India sees six new tech unicorns in four days, including start-ups Meesho and Groww

India had a total of seven new unicorns in the whole of last year, and six the year before, figures show

Global investors are keeping an eye on Indian start-ups as the nation sees rapid smartphone uptake, the rise of cheap internet services and a new generation of ambitious entrepreneurs

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A shop in Bangalore, India, displays a sign it accepts the PayTM online method. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 11:55am, 12 Apr 2021Updated: 11:55am, 12 Apr 2021

It was a historic week for India’s technology industry. In the space of four days, the country minted at least six new start-ups with a valuation of US$1 billion or more – what techies call unicorns because they’re supposed to be such rarities.

In rough order of size: the investment platform Groww raised money at a valuation of more than US$1 billion; messaging bots start-up Gupshup hit US$1.4 billion; digital pharmacy API Holdings Pvt was valued at close to US$1.5 billion; app developer Mohalla Tech surpassed US$2.1 billion; social commerce start-up Meesho Inc also reached US$2.1 billion; and financial-technology provider Cred rounded out the blessing of unicorns at US$2.2 billion.

For context, India had a total of seven new unicorns in all of 2020, according to market researcher CB Insights. In 2019, it had six.

Global investors such as Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp and South Africa’s Naspers Ltd see growing opportunity in the country’s start-up scene.

The nation of 1.3 billion people has seen the rapid adoption of smartphones in recent years, explosive growth of inexpensive internet services and a new generation of ambitious entrepreneurs.

“Large funds such as Naspers, SoftBank and Tiger Global have significant amounts of capital to invest and these start-ups are now on top of their list,” said PN Sudarshan, a partner at Deloitte.

People take pictures with their smartphones near the Taj Mahal in Agra. Photo: AFP

India has long trailed well behind the United States and China in the amount of venture capital money invested in start-ups. The total value of deals in 2020 was US$11.8 billion, compared with US$143 billion in the US and US$83 billion in China, according to researcher Preqin.