Practo, BharatPe and Grofers in line to be the next Indian unicorns

India is fast emerging as a start-up nation. In around a decade, the Indian start-up eco­system has scaled to be­come the third-largest start-up hub in the world, followed by the US and China.
 
To gauge the success of start-ups 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 start-ups. It has come up with the launch of the second edition of India’s soonicorns list. The list includes  35 start-ups that have the potential to achieve a $1 billion-plus valuation (unicorn) in the near future.

 
“The prosperous and vibr­ant start-up 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 start-ups 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 firms are Practo, cure.fit, Ind­egene, Ecom Express, Dunzo, and BrowserStack.

 
In the previous edition released in December 2020, Praxis had shortlisted 34 start- ups that are nearing a $1 billion valuation. Of those 34, four start-ups, including Digit Insurance, CRED, Innovaccer, and PharmEasy have already entered the coveted unicorn club, while one start-up filed for the IPO.
 
Experts said 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.