In the startup domain, unicorn is a term that denotes a tech startup which has a market valuation of over $1 billion. The term was coined by startup researcher Aileen Lee and Ms Lee discovered that only 0.07% of startups achieve a scale of more than $1 billion.
A remarkable feature of India’s start-up system is that the number of unicorns in India is rising in these years. Startup tracker Tracxn, India produced 17 unicorns in 2020 compared to China’s 16. But China has the second-highest number of unicorns in the world with a number or 177, compared to India’s 72.
The US has the largest number of unicorns with 402 unicorns as of end-August 2021. China has the second largest (158) followed by India (40), and the UK (31). Still, there is big momentum in India regarding the creation of new unicorns as nearly 40% of Indian unicorns are added in 2021. The largest number of Indian unicorns in 2021 were from fintech and financial services sectors.
*********
