The year that began with shock of lockdowns
The year which began with the fear of Wuhan Corona Virus spread all across the world saw the longest lockdowns ever. This had a major impact on the economy - especially of India - as it imposed one of the strictest lockdowns.
However release of liquidity (money) by Central Banks of various countries ensured that easy money was available to businesses.
And many businesses, the ones sensing higher business due to lockdown, quickly went into expansion mode.
Indian Startups weather the storm
Some Indian startups managed to weather the storm, post impressive revenue figures and raise funding to gain a valuation of more than $1 Bn and enter the unicorn club.
In all, 11 Indian startups —
- Unacademy,
- Pine Labs,
- FirstCry,
- Zenoti,
- Nykaa,
- Postman,
- Zerodha,
- Razorpay,
- Cars24,
- Dailyhunt and
- Glance —
became unicorns this year. As experts have pointed out, the core propositions of these startups were ones that actually solved challenges for individuals and businesses during the lockdown for a large portion of the year.
3rd largest number of unicorns
Aileen Lee first wrote about Unicorns
According to Investopedia - A unicorn is a term used in the venture capital industry to describe a privately held startup company with a value of over $1 billion. The term was first popularized by venture capitalist Aileen Lee, founder of CowboyVC, a seed stage venture capital fund based in Palo Alto, California.
Aileen Lee first wrote about unicorns in the venture capital world in her article, "Welcome to the Unicorn Club: Learning from Billion-Dollar Startups." Here, she looked at software startups founded in the 2000s and estimated that only 0.07% of them ever reach $1 billion valuation. Startups that managed to reach the $1 billion mark, she noted, are so rare that finding one is as difficult as finding a mythical unicorn.
(Disclaimer : This blog is for information purposes only)
