Unicorns count may leap to 100 this year

Bengaluru: India can be home to at least 100 unicorns by end of this year as more than 50 startups have the potential of turning into unicorn during this period.

According to a report by global consultancy firm PwC, valuation of startups in India has surged during 2021 owing to ample liquidity and investors' interest. The country added 43 unicorns last year to take the total count to 68 during this period.

"We can see that the base of the companies in the growth stage and late-stage deals have improved significantly in CY21, depicting a stronger base of companies having the potential to reach unicorn status," PwC's partner for deals and startups Amit Nawka said. He added that the total number of unicorns may go beyond 100 by end of 2022 on the back of large base of startups and favourable sentiment.

As per the report of PwC, the list of 50 potential unicorns included companies such as Khatabook, Whatfix, Practo, Ninjacart, Inshorts, Ecom Express, Pepperfry and Livspace among others. All these companies have raised more than $100 million in various funding rounds so far.

The report said about $35 billion was raised by Indian startups in over 1,000 rounds of funding in 2021, which was 1.5 times higher than the previous year. Edtech, software as a service and fintech sectors witnessed the highest activity.

Meanwhile, given the wealth and job creation potential of startup ecosystem, Indian government has announced 16 January to be celebrated as the National Startup Day.

The government has taken various measures including Startup India, removing problems of 'angel tax', simplification of tax procedure, public funding, allowing self-certification of nine labour and three environment laws for promoting startups in the country.

According to Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), the government-registered startups have created up to 6.5 lakh jobs in the country. More than 60,000 startups have been recognised by the DPIIT since 2016. The government aims to create 20 lakh new jobs in the sector by officially registering 50,000 new startups, over the next 4 years.