Byju’s, Paytm Among Top 20 Unicorns Of The World! Unicorn Startups Double In 2 Years

• The Count Of Unicorn Startups In The World Crossed 500 Last Week.
• The Number Of Startups Emerging As Unicorns Doubled Over The Last Two Years.

Looks like the economic recession caused because of the rise of COVID 19 pandemic has not affected the ability of investors to fund startups. As many as 89 startups have climbed up their valuation to more than 1 billion dollars making the unicorns cross the count of 500.

The presumptions that pandemic will have a negative impact on the startup ecosystem has been wronged. On the contrary, the increased digitisation has worked in the favour of startups as the number of startups joining the unicorn club has doubled over the last two years. It took four years for the world to reach 250 unicorns, while the last 250 have come in half that time 

Which countries are contributing to the list?

The US-Israel cybersecurity startup Forter became the 500th unicorn last week. As per the global market research firm CB Insights, currently there are 504 unicorn startups valuating 1,592 billion dollars altogether.

The US leads the race with 242 unicorns among the 500 unicorn startups and China following it with a count of 119. India with 25 and the UK with 24 unicorn startups stand at third and fourth place respectively. Some other countries contributing to the list are Germany, South Korea, Israel, Brazil, France, Indonesia, and Japan.

Which Indian startups have made upto the list? 

Among the 25 Indian startups in the unicorn list, Paytm, with a valuation of 16 billion dollars,  ranked ninth in the list which makes it the only startup that could make its place at top 10.  

BYJU’S ranking 19th with a valuation of 12 billion accompanied Paytm in the top 20.

According to CB insights, OYO ($7.7 billion), Snapdeal ($6.5 billion), NSE India ($6.5 billion), Ola ($6.3 billion), Swiggy ($3.6 billion), and Zomato ($3.6 billion) are the other Indian startups in top 100.

CARS24, platform for used cars, is the newest startup to join India’s unicorn club. Before that, Edtech startup Unacademy, which is currency valued at 2 billion, joined the club in September.

Which startups are valued the most?

The parent company of Tiktok, ByteDance, continues to top the list with a valuation of $140 billion. The company is also the only startup valued over $100 billion, hectocorn, in the list.

Others in the global top 10 include Didi Chuxing, SpaceX, Stripe, Airbnb, Kuaishou, InstaCart, Epic Games, Paytm, and DoorDash.

CB insights reported that among all the startups that emerged as unicorns in 2019-2020, around 20% were fintech and 13% were AI startups.