India is predicted to have over 250 unicorns (start-ups valued at over $1 billion) by 2025, venture growth investor Iron Pillar has said in its 'Tech Unicorns Market Landscape Report IV'.
A total of 130 companies have already joined the much-coveted unicorn club to generate a value of $535 billion, Iron Pillar says.
The report notes that Indian companies building cloud products for the world are significantly capital-efficient as they have attained unicorn status with 42% less capital as compared to business-to-consumer (B2C) businesses.
Unicorns built in India include 58 global cloud companies, 59 B2C companies and 13 B2B companies. The average number of fundraising rounds by global cloud unicorns is lesser than B2C and B2B unicorns.
Founded in 2016, Iron Pillar, a company that focusses on mid-stage tech companies has also mentioned in its report that an increasing number of B2C Indian unicorns (13) are now focussing on global markets.
Interestingly, a higher number of Indian founders who are building products for global markets are choosing US as their headquarters. Out of the 130 unicorns listed in the report by Iron Pillar, 40 have chosen US as their main headquarters followed by Bengaluru where 36 start-ups have set up their bases.
India has emerged as the third largest tech market in the World after US & China with tech start-ups here notching $42 billion in funding through 2021 alone, according to CB Insights' March 2022 report.
Iron Pillar is expecting more Indian companies to expand outside the subcontinent over coming years and focus on the Middle East & Southeast Asian regions.
“The total number of unicorns built from India more than doubled to 130 from 62 over the last 15 months. While we believe that this pace may reduce a little in next 24 months, creating 250 companies with a value of over $1 billion each by 2025 is a significant feat for Indian founders. We are especially bullish since over 50% of these scaled companies are building for markets beyond India,” Anand Prasanna, Managing Partner of Iron Pillar said.
India saw its foray into the envious unicorn club in 2011 with InMobi achieving a valuation of over $1 billion. Since then, 129 start-ups have joined the club out of which 100 were added in 2019.
50% of the 130 firms reached unicorn status in the first five years after their initial institutional fundraising. The public listing of 12 unicorns is another indicator of the increasing maturity of the Indian tech ecosystem, the report by Iron Pillar has noted.