Top 10 startups in India 2022 with in depth details

By Startup Authority June 22

Top 1n startups in india 2022, Best startups in india, Success story of top 10 startups : With 92 unicorn startups by 2022, the Indian startup ecosystem has had the highest growth globally. The term "Unicorn Startup" is made up of the words "Unicorn" and "Startup". Aileen Lee, a venture capitalist and investor, came up with the phrase "unicorn," which describes a firm valued at more than $1 billion. A startup business, on the other hand, is a privately held business that is still developing.

According to statistics, Indian companies closed 1,584 agreements in 2021, raising $42 billion. In India, more than 60,000 companies have been founded since 2016, creating more than 6 lakh new jobs across 56 different industries. President Ram Nath Kovind notably highlighted how Indian startups are ushering in a new era of opportunity for Indians in his speech on January 31, 2022.

Top 10 Startups in India

Flipkart

● Startup Name – Flipkart
● Headquarters – Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
● Industry – E-commerce, Marketplace
● Founders – Binny Bansal, Sachin Bansal
● Founded – 2007
● Investors – Walmart, Tencent, Softbank and more
● Products and Services – E-commerce marketplace that offers over 150 million products
● Valuation – $37.6+ Billion (July 2021)
● Total funding- $12.6+ Billion (January 2022)
● Revenue- $5.83+ Billion

Flipkart About

In 2007, Sachin and Binny Bansal established the Indian e-commerce business Flipkart. Bengaluru, India is home to the company's headquarters. Flipkart, which sells a huge variety of goods online like Amazon, has only seen highs since its launch. In May 2018, the American retail behemoth Walmart paid $16 billion to acquire Flipkart. Walmart is renowned for its innovative business approach in addition to its commanding global market position in the retail sector that it was created by Sam Walton.

Flipkart initially concentrated on selling books, but the company's catalogue has now expanded to include items in the electronics, fashion, home goods, grocery, and lifestyle product categories. Flipkart is India's top online retailer thanks to its more than 1 billion customers who have used it to make purchases.

Currently, Flipkart has more than 100 million registered users, 100,000+ vendors, and more than 21 cutting-edge warehouses. Additionally, it boasts over 8 million monthly shipments and over 10 million daily page views. Currently, Flipkart acts as a Walmart subsidiary. Kalyan Krishnamurthy serves as the Flipkart Group's CEO at the moment.

Flipkart - Startup Story

When Sachin and Binny Bansal, IIT-Delhi grads, started considering starting their own business in India, they were working as Amazon workers. Even though Sachin had been a long-time employee of Amazon, the latter seemed to be quite dissatisfied with the company and recommended Binny join the same.

When Binny Bansal and Sachin came up with the idea of starting an eCommerce company, he chose to leave the company because it was like a "12 to 3 job or something."

From a two-bedroom flat in Bengaluru's Koramangala neighbourhood, Sachin and Binny founded Flipkart as an online book retailer. They first funded their start-up with $4,000,000 from their own funds.

When Sachin and Binny saw success selling books back in 2007, they decided to expand to electronics as well. By 2014, the company had reached a valuation of $1 billion, making it one of India's most valuable startups.

When Sachin and Binny founded Flipkart, online shopping in India was still only a distant dream for them. However, their dedication and perseverance paid off, and they became wildly successful businesspeople who ranked quite high on the list of successful Indian entrepreneurs.

Flipkart - Products/Services

The largest eCommerce site in India, Flipkart, offers more than 80 million products in more than 80 different categories. Flipkart sells a variety of goods, from electronics like laptops, tablets, and smartphones to trendy clothing, shoes, and lifestyle accessories. It also sells contemporary furniture like sofa sets, dining tables, and wardrobes as well as convenience items like washing machines, TVs, ACs, mixer grinder juicers, and other time-saving kitchen and small appliances.

Flipkart carries everything from toys and musical instruments to household furnishings including mattress toppers, bedsheets, and cushion covers. You may be sure to find whatever you're looking for right here.

Flipkart - Business Model and Revenue Model

Flipkart employs a B2C, or business-to-consumer, business model. The business started out by selling books and a few other things directly to consumers. Today, it has developed into a market with a vast selection of goods, ranging from FMCG to electronics and literature. Over a million sellers from all over India are registered with Flipkart, which claims to have over 80 categories. It is an omnichannel service provider that adopted the similar strategy following Walmart's purchase of Flipkart. Binny Bansal, who along with Sachin Bansal co-founded Flipkart, remarked at Recode's Code Commerce conference: "Sometime in the future, especially with some categories, omnichannel would make a tonne of sense. It is unquestionably something that will exist in the future.

Almost the majority of the business' operating income comes from the selling of products.

Flipkart - Funding and Investors

Over the course of 26 rounds, Flipkart has raised a total of $12.6+ billion in financing. From its Singapore-based parent company, Flipkart most recently raised $233 million for the business. Before two of its biggest sales, Big Bachat Dhamal and Flipkart TV Days, the business cleaned up the money.

On July 12, 2021, a corporate round led by GIC, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Walmart, and other investors raised $3.6 billion for the eCommerce behemoth.

Flipkart launched in 2007 with a $6000 seed investment. A venture capital company called Accel India contributed $1 million in funding in 2008. By 2012, South African Tec Major Naspers has declared Flipkart a unicorn firm and announced additional funding of $150 million. Flipkart was able to secure $210 million in finance from DST Global after acquiring Myntra in 2014. In a deal that increased its overall valuation to $15 billion as of May 2015, Flipkart raised $550 million from some of its current investors.

Flipkart received $1.4 billion in a new round of fundraising in April 2017 at a valuation of $11.6 billion from eBay, Microsoft, and Tencent. Walmart, a US-based retail giant, paid US$16 billion in August 2018 to acquire a 77 percent share in Flipkart, giving it a $20 billion valuation. In November of the same year, this was raised even further to 81.3 percent. On August 18, 2018, the purchase was finalised. Additionally, Walmart gave the business $2 billion in stock capital.

In what is regarded as one of the largest funding rounds in the history of consumer internet enterprises in India, Flipkart raised approximately $3.6 billion on July 12, 2021 from a round headed by GIC, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Walmart, and others. With its most recent purchase, Flipkart hopes to increase its investment in infrastructure, enhance its supply chain, digitise grocery shops, and add to it by investing in people and technology. Additionally, SoftBank made a comeback with this investment after leaving in 2018 when Walmart acquired the business. Softbank is also in discussions to invest $300-500 million in the Bangalore-based business in the next few months.

On July 12, 2021, Flipkart had a valuation of $37.6 billion and was getting ready to go public. According to news from April 8, 2022, the most well-known ecommerce company increased its objective for IPO valuation. According to Reuters reporting, the company has reportedly increased its IPO valuation to $60-$70 billion and is planning to list on the US stock exchanges in 2023 rather than 2022.

