Just a few months after the online food delivery and restaurant discovery platform was voted The Economic Times Startup of the Year 2021 by a star-studded jury.
made public on the Indian stock exchanges And set an example for others in the industry to follow a similar path.

Zomato’s blockbuster listing—the biggest ever for the Indian capital markets—not only garnered major institutional capital, but also generated massive interest among retail investors.

But it was not an easy decision for the jury, as it looked at the quality of startups in the final list of nominees for the most prestigious award.

whereas
Zomato’s spectacular public market debut Made it a strong contender, Edtech chief byju’s It was widely discussed for its ambitions to become a major global player in the online education sector. He was
Byju’s fast-paced growth and acquisition spree Against the stubborn execution of Zomato till the IPO.

After the first round of voting, the jurors noted that Rs 9,375 crore zomato ipo The Indian startup emerged as a significant event for the economy as it was the first major consumer internet startup to go public, that too in India. Apart from the listing, Zomato’s ability to survive and thrive in a multi-faceted industry like online food delivery received jury support.

Gokul Rajaram, Product and Business Leader, DoorDash said, “By building an amazing business in a highly competitive market with incredibly tough unit economics, Zomato is a business that is not only a leader in India but respected globally. ”

Zomato cofounder and chief executive Deepinder Goyal, who did not participate in the discussion and voting as a jury member, said, “We didn’t think we would win this, as all the other nominees are great companies. We look to some of them for many things. In that light, we are grateful and humbled to have won the coveted Startup of the Year award. We look forward to continuing to hold on to this honor in the years to come.”

Zomato’s decade-long journey has seen its business pivot from an advertising-driven restaurant search model to an operations-heavy delivery player.

“Coming back from a place where we recently lost 90% of our business in the first wave of Covid to our IPO is a testament to the resilience and focus of our team,” Goyal said. “But most of the credit should go to our restaurant partners and distribution partners – we could not have built this business without their commitment to delight customers thick and thin.”

Zomato continues to grow and has reduced its cash burn last year as order values ​​increased. company,
In its earnings report for Q1 FY22, said it saw growth after recovering from the effects of the second wave of the pandemic.

“Throughout the years, Zomato has continued to experiment, enhance its successes, learn from failures, and continuously pivot to adapt to the needs of users. With the resounding success of its IPO, 2021 will always be remembered as the year Zomato changed the Indian startup ecosystem forever,” said jury member Harsh Jain, Cofounder and CEO, Dream11.

GV Ravi Shankar of Sequoia India and Satyan Gajwani of Times Internet abstained from voting in this category as both are investors in Byju’s while Sequoia India is an early investor in Zomato.

other claimants

PharmEasy | Siddharth Shah, Dharmil Sheth, Dhaval Shah, Harsh Parekh & Hardik Dedhia

PharmEasy—powered by API Holdings—offers drug delivery, diagnostic services and online doctor consultations apart from being a business-to-business pharma distribution vertical. It is on an acquisition spree to grow its non-drug delivery business with acquisitions like pathology chains
thyrocare and hospital supply chain startups
akanamedo. The number of doctors and pharmacists on its platform has doubled in the last one year.

hero | Falguni Nayar & Adwaita Nayar

Nykaa is an all-encompassing retailer of beauty and personal care products
Who has applied for IPO later this year. It will be the first profitable unicorn ecommerce firm to go for listing in India. Nykaa’s gross merchandise value grew more than 50% to approximately Rs 4,046 crore in FY21, of which 70% came from existing customers. Strong growth is expected in the current financial year as well.

Byjus | Byju Raveendran and Divya Gokulnath

Byju’s founder Byju Raveendran

Byju’s is India’s largest online education firm as well as the most valuable startup with $16.5 billion. It has seen cumulative downloads of over 100 million, of which 6.5 million are paid subscribers. this is
Spent more than $2 billion on acquisitions this year. The startup is expanding aggressively in the United States and other global markets.

browserstack | Ritesh Arora and Nakul Agarwal

more tech

What it does: BrowserStack provides a subscription-based web and mobile app testing platform. The startup was bootstrapped until 2018 when it first raised venture funding from Accel. earlier this year,
It raised over $200 million And it was worth $4 billion. It eventually wants to do an IPO but currently aims to be the largest testing platform in the world with 50% market share.