India's 'Unicorn' producing gathers pace, 8 new startups join club in 2018

Average time taken by startups to be a $1 billion firm now stands at 5-7 years, next only to China, says Nasscom report

India is producing Unicorns at a pace not seen before. In 2018 alone, eight new start-ups joined the coveted Unicorn club, a group of companies that are valued over $1 billion individually.

An uptick in late-stage deals and confidence amongst investors to support large businesses have allowed start-ups to scale faster. Consequently, the average time taken to attain a billion-dollar valuation has also come down to 5-7 years, industry body Nasscom said in a report on Thursday.

In this regard, India only trails China, a country with considerable government support to the corporates, where average ‘time to Unicorn’ is 4-6