Flipkart - Growth and Revenues

Flipkart proudly talks about its success, from its bootstrapped beginnings to the prosperity it is currently experiencing. Although the company appeared to be in some danger once US-based Amazon entered the Indian marketplaces, the threat is no longer present thanks to Kalyan Krishnamurthy's appointment as group CEO and Flipkart's acquisition of Walmart.

Currently, Flipkart India is the top eCommerce site in India. When the seasonal sales in October 2021 were last recorded, the Walmart-owned Indian eCommerce company had clocked an amazing 64 percent market share.

BYJU's

● Headquarter- Bangalore
● Founder- Byju Raveendran
● Sector- Edtech
● Founded- 2011
● Valuation- $22 Billion (March 2022)
● Total Funding- $2.9 Billion (September 2021)
● Revenue- $310.19 mn (Rs 2,381 Cr in FY20)
● Parent Organization- Think and Learn Private Ltd

About BYJU's and How BYJU's Works

BYJU's is an online tutoring and coaching business that was founded in 2011 and is based in Bangalore. It utilizes a freemium business model. Think and Learn Pvt Ltd is the parent company of BYJU. For students in grades 1 through 12, as well as those preparing for competitive examinations like the IIT-JEE, NEET, CAT, GRE, and GMAT, BYJU's primary goal is to offer tutoring through online video lectures.

The Learning app, BYJU was released in 2015 and has been a tremendous hit. More than 15 million students utilise it globally, and 9,00,000 of them are paying customers. Instead of relying on lecturing, the software encourages independent learning in the students. Its strategy combines the re-invention of learning with top-notch lecturers, tried-and-true pedagogical techniques, and individualised instruction.

BYJU's - Startup Story

Byju Raveendran is considered under top 10 successful entrepreneurs in india worked as an engineer for a UK-based shipping company and was from the little town of Azhikode in the state of Kerala. He began assisting his friends as they studied for the CAT exam, which served as an entrance exam for the top business schools in India, while he was still employed. Byju took the exam to test himself and received a perfect score! Instead of enrolling in an IIM, he began preparing pupils for math examinations.

He initially attended free math workshops before beginning to charge when he became assured of his abilities. More than 20000 students once attended one of his workshops because they were so well-liked at the time.

He was inspired to begin teaching at BYJU by his former students who had graduated from the IIMs. Then, "Think and Learn Pvt Ltd" was established to produce educational content for pupils. In the first year alone after its launch in 2015, Byju's - The Learning App had more than 5.5 million downloads.

BYJU's - Business Model and Revenue Model

Byju's employs a freemium business model, providing customers with both free and premium (paid) services. The business requests the students' information through its website or application in exchange for a free 15-day trial. The student must purchase the courses from BYJU's in order to access the full content after the free trial has ended. The business offers one-on-one mentoring to its customers and also gives feedback to the parents of the children. Additionally, BYJU's provides classroom instruction in Noida, Gurgaon, and other locations.

The revenue is generated in BYJU's in three ways:

● The first is done using the app. Students who want to continue their education on BYJU's must buy the courses after the 15-day free trial period. People are actually compelled to buy the app because it provides a range of test series, courses, etc.

● Customers must purchase electronic tablets from BYJU's when they purchase the course of their choosing. This tablet has materials for the course, including videos, exams, practise questions, and quizzes.

● Teaching in a classroom is the third method of generating income. Only a few towns are allowed to provide these seminars.

BYJU's - Funding and Investors

On March 11, 2022, BYJU's raised $800 million in a new round of fundraising, with $400 million coming from a variety of investors, including Sumeru Ventures, Vitruvian Partners, and BlackRock, with the remaining $400 million coming from Byju's boss, Byju Raveendran. At the end of the round, Byju will reportedly be valued at $22 billion.

On November 8, 2021, the Edtech behemoth increased its prior funding by $1.2 billion through a debt financing. On October 4, 2021, Byju's raised about $286.61 million (about Rs 2200 crores) from more than a dozen investors at a valuation of $18 billion.

Given that it has already raised more than $2 billion in 2021 alone, the Edtech giant appears to be on a fundraising binge. Prior to this, it collected $350 million from the UBS Group, Blackstone, the inventor of Zoom, and about $50 million from IIFL and Maitri Edtech.

BYJU's was the first business in Asia to get money from the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative in 2016, a project started by Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, and his wife Priscilla Chan.

After receiving $150 million in funding in September 2021, BYJU's valuation increased from its previous valuation of $16.5 billion in June 2021 to an estimated $16.87 billion, making it the most valuable startup in India. The funding round was spearheaded by UBS Group, Eric Yuan, Blackstone, and others.

Challenges faced by BYJU's

According to Byju Raveendran, the company's creator, BYJU's faces a significant difficulty in turning students into paying customers after the free trial period has over. Finding suitable partners to help with this expansion is the second challenge for the company, which is also working to expand to other English-speaking nations.

BYJU's - Growth and Revenue

BYJU's is a startup that is quite inventive and has experienced tremendous commercial success. It uses strict promotional tactics. One of Bollywood's most well-known actors, Shahrukh Khan, represents BYJU's as its brand ambassador. The business has successfully entered the Indian market and has also made a name for itself in the Middle East. South Africa, the United States, the United Kingdom, and other international markets are among those that BYJU's plans to enter. BYJU's purchased US-based learning platform Osmo in January 2019 to increase its presence there. Additionally, the business collaborated with Disney to release an early learning software for classes 1-3.

BYJU's was recently in the limelight as well for its proactive response to the coronavirus crisis. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, schools were forced to close in various parts of India. To ensure that students could continue their studies without interruption, BYJU's made its learning app free for students until the end of April 2020.

BYJU's - Future Plans

Byju's is currently intending to invest up to $200 million on the Byju's Tuition Center (BTC) over the following 12 to 18 months, starting in February 2022. Over the following two years, Byju's hopes to enrol approximately 1 million pupils under this approach. This product is currently being tested as a pilot by the Byju Raveendran-led edtech giant in about 23 cities and 80 centres. By the end of 2022, 500 centres will be spread across 200 cities.

Nykaa

Headquarters- Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Industry- Cosmetics, Beauty, Online shopping
Founder- Falguni Nayar
Founded- 2012
Total Funding- $341.9 mn (December 2021)
Revenue- $485.75 Million (INR 3773.9 cr in FY2022)
Valuation- $13+ Billion (November 2021)
Parent Organization- FSN E-Commerce Ventures Ltd.

About Nyka

Nykaa is a retailer of cosmetic products that operates both online and offline. The business also provides extensive material, such as product reviews, how-to videos for beauty, essays authored by industry professionals, and even an online beauty magazine. The Nykaa hotline is intended to assist consumers in selecting goods and services that are suitable for their need. The goods are real because they are obtained directly from the manufacturers and are also offered for delivery by the beauty and health brand!

Presently, Nykaa delivers its goods to Nepal in addition to the rest of the Indian subcontinent, and it will soon begin doing the same for many additional nations.

