India’s next 35 unicorns may include Practo, BharatPe, Eruditus, Vedantu

India is fast emerging as a startup nation. In around a decade, the Indian startup ecosystem has scaled to become the third-largest start hub in the world followed by the US and China.

To gauge the success of Indian startups that are expected to enter the Unicorn club, management consulting firm Praxis Global Alliance, has prepared a quarterly report on India’s Soonicorns landscape – the next billion-dollar startups.

It has come up with the launch of the second edition of India’s Soonicorns list. The list includes 35 startups that have the potential to achieve a $1 billion-plus valuation (unicorn) in near future.

“The prosperous and vibrant startup ecosystem is working to boost the investment environment in India both from domestic and global investors,” said Praxis.

Praxis did the quarterly analysis of the startups that are valued at $ 200 million or above between 2018 and 2021. The analysis was done by PGA Labs, the market intelligence business unit of Praxis Global Alliance.

The sectors that were covered included fintech, foodtech, healthtech and edtech. The other sectors included SaaS (software-as-a-service), logistics, e-grocery and digital gaming.

Some of these soonicorns include Eruditus, Vedantu, Grofers, BharatPe, Rebel Foods and Mobile Premier League (MPL). The other such companies include Practo, cure.fit, Indegene, Ecom Express, Dunzo and BrowserStack.

In the previous edition released in December 2020, Praxis had shortlisted 34 startups that are nearing a $1 billion valuation. Out of those 34, four startups including Digit Insurance, CRED, Innovaccer, and PharmEasy have already entered the coveted Unicorn club while one startup filed for IPO.

Experts said that the Covid-19 pandemic seems to have accelerated the pace of start-ups joining the ‘unicorn’ club. According to venture capital investors and experts, India is expected to have 150 unicorns by 2025.

Currently, there are 48 Indian start-ups valued at $1 billion or more, and Paytm is the most valuable start-up at $16 billion, according to the Venture Intelligence data.

This week, Chargebee, the leading subscription billing, and revenue management platform, became a unicorn after raising a fresh round of $125 million in series G funding. The round was co-led by new investor Sapphire Ventures and existing investors Tiger Global. Chargebee is now valued at $1.4 billion, which triples its valuation in less than 6 months.

Here are some of the soonicorns that have the potential to achieve $1 billion-plus valuation in near future, according to the Praxis report:

Table: Valuation of top soonicorns

Company Valuation ($ mn)

Practo 904

BharatPe 885

Eruditus 850

Rebel Foods 799

cure.fit 775

GreyOrange 700

Indegene 700

Grofers 675

Vedantu 584

Open 552

Navi 524

Ecom Express 500

BrowserStack 500

MPL 450

Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.

As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.

Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.

Digital Editor