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Seven months into 2021, India has had 18 startups enter the unicorn club.
The latest is Gurugram-based B2B startup OfBusiness, which raised a $160 million round led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2. Existing investors Falcon Edge Capital and Matrix Partners also participated in the round.
The funding almost doubled the startup’s valuation from $800 million to $1.5 billion, making it the 18th unicorn to enter the coveted $1 billion valuation club this year.
This year, the Indian startup ecosystem has raised record funding. In the first six months, total funding raised by Indian startups touched $10.15 billion, already exceeding the $9.94 billion raised in the whole of 2020. This was raised across 543 deals from around 1,020 active investors in the ecosystem.
The Interview
Jumbotail is a leading B2B marketplace and a new retail platform that is empowering India’s kirana stores.
Karthik Venkateswaran, Co-founder and CEO, Jumbotail and Ashish Jhina – COO and Co-founder, Jumbotail talks about using capital optimally to empower kirana stories.
Editor’s Pick: The journey to starting Protonn
Anil Goteti, a key executive at Flipkart, and Mausam Bhatt wanted to do something that scales to millions of users. The duo looked at fintech, and they looked at ideas that can help people communicate better, and launched Protonn.
The business-in-a-box platform is targeted at individual professionals offering services such as video marketing, scheduling, payments, and CRM amongst others. Read more.
Startup Spotlight
Making differentiated beauty products
Garima Juneja observed that most beauty blenders absorb the foundation rather than blending it into the skin. So, she launched D2C beauty product startup Plume Beauty with an initial investment of Rs 1 lakh in 2019.
Plume claims to have generated Rs 96 lakh in gross revenue in FY21, and the firm estimates that it will reach Rs 5 crore revenue in FY22. Read more.
Credit: YS Design
News & Updates
Before you go, stay inspired with…
“The time for disruption in B2B commerce in traditional sectors of the economy was long overdue and has arrived.”
— Asish Mohapatra, CEO and Co-founder, OfBusiness
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