Nyka startup story

Falguni Nayar, the company's founder, received her initial inspiration from the inconsistent nature of the beauty product market. Despite the huge market demand, the beauty and cosmetics market in India could not match the product range as it did in other countries like France and Japan. The products were also found to be unavailable in numerous locations around the nation, all of which contributed to the creation of Nykaa.

In the year 2012, Falguni Nayar founded Nykaa. It was first established as an internet business before becoming an omnichannel strategy.

Nykaa, a Mumbai-based firm, is well-known for the extensive selection of fashion, intimate apparel, and beauty and cosmetics products that it offers online, through its website, mobile app, and online storefronts. One of the brand's key goals is to make ordinary ladies remarkable in every way.

Nykaa - Marketing Strategy

Due to its effective marketing plan, which is built with digital marketing at its core, Nykaa has established itself as one of the most knowledgeable companies in the beauty and fashion industries. The brand pitches all possible clients from Tier 2, 3, and 4 cities in addition to Tier 1 cities, where it primarily concentrates on marketing.

Social Media Marketing

For the marketing of its internal brand My Nykaa, Nykaa beauty for the promotion of its e-commerce platform, Nykaa fashion for the promotion of its e-commerce apparel store, and Nykaa beauty book for the assistance of the audience with numerous beauty and makeup tips, the company has four social media accounts.

The business has accounts on a variety of social media sites to actively market its brand there. Through its social media accounts, the brand also posts the material produced by its influencers. Influencer marketing is therefore crucial to the promotion of Nykaa.

Youtube Marketing

Nykaa has a comprehensive YouTube marketing plan. Instead of emphasising product sales on its Youtube channel, the brand prefers to focus on providing its target customers with consumable content, such as beauty, personal care, and cosmetic techniques.

Additionally, the company occasionally targets its clients with YouTube advertising. As a result, Nykaa's Youtube marketing is supported by relevant adverts and high-quality content that keeps viewers interested.

Content Marketing
Nykaa's content marketing is its main source of income. The D2C beauty and fashion sector provides the audience with a choice of consumable information, which aids in their conversion into buyers.

Nykaa publishes blogs on beauty, cosmetics, and personal care on its own blog called "Nykaa Beauty Book." The company also produces video material, including DIYs, cosmetic tutorials, and other things.

Event Marketing

Event marketing is yet another crucial marketing tactic that Nykaa uses to reach its target audience at the ideal moment and location.

Nykaa is still associated with the well-known Femina Miss India competition, one of the biggest beauty pageants in India, after successfully sponsoring it on several occasions.

Nykaa - Business Model

Using an inventory-based business model, Nykaa is a D2C consumer goods eCommerce brand. The business purchases its goods directly from producers and stores them in its designated warehouses in Bangalore, Mumbai, and New Delhi. These goods can be purchased through Nykaa's three offline retail formats—Nykaa Luxe, Nykaa On Trend, and Nykaa Kiosks—or through the company's website.

The company's inventory-led business model has produced profitable sales and excellent profit margins for the company. Additionally, the business follows competitive pricing practises and guarantees the products' authenticity.

Nykaa - Revenue Model

hrough the below-mentioned ways, Nykaa earns its revenue:

● Sale of products

The brand's main source of income comes from the sale of both its own items and those of its affiliated companies.

● Banner advertisements

The business receives a lot of traffic from its banner adverts, many of which result in sales.

Other sources of income for the brand include discount income, commission income, and other income.

Nykaa - Funding And Investors

In its sensational launch on the Indian stock exchanges, Nykaa's worth surpassed the $13 billion mark. The shares of the well-known Indian cosmetics platform first began trading at a premium of 82 percent, but they have since risen to a level of almost 96 percent. $341.9 million is the approximate total funding amount.

Nykaa - Growth

Currently, Nykaa boasts processing 1.5+ million orders each month and having over 17 million monthly active users. As of October 2021, the following are some other brand growth highlights:

● More than 15 million people are reportedly enrolled on Nykaa.
● There are 105 of stores in India.
● 23 warehouses are located throughout 11 Indian cities.
● The business claims to offer over 4000 brands.
● More than 3.1 million SKUs are available on Nykaa, which may be accessed through its website, through its app, or at its physical locations.

When the company saw a drop in sales of up to 70% in April 2020 due to the lockdown brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, Nykaa had its difficult times. The business reacted quickly, though, and listed all the necessities to keep them in stock while removing all the other non-deliverable merchandise. The business then started utilising the capability of its hyperlocal distribution to advance its physical locations.

By the end of 2020, Nykaa had quickly recovered from the COVD-19 pandemic's negative impacts and had already restored more than 90% of its previous state.

Consumers have made a significant shift toward essential categories, such as personal skin and hair care products, according to the unicorn cosmetics and beauty products brand. As a result, it was able to grow faster than its competitors after the coronavirus outbreak. The company's transition from an internet approach to an omnichannel retail model also had a significant role in the same. All of these not only altered how consumers viewed the brand, but also enabled Nykaa to reach audiences that it had not previously reached or may have been unable to.

Nykaa - Future Plans

The corporation wants to grow its offline market. By building 180 outlets across India by 2024, it hopes to increase the amount of offline evidence it has. In order to improve the client experience, Nykaa is currently eager to extend its fulfilment centres across the nation. Additionally, it intends to increase its warehousing capacity by 40%.

BharatPe

● Headquarters- Delhi, India
● Sector- Fintech
● Founders- Ashneer Grover, Bhavik Koladiya, Shashvat Nakrani
● Founded- April 2018
● Total Funding- $720 mn (January 2022)
● Revenue- $93.33 mn (Rs 700 crore in FY21)
● Valuation- $3 bn (January 2022)
● CEO- Suhail Sameer

About BharatPe

BharatPe is a payment software that uses QR codes for offline merchants and retailers. Although the company's headquarters are in New Delhi, there are roughly 5 additional BharatPe offices spread out across the nation. The app is extremely helpful for small business owners and kirana store owners because it enables users to accept UPI payments for free using the BharatPe QR code. BharatPe expands Bharat Swipe (POS machine) for card acceptance and small business finance in addition to providing simple and compatible QR codes for uncomplicated UPI payments. Additionally, the business provides merchant loans up to Rs 7 lakhs, which are available for 3 to 12 month terms.

Additionally, 12% Club, a platform for peer-to-peer lending, is owned by BharatPe. In 2020, BharatPe also debuted the Digital Gold product. Users will be able to trade for 24 karat gold that is 99.5% pure thanks to this.

The BharatPe app's rapid QR code payments enable users to sign in quickly and begin receiving money into their bank accounts right away. From the beginning, BharatPe set out to make payments free for all of its users. Its goal is to benefit everyone.

BharatPe - Business Model

The BharatPe firm, an Indian QR code-based payments provider, uses a business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) model since it benefits both consumers and other businesspeople and merchants. By providing companies with a single interoperable QR sticker, the company's software accepts payments from more than 100 mobile apps downloaded in Indian mobile phones on India's UPI system.

