India’s unicorns: Startups were prioritizing growth for the last two years and pouring billions of dollars into the country’s startup ecosystem. COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions spurred demand for technology-based offerings, and most founders focused on ‘growth at all costs to capitalize on this.
India’s unicorns: Of the 51 unicorns in India that filed results for FY 2021-22 with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), only six are profitable. These companies were giving priority to growth for the last two years and were investing billions of dollars in the startup ecosystem of the country. The demand for technology-based offerings had increased due to Covid-19 stay-at-home restrictions, and to capitalize on this, most founders focused on ‘growth at all costs’. Even though the unicorns managed to post strong revenue growth for the year, it did so at the cost of huge expenses. This increased their losses.
A year ago there were 9 unicorns in profit.
While nine unicorns were profitable in FY21, three of them turned lost in FY22.
The data has been compiled from regulatory filings, the private market information portal Tracxn, and information from media reports. Listed unicorns like Zomato, Paytm, and Delhivery have been excluded from this data. Also, Zerodha and Zoho are different, as these companies technically cannot be called unicorns as they haven’t raised external funding yet.
This company got the maximum profit
Of the 51 unicorns, OfBusiness reported the highest profit of Rs 201 crore in the financial year, almost four times as compared as Rs 56 crore a year ago, the data showed.
The company, which has multiple investors including SoftBank, Tiger Global, and Alpha Wave Global, managed to register 313 percent year-on-year revenue growth during FY22.
Infra. Market, a platform providing services to the construction industry, was the only other unicorn to post a profit of over Rs 100 crore during the year. In FY22, the company’s profit increased five times on an annual basis.
During this period, the profit of BrowserStack increased by 60 percent to Rs 75.3 crore. On the other hand, Uniphore Software registered a profit of Rs 33.5 crore, while the company had a loss of Rs 282 crore a year ago.
It is worth noting that none of the eight fintech unicorns included in the group of 51 turned profitable. BharatPe reported the highest-ever loss of over Rs 5,600 crore in FY22, but this was largely due to non-operating expenses of around Rs 5,000 crore.
Note: INDIA’S UNICORNS: Data compiled from regulatory filings, private market information portal TRACXN, and information from media reports
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