Byju's 13th most valued unicorn, first Indian start-up to reach $21-bn

India may be seeing a unicorn born almost every month but only one — edtech company Byju’s — has made it to this year’s global list of 35 elite unicorns with valuations of over $10 billion.  

Byju’s has become the first domestic start-up to reach a  valuation of $21 billion. It is ranked as the 13th largest unicorn in the globe based on the latest figures by CB Insights that go up to the beginning of December.

In another feather in its cap, it is the most valued edtech start-up in the world, overtaking Chinese edtech firm Yuanfudao, valued at $15.58 billion.

To put the Indian start-up story into a global perspective, despite the Chinese crackdown on start-ups, together with the US, they account for  75 per cent of the top 35 start-ups in the world. India, Australia, Brazil, and Sweden have only one company in this list while the UK has three.

India could surely have had more $10 billion plus start-ups in 2021 had it not been for the pandemic. In January 2021, a report by BofA Global Research had valued hotel chain platform Oyo Rooms at $10 billion and car hailing company Ola at around $6.3 billion. It was expected that both would hit the magic number sometime this year.

However, the second wave and the pandemic put paid to these expectations as both these business segments were adversely affected; travel was restricted and people were working from home and their valuations fell.

Oyo went through a major restructuring exercise which entailed moving away from a minimum guarantee with hotel owners to a revenue sharing model. It moved to an asset light model, getting out of owning some properties.

The good news is that both are inching their way back into the game. Oyo has already applied to Sebi to go for an IPO and is currently valued at $9.6 billion. It is expected to list by the first quarter of the next calendar year. And Ola, say sources, is also expected to hit the IPO route by April.  Merchant bankers believe they are both looking at a valuation of  $10-12 billion before they go IPO.  

But there are many surprises in the India valuation ranking sweepstakes. Gaming platform Dream11 which was valued at $ 2.5 billion by BofA in January has seen its valuation go up three times to $8 billion, making it the third most valuable start-up in India from a ranking of 12.  

Online food delivery company Swiggy has seen its valuation go up by 52 per cent from $3.6 billion in January to $5.5 billion currently.

Others too such as social e-commerce platform Meesho and fintech start-up CRED have also blazed into the top ten in 2021 from not even being in the list of the top 37 unicorns in 2020.

Meesho became a unicorn as late as April after it raised money from SoftBank. And CRED did the same in the same month after a fresh round of funding.  

Many of the players dropped out of the valuation list because they have gone for an IPO and are listed in the bourses. These include Zomato, PolicyBazaar.com, and Paytm whose valuation had hit $16 billion before it went for an IPO, though its current market cap stands at $13.47 billion.