All reputable mobile apps, including PayTm, WhatsApp, Mobikwik, Amazon Pay, BHIM, Google Pay, Freecharge, and TrueCaller, may read the QR code to collect payments. Additionally, retailers receive quick credits for same-day bank account transactions.

As BharatPe brand ambassadors in 2021, cricketers Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Ravindra Jadeja, Suresh Raina, Shreyas Iyer, Prithvi Shaw, Sanju Samson, Yuzvendra Chahal, and Shubhman Gill were recruited.

BharatPe - Revenue Model

The BharatPe business model depends on giving its customers access to a digital payment platform. It also has a separate app for its merchant friends, who get credited for their online purchases as previously mentioned. In reality, it is designed to give retailers credit at lower interest rates.

The business depends on the reciprocal, cyclical relationship between credit and application usage to increase platform income. It's crucial for a young company like BharatPe to concentrate mainly on the merchant side of their business.

BharatSwipe

In the second part of 2020, it has introduced BharatSwipe, a revolutionary card payment acceptance device. Since BharatSwipe is a zero rental Swipe machine and the first of its kind in India, it was met with a resounding reception from the moment it was introduced. With the launch of BharatSwipe, BharatPe's total business experienced a significant growth. According to a BharatPe PR dated March 14, 2022, the network of the POS company (BharatSwipe) has increased by 25X and been made available to over 250 cities in the past 12 months. According to the BharatPe PR, the business has already been successful in installing more than 1.25 lakh BharatSwipe machines in offline stores. It is indeed admirable and may be lauded as a spectacular scale-up of the POS company that BharatPe has accomplished such a feat in a short period of time—roughly 1.5 years.

BharatPe - Funding And Investors

Over the course of its 12 rounds, BharatPe funding has raised $720 million in total. In the near future, the company plans to raise Rs 1,300 crores in debt.

On August 4, 2021, BharatPe secured a $370 million investment from Tiger Global Management LLC as well as other current investors Dragoneer Investment Group, Coatue Management, and Ribbit Capital. This raises the fintech startup's worth to $2.85 billion, making it the 19th unicorn of 2021. BharatPe is also one of the Top 5 most valuable Fintech businesses in India, according to this financing.

BharatPe successfully raised Rs 100 crores ($13.32 million) from MAS Financial Services Pvt Ltd in the final debt financing round on October 25, 2021. The company will bolster its merchant lending niche with the help of new funding. By the end of FY22, BharatPe expects to have raised about $250 million in debt.

Ashneer Grover, the former co-founder and MD of BharatPe, had been on a leave of absence that had initially been voluntary but had subsequently become required by the company's board due to the controversy that had engulfed him from the year's beginning. He would continue to be the "single largest individual shareholder" and still owns about 9.5 percent of the shares of BharatPe, according to data last recorded on February 28, 2022, when he resigned.

Grover underlined that he would not even want to lose out on the shares he boasted of because of the shaky foundation he had been standing on since the end of January, which made returning to the company all but impossible. For this reason, he retained the services of the Delhi, National Capital Region-based law firm Karanjawala & Co. He also appealed to SIAC, but his resignation was obvious and was received on February 28, 2022.

Rajnish Kumar, the chairman of BharatPe, stated on April 2, 2022 that the firm will probably introduce an IPO in the ensuing 18 to 24 months after Ashneer and his wife, Madhuri Grover, left their positions and the boardroom argument was resolved.

BharatPe - Future Goals

The business wanted something fresh, so in 2020 it released a button called Paisa Bolega. By pressing this button, the shopkeeper's phone transforms into a megaphone and announces the amount of the transaction that was received.

According to BharatPe, the needs of retailers will increase, so their next aim is to continue to develop and improve the performance of their app. Additionally, the business just distributed about Rs 140 crores. The company's founder claimed that there hasn't been a change in the shops' need for loans recently, so they plan to carry forward and believe that rent payments and stocking up for inventory payments would soon increase.

In a press release dated July 15, 2021, BharatPe disclosed its future goals to expand its POS business. BharatPe, which currently ranks third among private POS solutions, intends to triple the size of its POS operation, BharatSwipe. With development in mind, BharatPe wants to increase its annualised TPV to $6 billion by the end of FY22. By the conclusion of the following fiscal year, the company hopes to have spread BharatSwipe throughout 80 Indian cities and increase its overall reach by a factor of five.

By FY23, BharatPe hopes to achieve a 10x growth in lending by aggressively ramping up its lending vertical.

When last reported in October 2021, the Delhi-based company's annualised total payment value was just shy of $14 billion. By March 2023, BharatPe plans to build up to roughly $30 billion TPV. Suhail Sameer, the CEO of BharatPe, stated, "Our goal is to establish a lending book of roughly Rs 40,000 crore ($5 billion) in five years.

Paytm

● Headquarters- Noida, Uttar Pradesh
● Industry- FinTech
● Founders- Vijay Shekhar Sharma
● Founded- 2010
● Total Funding- $3.54 billion
● Revenue- $639.20 mn (Rs 4974.2 crore in FY22)
● Valuation- $16 bn (October 2021)
● Parent Organization- One97 Communications

About Paytm

Leading financial service and bill-paying app Paytm provides its users with financial solutions through its platform, including mobile, DTH recharge options, and more. One97 Communications is the parent company of the Paytm online store. In Noida, Uttar Pradesh, is where Paytm's headquarters are located.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma established the Paytm firm in 2010. The platform was first created to assist customers and merchants in sending and receiving money online. To improve the lives of Indians, the business quickly gained popularity and expanded to offer wallet services, e-commerce capabilities, and other things.

With more than 58 million account holders, Paytm Payments Bank is considered to be the largest digital bank in the nation. Systematic Investing Plans (SIP) in the Mutual Funds Industry are supported by "Paytm Money," which is recognised as the largest investment platform. According to news dated March 11, 2022, the RBI just prohibited the Paytm Payments Bank from establishing new accounts for clients. The Paytm Payments Bank would now need certain permits from the RBI in order to onboard new users. According to the bank's comments, "some serious supervisory concerns" were the reason for this. This action is purportedly being taken to retaliate against the subsidiary of the financial giant for breaking the "Storage of Payment System Data" rule.

Additionally, it now has access to start offering its services in the stock market and the National Pension System (NPS). Additionally, Paytm First Games and Paytm Insurance have amassed millions of users worldwide. To aid Indian app developers and business owners, Paytm also introduced a tiny app store.

Paytm - Business and Revenue Model

A marketplace and a payments bank are both part of Paytm's business model. The company's revenue comes from a variety of sources, including the marketplace (Paytm Mall), recharge services, bill payment, payment solutions, paytm wallet, paytm bank, and digital gold for investing.

Fees and commissions from vendors in several categories make up Marketplace's revenue. For revenue from its recharge services, Paytm charges commissions to mobile providers. Nearly all digital transactions use the Paytm Wallet. Paytm makes more money off of our use of its Wallet the more we utilise it.

