The research house’s report is a ranking of privately held Indian startups that were founded after the year 2000, valued at least $200 million and are expected to become unicorns in the next 2-4 years. Unicorns are privately held startups that are valued at $1 billion or more.
“In just one year, the number of unicorns in the country has increased by 65% in 2021,” said Anas Rehman Junaid, Managing Director and Chief Researcher, Hurun Research Institute
According to the report, Hurun has classified 17 startups, including logistics platform Shiprocket; Accelerated Commerce Unit Zepto; Insurtech player Turtlemint; electric vehicle venture Ather Energy; financial services provider Vivritti Capital; Mobility startup Rapido and financial software platform Clear (formerly ClearTax), which are expected to achieve unicorn valuations in the next two years.
The report lists the likes of furniture startup Pepperfry; Payment infrastructure providers Jaspay and mSwipe Technologies, as well as buy-now-pay later startup ZestMoney, to reach unicorn valuations in the next four years.
“There are some concerns in the global economy that could impact the valuation and ability of Indian startups to raise capital. In addition, some Indian startups are also going for layoffs and cost-cutting measures,” Junaid said in the report.
Find stories that interest you
The startup ecosystem has seen a sharp slowdown in venture funding and several startups including Unacademy, Vedantu, Udaan and Meesho have fired employees to save cash and expand their runways.
Global investors such as Sequoia Capital have also cautioned entrepreneurs about turbulent financial markets, a sign of reluctance among investors to write large checks.
Junaid said, “We believe there may be a setback in the growth story in the short term. The pinch was felt in the evaluation exercise and additional scrutiny of deliverables could help in broadening the system.”
Sequoia, which invested in 39 potential unicorns in 2021, is the most active investor in the ASK Private Wealth Hurun India Future Unicorn Index 2022, followed by Tiger Global with a stake in 27 Future Unicorns.
“Sequoia… has some big companies like Classplus, DeHaat, Porter, Progcap and CityMall,” the report said.
Bengaluru has the third highest number of tech startups in the world, followed by Delhi-NCR and Mumbai.
According to the report, Future Unicorn’s cumulative revenue grew 65% to Rs 16,448 crore in FY2011. ASK Private Wealth has one woman co-founder among 15 companies included in the Hurun India Future Unicorn Index 2022, the report said.
Analyzing the top sectors with high valuations, the report named Fintech, followed by ecommerce, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and edtech as the sectors with the highest cumulative valuations.
“The FinTech segment has a total valuation of $11,550 million, Ecommerce has a valuation of $6,130 million and SaaS has a valuation of $2,900 million,” the report said.
There are 27 fintech future unicorns in India and more than 50% of fintech future unicorns are in the consumer lending business.