Would This FY be ‘Marked’ in the History of Startups?

H1 2018 marked the greatest acquisition in the Indian tech ecosystem, with Walmart acquring e-commerce major Flipkart for $16 billion. Well, that only adds more to the list of unicorns. The latest example would be that of Automation Anywhere, founded by Ankur Kothari, Mihir Shukla, Neeti Mehta, and Rushabh Parmani. The recent investment of $250 Mn in Series-A funding round led by New Enterprises Associates and Goldman Sachs Growth Equity, valued the company’s at $1.8 billion.

Let’s have a sneek peak at the other new unicorns this year:

OYO Rooms

Launched in 2013, an aggregator of hotel rooms, Oyo raised an amount of $260 million in a funding round led by SoftBank, in presence of existing investors, and also new faces like China Lodging Group and Hero Enterprises. Other investors in the company include Lightspeed India, Greenoak Capital and Sequoia Capital.

Currently, Oyo has three verticals in the name of Oyo Rooms, Oyo Townhouse, and Oyo Home. Besides India, it has its preseence felt in Malaysia and Nepal, with 4,000 exclusive hotels and 75,000 rooms. Recently, it began operations across 26 Chinese cities.

Swiggy

Swiggy was considered a late entrant in the food delivery business when it first operated in 2014. But, in less than four years time, Swiggy acquired a unicorn status for itself.

Last month, Swiggy raised $210 million, thus valuing the company at $1.3 billion. Swiggy is by far the fastest startup to become a unicorn in such a short time. In its journey, Swiggy has also beaten its arch rivals in food delivery business, Zomato and Foodpanda.

PolicyBazaar

Policybazaar was formed in 2008, and raised $200 million in a funding  round led by SoftBank Group’s Vision Fund. As per the company sources, all existing Indian investors participated in the current round of funding, barring Premji Invest.

The company further said that growth in insurance purchases digitally will enable it grow at an annual average rate of 80 percent over the next three years, to a total of 10 million transacting customers by 2020.

Zomato

Gurugram-based food delivery startup Zomato reported a two-fold growth in its revenues to $61.2 million in revenue for FY17. Currently operating in 23 countries, Zomato looks forward to expand more.

Recently, former MakeMyTrip Executive, Mohit Gupta has been appointed as the CEO of Zomato.

BYJU’s

Ed-tech startup BYJU’s is India’s largest in the education sector. Started in 2011, BYJU’s has secured nearly $245 million from top invetors like Lightspeed Venture Partners, Brussels-based family office Verlinvest and development finance institution IFC.

Last year, BYJU’s acquired online tutoring platform TutorVista and education solutions provider Edurite from UK-based Pierson, and Vidyartha, which is a data-driven platform that offers customised learning guidance to students.

Though, reports have said that funding in the startup ecosystem has reduced by a margin of 47 percent, this quarter has also seen the greatest number of unicorns in this galaxy. Other startups like BigBasket, Practo, Delhivery, Rivigo, BlackBuck, and Freshworks. This financial year would make history if any of the companies mentioned above make it to the unicorn domain.