On the Paytm Money platform, a wholly owned subsidiary of Paytm, "Wealth Basket," which is intended to function like a wealth and advising marketplace, was created by Paytm. The goal of Wealth Basket is to provide specialised consulting services and solutions to retail investors.

Paytm intends to become the go-to app for consumers who want to wisely invest in and increase their money through the launch of these new wealth advising services. Paytm and WealthDesk, a startup in investment technology, have already joined to make this concept a reality. With 400+ investment tech startups, however, experts believe that Paytm is entering an industry that already appears to be rather saturated. According to projections from September 9, 2021, the same market is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 22.4 percent to reach a value of $14.5 Bn by 2025.

Swiss RE is interested in joining the Paytm insurance division's board of directors. According to sources dated October 5, 2021, the Swiss-based reinsurance and the insurance giant are also looking to buy 20–25 percent stakes in the firm, starting with a cash commitment of about $100 million.

The association's goal is to formally establish Paytm's insurance operation. The Swiss RE will readily give the insurance knowledge that the Indian digital payments software and merchant aggregation platform lacks, making the deal worthwhile!

Paytm - Challenges and Controversies

● Paytm app Removed from Play Store

On September 18, 2020, the Paytm app was abruptly withdrawn from the Google Play Store due to apparent violations of the rules governing unlicensed gambling apps. CNBC - TV18 reported that on September 18th, Google issued a statement informing the developers of this problem. We don't allow online unregulated gambling apps that facilitate sports betting, according to Google. Google also said that the software directs users to a third-party website where they may sign up for paid tournaments and compete for real money/cash rewards. People who already had the Paytm app loaded on their phones were not affected by this withdrawal, but new users were forbidden from downloading it again.

The Enforcement Directorate found an online betting scam involving Chinese nationals who had used online wallets like Paytm, Cashfree, and Razorpay, which is how the whole thing got started. After discovering that the businesses were operating illicit online gambling apps connected to China, it conducted over 15 raids, including those in Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai, and Pune, and frozen Rs 46.96 crore in 4 bank accounts. The accounts of Dokypay Technology Pvt Ltd were mostly discovered in the HSBC bank during the ED search in 2019.

This was a major setback for Paytm as well because Paytm First Games was scheduled to debut on September 19 of the same year. With Sachin Tendulkar serving as its brand ambassador, Paytm First Games was created as the leader in Indian digital payments' platform for the fantasy game market. During the upcoming Indian Premier League, the app aimed to have more than 100 million users, and it had more than 200 live events scheduled for the platform over a period of six months.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma tweeted that CashBack and Scratchcards are not gambling and that the Paytm app is back online on the Play Store thanks to the support of the public. Later, Google Playstore reversed the restriction it had earlier imposed on the app due to complaints that it had broken the company's gambling policies.

● #BoycottChineseProduct Made Paytm Change its Shareholding Pattern

After the most recent border incident between India and China, in which the government banned the majority of Chinese goods in 2020, Paytm modified its shareholding structure in Wikipedia. This gave rise to the "Make in India" catchphrases as well as a number of negative responses directed against China, its enterprises, and its products.

As part of the strategic arrangement, Alibaba purchased a 40% stake in Paytm in March 2015. As pressure mounted, Paytm replaced "Alibaba" with "ANT Financials" in Wikipedia's shareholder structure on June 18, 2020.

Paytm - Future Plans

Financial services, e-commerce, and payments are the company's three main focus areas. Over the next three years, Paytm intends to invest Rs 10,000 Crore ($1.4 B). The investment's primary goal will be to increase its financial services. Paytm planned to invest Rs 300 Crore in branding and marketing with the goal of reaching 100 million subscribers in the T20 competition. Paytm's founder, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, revealed that the company is anticipated to turn a profit by September 2023.

Ola Cabs

● Headquarter- Bangalore
● Founders/Owners- Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati
● Sector- Transportation
● Founded- December 2010
● Revenue- Rs 983.2 crores ($131.83 million) FY21
● Total Funding- $5 billion+ (February 2022)
● Valuation- $7.3 billion+ (December 2021)
● Parent Company- ANI technologies Pvt. Ltd.

About Ola and How it Works

Cab booking has been easier thanks to Ola. Ola takes care of everything to guarantee a comfortable ride, from simple payment methods to keeping the customers occupied on the go with "Ola Play." Ola currently also runs self-driving vehicles. Depending on the number of passengers, the available budget, and the convenience, Ola Cabs offers a wide selection of vehicles for self-drivers and cab-hailing. Ola offers shared cabs, autos, bikes, and even e-rickshaws for transport inside the city.

To travel outside the city, one can choose "Ola outstation," and to hire a cab by the hour, one can choose "Ola rentals." Ola has also introduced "Ola select," a membership club with premium ride privileges that is subscription-based. With more than 500 bicycles, Ola's bike-sharing service, "Ola pedal," is already very popular on the campuses of IIT Kanpur and IIT Madras.

Ola introduced "Ola corporate" in 2016. The fare is deducted from the business's Ola corporate prepaid account when employees book rides through Ola corporate. As a result, businesses can simply monitor employee travel costs while ensuring their security.

Ola also launched Ola money. The services provided by Ola Money include the Ola Money Hospicash, Ola Money Mobile Wallet, Ola Money Postpaid, and Ola Money Credit Card. Ola and Religare joined together to create Ola HospiCash, which enables policyholders to recover Rs 5000 each day in case of hospitalisation.

Ola does business openly. Drivers receive a commission for each sale that is made. The rates Ola charges are substantially below those of many other cab companies. Ola entered the cloud kitchen market after purchasing FoodPanda in December 2017.

On May 26, 2017, Ola unveiled India's first multimodal electric vehicle project. In order to pioneer electric vehicles for the general public and encourage shared mobility in Nagpur, the project brought together industry professionals and the Indian government. Through its app, Ola offers 200+ electric vehicle bookings in Nagpur. With a $250 million investment from SoftBank in July 2019, Ola Electric Mobility Pvt. Ltd, which was established as a separate entity, also attained unicorn status.

In what has been dubbed the largest long-term debt financing transaction in the Indian EV business, Ola Electric secures $100 Mn in debt financing from the Bank of Baroda. As the business stated, these monies will be used to fund and complete the first phase of construction of the Chennai-based factory that produces its electric two-wheelers.

OLA's December 2020 statement states that the business had previously declared it will erect Phase 1 of the factory with investments totaling Rs 2,400 crore.

Pre-orders for the Ola Electric scooters have already begun, totaling more than 1 lakh. According to Bhavish Aggarwal's most recent tweet, the business will now officially introduce them on August 15, 2021. On September 15, 2021, Ola Electric scooters will finally be available for purchase on their website and through the Ola app after exceeding expectations during the pre-booking phase. In just two days, the business has already sold electric scooters valued Rs. 1100 crore

Ola - Startup Story

On December 3rd, 2010, Ola was introduced. The beginning of Ola has a fascinating backstory. Bhavish Aggarwal, the proprietor of Ola, was a Ludhiana native who shared many traits with other ambitious businesspeople. First, Bhavish launched the weekend getaway and vacation package website Olatrip.com.

