India has 21 unicorns, but diaspora got 40 more

Mumbai, Aug. 4: India is home to 21 unicorns—or startups with over $1 billion in valuation each—and 40 more of such companies have been founded overseas by people of Indian origin, a report said on Tuesday. It found that three Chinese investors have backed 11 of the Indian unicorns.

With the 21 unicorns collectively valued at $73.2 billion, India is the fourth biggest in terms of unicorns, behind the US, China and the UK, going by the Hurun Global Unicorn List.

The number of Indian unicorns is just a tenth of China's 227, it said, adding China has only 16 businesses started outside the country by its diaspora as against the 40 in India. The valuation of the unicorns founded globally by Indians is $99.6 billion, led by the fintech Robinhood at $8.5 billion.

Of the 61 unicorns founded by Indians, a massive two-thirds are based outside India, predominantly in the Silicon Valley of the USA, whilst only 21 are based in India, Hurun Report chairman and chief researcher Rupert Hoogewerf said.

He added that the founders of these 40 unicorns need to be recognised as much as someone like Google's chief executive Sundar Pichai and Microsoft's Satya Nadella.

The research pegged the overall number of unicorns at 586 across the world in 29 countries and 145 cities.

A third of the 21 Indian unicorns, which include Paytm, Oyo Rooms, Byju's and Ola Cabs, are in the e-commerce sector and Bengaluru is the unicorn capital of India being home to 8 such enterprises, it said. The youngest Indian unicorn is the 2017-founded Ola Electric, followed by Udaan and Swiggy. —PTI