May 2, this year, neobanking startup Open announced its series D funding round from IIFL along with existing investors Temasek, Tiger Global and 3one4 Capital and with this round, Open was valued at $1 billion making it the 100th entrant in India's unicorn club. Open offers a rich dashboard with a lot of automation, which takes care of reconciliation of customer payments, payroll, GST, compliance and everything.
Oxyzo
This financial arm of unicorn OfBusiness also touched billion-dollar valuation by raising $200 Mn from Alpha Wave, Tiger Global, Norwest Venture Partners, Matrix Partners and Creation Investments. Oxyzo started as OfBusiness Group's financing platform that provided cash flow matched working capital financing for buying raw materials for SMEs. In the next phase of its growth, Oxyzo expanded to value chains beyond OfBusiness' B2B raw material platform with a diversified product suite and a broader customer base to include SMEs, mid-corporates, as well as the new age economy.
PhysicsWallah
Amid layoffs in edtech, this edtech platform raised $100 million in Series A funding from Westbridge and GSV Ventures. The startup was founded by Alakh Pandey and PrateekMaheshwari in 2020 and has more than 5.2 million Play Store downloads with a 4.7 rating and more than 6.9 million subscribers on YouTube.
Purplle
This beauty e-tailer has over 1000+ brands with nearly 50,000 products available across its website and app. It has over 800 employees and reported to be growing at a 90 percent Y-o-Y rate as of 2021. This online beauty startup turned unicorn raising $33 million in a Series E funding round, which was led by South Korean Investment firm Paramark Ventures and saw participation from Purplle's existing backers Premji Invest, Blume Ventures, and Kedaara Capital.
Uniphore
After a funding round of $400 Mn at a $2.5 Bn valuation led by NEA and participation from existing investors, the startup announced its unicorn milestone. Uniphore is a conversational automation startup founded by Ravi Saraogi and Umesh Sachdev in 2008.
Xpressbees
In February this year, the Investcorp backed startup joined the unicorn club. It raised $300 Mn in its Series F funding round led by private equity funds Blackstone Growth, TPG Growth and ChrysCapital and saw participation from existing investors, Investcorp and Norwest Venture Partners. Xpressbees was founded in 2015. This e-commerce logistics company is today present in over 3,000 cities.
5ire
This 5th generation Layer-1 (L1) blockchain network raised $100 Mn in a Series A funding round to join the unicorn club last month. The funding round saw participation from UK-based SRAM & MRAM. The blockchain startup was founded in August 2021 by Pratik Gauri and Prateek Dwivedi with Vilma Mattila.