Bhavish needed to go from Bangalore to Bandipur in order to run his vacation and tour organising business, so he rented a car. It was awful taking the cab! In the middle of the trip, the driver pulled over and insisted that Bhavish renegotiate his price. The driver declined and left Bhavish while still travelling to his destination.

At this point, he understood that his situation probably mirrored that of many other people looking for good taxi services around the nation. Bhavish transformed Olatrip.com's business strategy into the one we currently know as Ola Cabs after realising the potential of an exceptional taxi booking service.

In order to advance Ola Cabs, Bhavish brought on board his co-founder Ankit Bhati. Bhavish's parents initially disapproved of his entrepreneurial aspirations. They were utterly dissatisfied with his choice to work as a "travel agent." However, after OLA received its first round of angel financing from Snapdeal founder Kunal Bahl, Rehan yar Khan, and Anupam Mittal, his parents started to support the company.

Bhavish contends that while anyone may come up with an excellent company idea, it takes a scalable business plan to carry it out successfully. He believes that operating a firm while having "zero" inventory is the greatest or among the safest business models one can or should employ.

Ola - Business Model and Revenue Model

Ola's business strategy is straightforward. It facilitates the provision of taxi booking services. Through the app, users may order cabs. None of the cabs are owned by Ola. Only drivers with valid licences that have been officially authorised and validated by transportation authorities are permitted to register with Ola; these drivers may be independent contractors or hired by a company with several vehicles.

Once they register with Ola, drivers have access to a driver-specific mobile app on their smartphone, just like we do as customers. This is only done after carefully examining the validity and performing due diligence on the business and personal documents of both the driver and the operator. The Ola application gives drivers the freedom to choose their own time to log in and accept customer ride requests. Depending on their convenience, they can decide to continue to be logged out of the system. On all reservations made using the app, Ola charges an average commission of 15%.

Ola - Growth and Revenue

Bhavish and Ankit, the owners of Ola, noticed a significant vacuum in Mumbai in 2010. Before, taxis sat idle. Cab drivers raised their prices regardless of the distance travelled to make up for the time they were idle. Poor customer service and delays were viewed as a given. In 2011, they were able to book 10 reservations every day. They scheduled 700,000 rides each day in October 2015. In January 2012, they considered installing tracking devices in each taxi, but they abandoned the plan. Ola grew its business in Bangalore and Delhi in April 2012.

Ola has travelled a fascinating path from nothing to a business that supports the livelihoods of thousands of individuals. Ola is becoming a common feature in many people's daily lives.

Ola - Future Plans

The DRHP (Draft Red Herring Prospectus) for Ola, which plans to go public in the first quarter of 2022, will probably be submitted in the December quarter. Furthermore, Ola's goals for its subsidiary Ola Electric appear ambitious given that the company's EV production division has already begun to accomplish several noteworthy milestones. Through its quick commerce division Ola Dash, Ola is currently concentrating more on the quick commerce market.

Zomato

● Headquarter- Gurugram, India
● Sector- Food Delivery
● Founders- Deepinder Goyal, Gaurav Gupta, Pankaj Chaddah
● Founded- 2008
● Valuation- $8 Billion (July 2021)
● Revenue- $540.61 mn (Rs 4192.4 crore in FY22)
● Total Funding- $2.1 billion
● Parent Organization- Zomato™ Media Pvt Ltd.

About Zomato and How it Works

Zomato is a new restaurant aggregator based in India that delivers food. It mainly offers detailed information, menus, and reviews of the restaurants from actual customers. Additionally, Zomato offers food delivery services from affiliated restaurants in the chosen cities.

Zomato - Startup Story

All of it began when the company's co-founders, Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, were at their New Delhi office and noticed a large number of people standing in line for a long time only to get a glimpse of the menu card. And at that very time, the thought of finding a solution entered the brains of this partnership, inspiring them to start Zomato, originally known as "Foodiebay."

The menu cards' digital counterparts were posted on the website. Everyone in the office then started utilising it, which allowed them to save a tonne of time. This consequently increased website traffic, and they soon enough enlarged it to make it accessible to everyone in the city.

The founders of Foodiebay made the decision to change it and go global because of the massive user base and growth rates it attracted. At that point, the company adopted its current name, Zomato. 2010 saw the official rebranding of Foodiebay to Zomato.

Zomato - Business Model and Revenue Model

The channel of adverts that the portal provides to display is currently Zomato's primary source of income. The commissions it charges to the eateries come in second place in terms of sources of income. The business concept is based on commission.

Zomato declared that it would stop charging restaurant partners commissions on takeout orders. Zomato made the announcement, which also provided consumers with an option to Zomato delivery service or home delivery, in an effort to aid them in recovering more quickly from the economic crisis that the Covid-19 outbreak brought about.

Zomato - Funding & Investors

Zomato has secured funds totaling about $2.1 billion to date. Zomato just finished a $250 million fundraising round, which was organised by its current backers Tiger Global, Kora, and Fidelity. The value of Zomato is $5.4 billion. Kora contributed $115 million to this round, Fidelity $55 million, and Tiger Global $50 million.

Two of the greatest rounds that Zomato has recently received are the $660 million investment led by Kora and Tiger Global Management and the $250 million round led by the same investors with Fidelity and a few other investors joining them. The latest significant round preceding these rounds was a $210 million investment deal with Ant Financial as the lead investor. In India, where Zomato and its rival Swiggy have both gotten funding from Chinese behemoths like Alipay, Ant Financials, and more, food-tech businesses have seen significant development thanks to investments from Alibaba and other Chinese investors.

Zomato raised money from prominent anchor investors totaling Rs 4,196 crores, which is meant to be included in the anchor book allotment. According to sources, the brand will go public on July 14, 2021, the day before this fundraising round closes. With more than 18.4% of the company, Info Edge India is Zomato's largest stakeholder.

In March 2018, Zomato became a unicorn. When co-founder Pankaj Chaddah left the company in the same month, the food tech giant joined the illustrious unicorn club of Indian startups.

Zomato - Startup Challenges

● Cyberattacked
In 2017, Zomato experienced its largest cyberattack when a hacker stole 17 million user records from the corporate database, putting its very existence in jeopardy. Zomato first claimed that the hacker could only obtain names, user IDs, email addresses, usernames, and password hashes, despite its initial fears of overpayment and user card and account details being accessible by the hacker. This breach was quickly fixed through communication with the hacker, who revealed that his only goal was to demonstrate that the system had security flaws that could be closed to protect both the system and the business.

● #Logout Campaign
The #logout campaign was started in 2019 after the restaurants that were featured on the platform accused it of reducing their profit margins through the Zomato Gold and Infinity Dining features, which offered steep discounts. And it just so happened that the restaurant association called attention to these problems, including "unreasonably high commissions, payment periods, and arbitrarily applied additional charges" that the restaurants were being paid to participate in the Zomato project, Zomato Gold.

