By Tanya Jain
Indian startups should start focusing on sustainability, and stop chasing Unicorn tag.
The Indian Startup landscape has boomed immensely in recent years. Spurred on by a more entrepreneurial mindset, we see young generations more keen on starting their own business plans is giving a boom to the unicorn culture.
We have companies which are suddenly emerging as trendsetters within their market segment. With an almost infinite potential to grow, these companies try to catch big investors who seek quick returns on their investment. These companies are called startups. And the ones which are valued at over $1 billion are termed as unicorns.
If we Talk about the biggest startups in recent times, and one can instantly recognize some names as multinational, mega corps which hire the best talents available in the industry.
We’re talking of the likes of Uber, Xiaomi, Airbnb, Snapchat, Dropbox, Spotify for a total of 145 companies valued at over $1 billion.
But it’s quite interesting to see where India stands in this field .Unsurprisingly, Indian ecommerce giant Flipkart is at the top of the pecking order here, followed by the likes of Ola cabs, Snapdeal, One97 Communications (the group behind PayTM), Zomato, Quikr and Mu Sigma.
India alone has 100 unicorns with a combined market capitalisation of $240 billion, and two-thirds of them have started after 2005 because of remarkable changes seen in the funding, infrastructure, regulatory and business fronts.
A unicorn is a privately held startup company with a valuation of over $1 billion. At the Prarambh: Startup India International Summit on January 16, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said there were only four Indian startups in the “unicorn club” in 2014, which grew to over 30.
With a rapidly growing economy, the market capitalisation of listed equities in India has grown to a certain level, making India the eighth largest market globally, and only 7% away from being the sixth largest after the US, China, HK, Japan and the UK.
The list of 100 unicorns include some of the major and well known companies like Wonder Cement, GRT Jewellers, Manipal Hospitals, Joyalukkas, Kurl-On, Serum Institute of India, Oravel Stays (Oyo Rooms), Piramal Glass, Policybazaar Insurance, Vishal Mega Mart, CarDekho, Cars24, Flipkart, Lenskart, UrbanClap, ReNew Power Ventures, Hero Fincorp, National Stock Exchange, Zomato and Haldiram’s.
There are many other companies as well that are being highlighted into ‘the unicorn club’ such as OYO.
Summing up, we can’t ignore the fact that unicorn culture is starting to be beneficial for india’s economy but if the situation is judged on a macro level, We can say that transforming the whole source of economy towards this culture can become a threat in the near future.
The budding entrepreneurs should stop running behind the tag and focus more on building up the foundation of their company so that they are ready to face the competition from the western culture.