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Indian startups are marching towards the coveted unicorn club at an unprecedented pace, with Hyderabad-based SaaS startup Darwinbox being the latest entrant. Underneath the ever-growing list of unicorns, the valuation of early-stage startups also increased in the last two years, noted Bipin Shah, Partner at Titan Capital. 

Since its inception in 2015, Titan Capital has identified and seed invested in more than 200 startups, including six unicorns Ola, Mamaearth, Urban Company, Razorpay, Snapdeal, and Ofbusiness.

In a conversation with Siddhartha Ahluwalia, Founder and Host of 100x Entrepreneur Podcast, Bipin said, “Until 2019, a great startup idea with an awesome team would be valued around $2-3 million, which has now gone up to more than $10 million.”

Titan Capital’s deals were traditionally classified as Titan Seed Deals (TSD), where the valuation is less than Rs 20 crore, and High Valuations Deals (HVD) for valuations between Rs 20 crore and Rs 100 crore. And Bipin noted that most of the recent deals since mid-2021 have fallen under the HVD category, and added that the average startup in the fund’s portfolio has a valuation of Rs 40-50 crore.

He stated that Titan Capital’s approach to seed investing is purely like gardening: it takes time, stress, and focus to help portfolio companies that are not doing well. Read more.

The Interview 

Ready to build your first product prototype? Sequoia India’s Anadamoy Roychowdhry shares a few tips, such as thinking about distribution early on, building to throw away, and utilising no-code tools when you’re just starting. 

Check out the first part of this series on why core loops are necessary when creating the minimum viable product (MVP).

Editor’s Pick: Pickright Technologies

When Archana Elapavuluri joined the workforce, she immediately wanted to start investing — right from her first paycheck. However, she did not find a platform that would help her choose the right type of investment.

Archana discovered there was a need for a platform that makes it effortless, easy, and efficient to manage money by helping people to invest in smart curated portfolios. This laid the foundation for Pickright Technologies, a Bengaluru-based wealthtech startup she founded with former colleague Namandeep Bhatia in 2019. Read more.

Startup Spotlight

Buy debt instruments with Zerodha-backed Wint Wealth 

Having worked in the investment banking industry for a long time, Ajinkya Kulkarni realised there was a discernable gap between exclusive investment opportunities offered to high-net-worth individuals (HNIs), and the low-yield, traditional options offered to retail investors.

To solve this, he launched Wint Wealth in 2020, which helps retail investors buy debt instruments that were earlier exclusive to UHNIs. Over the last 1.5 years, the startup has garnered Rs 100 crore-plus in assets under management (AUM)  from users on its platform. Read more.

News & Updates

• A cross-border India-UAE VC fund to invest in startups in both these countries with a corpus of $150 million was launched from the India Pavilion at EXPO2020 Dubai. The VC fund is set up with the purpose to source, invest, and nurture promising ventures through an accelerator to fuel the growth of Indian and UAE startups. The investors in this fund will be from UAE, India, and GCC countries.

Before you go, stay inspired with… 

“This generation has got the front row seat to the biggest technology revolution of our lifetime.” 

— Puneet Chandok, President, India and South Asia, AWS

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