Companies valued in excess of $1 Billion are Unicorns, and parent companies/promoters behind Grofers, Oyo Rooms and Freshdesk might just be on the verge of reaching that milestone. This conclusion came out in a fresh CB Insights report, which the firm released yesterday.
New York Times researched and found out that seven Indian firms are already unicorns, though not all of them are incorporated here in India. More popular brand names out of those seven, include Flipkart, Ola Cabs, PayTM and Zomato. In all, NYT notes that there are 131 unicorns currently, with seven of them being Indian.
Quikr too is on the verge of getting in to that list, with its investor valuing it already at $900 Million
The CB Insights’ Next-50 Unicorns list, was built upon by the research firm by running a data screen and factoring in the amount of funding raised, employee turnover and social media mentions.
Grofers, as you must already be aware, is a hyperlocal delivery service, which gets your groceries, food, toiletries and other items for you, in a guaranteed delivery time of 90 minutes. The service is headquartered in Gurgaon, and has raised close to $45 Million in 3 rounds, with the most recent one getting it $36 Million from two of the biggest investors into Indian startups — Tiger Global and Sequoia.
Net up, is Freshdesk, which is the oldest of these three, perhaps the closest to reaching the unicorn status. Freshdesk enables companies to provide multichannel support via phone, email, chat, website, social networks and mobile apps. It has raised close to $95 Million in 6 funding rounds till date.
Oyo Rooms, which is the newest of them all is the one to watch out though. Oyo just raised a massive $100 Million in its recent funding round, taking it way past the other two in the fray and accelerating its growth towards becoming a unicorn.