Following this campaign, Zomato ceased offering the Infinity dinner service, amended and adjusted the Zomato Gold rules while laying off staff, and also saw fierce opposition from the businesses it had associated with.

● #RejectZomato
In one recent example, a Zomato customer service agent who didn't speak Tamil lectured a customer from Tamil Nadu on the value of learning "Hindi," the country's official language, rather than offering the consumer a refund. On October 19, 2021, the customer eventually took to Twitter, where the #RejectZomato trend quickly gained popularity. Because of her behaviour being "against the standards of sensitivity," the customer assistance personnel was fired as a result of the incident, which called into question the loyalty of the meal delivery company to its non-Hindi speaking clientele in India. A native Tamil call centre will soon be established in Coimbatore, according to the top food technology business. However, three hours after this happened, the customer service agent was reinstalled.

● Gig Worker Shortage
There has recently been a shortage of gig workers in the quick commerce and food delivery sectors. In response, Zomato stated that the shortage of gig workers will normalise in a few weeks, as of May 24, 2022 reports. This was also evident in the FY22 financial and operating performance report of Zomato. The COVID-19-induced worker movement is to blame for the overall worker shortage. Goyal also made note of the fact that many of the workers relocated to other locations and opted for different careers as more and more countries opened up their economies.

Zomato - Awards and Achievements

Zomato has received numerous honours over the years. The largest provider of food technology even won the top prizes at the seventh annual Economic Times Startup Awards, including the Startup of the Year prize for 2021.

Zomato - Future Plans

After liquidating the majority of its international companies, Zomato is currently attempting to concentrate on its Indian meal delivery company. According to projections, Zomato will expand at a CAGR of 40%. Deepinder Goyal wants to find the most effective way to deliver food in 10 minutes and use that to expand. As of May 24, 2022, Zomato Instant will only be piloted in one place.

PolicyBazaar

● Headquarters- Gurugram
● Founder- Yashish Dahiya, Alok Bansal, Manjoy Sharma, Tarun Mathur and Avaneesh Nirjar
● Sector- Fintech
● Founded- 2008
● Revenue- $125.89 mn (Rs 957 crores in FY21)
● Funding- $780 mn (December 2021)
● Valuation- $7.27+ billion (November 2021)
● Parent Organization- EtechAces Marketing and Consulting

About PolicyBazaar

India's top marketplace and insurance product aggregator is called PolicyBazaar. When the business was first established in 2008, it compared insurance policy costs and offered information on insurance. The business saw quick growth and has since broadened its scope considerably. The business offers assistance for policy cancellation/renewal and claim settlement in addition to being an insurance marketplace.

PolicyBazaar - How does it work?

The marketplace for all of your insurance-related needs is called PolicyBazaar. It offers many types of insurance, including life, health, auto, travel, and group. On its platform, the company provides more than 250 insurance policies from about 50 insurance brands. Visitors may quickly evaluate insurance plans and purchase the ones that best suit their needs thanks to the platform's user-friendly design.

To improve client experiences, the organisation is continually introducing new products and technology. For the same reason, it just created a "My Account" function. Customers can quickly download a policy, raise a problem, get clarification, and upgrade policies through PolicyBazaar's "My Account" function. PolicyBazaar also introduced a self-inspection video feature for the revival of lapsed motor insurance.

To increase client happiness, PolicyBazaar also used Amazon Polly and created PBee, a proprietary AI chatbot.

In 2015, PolicyBazaar released its mobile application. Both the Android and iOS operating systems support the app. Customers can utilise useful services like a hospital finder, garage locator, insurance premium calculator, instant renewal of insurance policies, claim support, and more using the PolicyBazaar app in addition to searching for, comparing, and purchasing insurance.

PolicyBazaar - Business Model

An insurance aggregator website called PolicyBazaar.com assists users in their study and comparison of the features of several insurance policies falling under a given category. They can choose policies with greater knowledge thanks to it. Both the B2C and B2B business models can be observed in operation by the PolicyBazaar insurance aggregator.

The business has partnered with insurance brokers to obtain data directly from them for customers to compare, including pricing, benefit, insurance coverage, etc. The buyer then selects the best option based on the information offered. Customers are not charged anything for this service.

PolicyBazaar - Revenue Model

Advertising, insurance sales, and lead generation for insurers are how PolicyBazaar generates revenue. Up to 2011, lead generation and advertising accounted for 85% of the company's revenue, with policy sales accounting for the remaining 15%. Currently, sales of insurance and e-commerce account for 85% of total revenue.

PolicyBazaar - Funding and Investors

In total, 22 investors contributed more than $780 million to PolicyBazaar over the course of 14 rounds. Prior to its impending IPO round, the firm raised approximately $13.4M (Rs 99.9 crores) in its most recent round from its parent, PB Fintech, on October 4, 2021. When the business last received $75 million in investment from a private equity round in March 2021, there had been a 6-month hiatus. By November 2021, the company will be worth more than $7.27 billion.

PolicyBazaar - IPO

Prior to that, PolicyBazaar has filed its Draft Red Herring Prospectus with SEBI with the intention of going public in August 2021. The company has filed to raise about Rs 6017.5 crores, per the filing. Included in this would be a new share offering for Rs 3,750 crores. Additionally, the business would make a purchase proposal for current PolicyBazaar shareholders' shares valued at Rs 2,267.5 crores. According to the most recent information, the company also stated that it may fund up to Rs 750 crores before going public.

The IPO, however, did not take place in August. The business's board of directors approved the allocation of 20,20,202 equity shares of Policybazaar Insurance Brokers to its parent company PB Fintech Ltd. at a premium price of INR 485.

Although the Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) approved the initial public offering (IPO) of PB Fintech Ltd., the parent company of PolicyBazaar, it had previously failed to improve investor sentiment in the unlisted area. As a result, PolicyBazaar's share price in the unlisted market remained unchanged at roughly Rs. 1,700–1,800 as of October 19, 2021.

On November 1, 2021, P.B Fintech, the parent company of PolicyBazaar, launched its initial public offering (IPO). Within the first hour of trading, 36% of the retail portion had been subscribed. The last day was November 3, 2021.

The pricing range for the PolicyBazaar IPO was set at Rs 940 to Rs 980 per equity share. Shares of the company gained more than 20% over the IPO price for PolicyBazaar. The largest digital insurance provider in India has its shares launched on the BSE at a 17.35% premium to the initial public offering price of Rs 980. The shares of PolicyBazaar were purchased by 16.59X. On November 16, 2021, the IPO price for PolicyBazaar stocks, which valued the firm at $7.27 billion, closed at Rs 1203, a 22.74 percent increase.

PolicyBazaar Revenue, Financials, and Loss

Revenues for PolicyBazaar were last estimated at Rs 957 crore in FY2021. The company's combined revenue was recently estimated to be Rs 855.5 crore in the prior fiscal year, up from PolicyBazaar's FY19 revenue of Rs 528.8 crore.

In FY21, the company spent a total of Rs 1,099.32 crore, a reduction of 4.43 percent from Rs 1,150.4 crore in FY20. 525.5 crore rupees were spent on PolicyBazaar in FY19, according to reports. In FY18, costs totaled Rs 169 crore.

Losses at PolicyBazaar also decreased, from 304 million to 150.2 million rupees in FY20 to Rs 150.2 crore in FY21. In FY19, PolicyBazaar reported losses totaling Rs 213.1 crore

PolicyBazaar - Challenges

Customer inertia is one of the major obstacles, says PolicyBazaar Marketing Head Sai Narayan. The practise of purchasing insurance from agents is still prevalent. It requires work to persuade this group of folks to purchase insurance online.

The majority of Indians just see insurance as a means of reducing their taxes, says Narayan, which presents another issue. They miss the wider picture, which shows that insurance offers far more than just tax benefits. As a result, January through March sees the majority of insurance transactions.

PolicyBazaar - Future Plans

Future ambitions for PolicyBazaar include maintaining its market dominance among other insurtech businesses. In the following years, it plans to successfully expand outside of India, enlarge its distinctive consumer base, boost revenue, look toward profitability, and invent new goods and technology for better customer pleasure.

Droom

● Headquarter- Gurugram, India
● Sector- Automotive eCommerce
● Founders- Sandeep Aggarwal
● Founded- 2014
● Parent Organization- Droom Technology Private

Droom - About and How Droom works

Droom is an online transactional platform powered by AI and data science that provides a 21st-century experience for buying and selling new and old cars in India and other growing countries. The start-up has created a whole ecosystem for the digital economy centred around used cars, including Orange Book Value (a used vehicle pricing engine), Eco (a vehicle inspection with 1,000+ points), History (used vehicle history records), Discovery (dozens of pre-Buying & Selling tools), and Credit (India's first and only used auto loan and dealer financing marketplace).

The Droom organisation offers services to individual buyers and sellers, dealers, and big businesses in addition to purchasing, selling, and all auxiliary services related to automobiles. It is an online marketplace that brings together sellers and buyers of pre-owned cars, brand-new cars, motorcycles, and even aircraft.

Droom - Startup Launch

With the debut of its digital platform, Droom, the team had a lot on its plate. The team realised that developing trust was essential to success because used cars accounted for 85% of the company's revenue. In order to address the clients' trust difficulties, the team went above and beyond and created not one but four different product modules:

● Eco is the name of the first product module. Before a vehicle is approved by a Droom technician, it is inspected against various 121 checkpoints using this instrument.

● The Orange Book Value is fairly comparable to the US Kelley Blue Book. Based on a vehicle's make, model, insurance, ownership, and condition, this module employs algorithms to determine the fair price.

● The business rates sellers in the following product module so that customers are better informed.

● The final product module, which is titled "Droom history," provides a full history of the cars based on information from businesses, insurance providers, and the police. More than 1,000 road transport offices in India contributed data on more than 200 million automobiles.

Droom Startup Story

With the goal of resolving the trust issue in the online used-car market, Sandeep Aggarwal founded Droom in 2014. The portal originally began as a Delhi-based online vehicle market. Three months later, it was still in New Delhi and trading in secondhand vehicles and two-wheelers.

The business started selling second hand vehicles and two-wheelers in 100 Indian cities exactly one year later. After six months, Droom was prepared to provide its customer base services including insurance, roadside assistance, and warranty inspection. By the time 2018 arrived, there were automobiles in 48 different categories, including yachts, bicycles, golf carts, segways, and aeroplanes among others. They have advanced considerably in just five years by developing the company one step at a time.

Droom - Target Market Size

Recent estimates place the value of India's vehicle sector at above $225 billion. Out of which, ancillary services including warranties, insurance, and services total $60 billion. New and secondhand cars make up the majority of the $160 billion that is left.

Droom is India's largest automotive platform online and the fourth-largest e-commerce company, accounting for 80% of all online vehicle transactions. In addition to India, Droom is offered in Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia, and OBV is accessible in over 38 nations worldwide, making it the top benchmark pricing engine in the world.

Droom - Business Model and Revenue Model

The Droom business model comprises three price structures—Fixed Price, Best Offer, and Auction—and four different formats, including B2C, C2C, C2B, and B2B. The platform provides all car services, including warranty, RSA, insurance, and auto loans, across a wide range of categories, from bicycle to aeroplane.

The majority of Droom's revenue comes from subscriptions and commissions.

There are numerous variations on the commission module. For used automobiles, the commission is from 2 to 2.5 percent, and for used motorbikes, it ranges from 2.5 to 3 percent. For brand-new vehicles, the price ranges from 1% to 1.25 % or is just a flat booking fee.

Dealer subscriptions, which can cost anywhere between INR 45,000 and INR 1,00,000, account for 15% of Droom's revenue. Additionally, for a fee of up to INR 100, the organisation offers buyers detailed research about a vehicle. In total, 92% of used automobile sales are made to consumers, 7% are made to other consumers, and the remaining 12% are made to businesses.

Droom - Funding and Investors

A Singapore Holding Company called Droom has affiliates in both India and the US. Over the course of eight rounds of fundraising, the company has so far raised close to $333 million. On July 28, 2021, 57 Stars, Seven Train Ventures, and a few other current investors contributed to the company's last investment round, which netted it over $200 million.

Lightbox, Beenext, Beenos, Digital Garage, Toyota Tsusho Corporation, Joe Hirao, and Integrated Assets Management are a few of the well-known investors.

On November 12, 2021, Droom filed their DRHP, stating that company intended to raise close to Rs 3,000 crore through the public market. This initial public offering would include a sale offer for Rs 1,000 crore and a new share issuance worth up to Rs 2,000 crore.

Droom - Growth and Revenue

Droom achieved $32 million in net sales and $1.3 billion in annualised GMV in the calendar year 2019 with a growth rate of 100% Y/Y.

India's largest hyper-local marketplace, Droom, boasts of having over 350K vehicle dealers and is present in more than 1000 cities (largest auto dealer platform in World).

Additionally, it maintains subsidiaries in both the United States and India. Nearly $333 million has already been raised by the company.

As of August 2021, Droom has changed from a private limited company to a public limited company. The business changed the name of its Indian subsidiary from Droom Technology Private Limited to Droom Technology Limited. According to reports, the corporation has a net revenue run rate of $54 million and a GMV run rate of $1.7 billion annually. Additionally, it has stated that by the end of the current calendar year, it hopes to reach a GMV of $2 billion and a net income of $65 million.

Droom reported losses of Rs 69 crore in FY21 compared to Rs 90 crore in FY20, a considerable decrease. Significantly helping to lower Droom's losses this year was the company's fall in revenues, which fell by 25% from Rs 181 crores in FY20 to Rs 136 crore in FY21.

Droom - Future Plans

Droom is currently one of the top used automobile companies in India, and it only intends to grow. Given that Droom now plans to be listed on Nasdaq or in India by 2022, it is attempting to emulate its success in the global market. Additionally, the company projects gross revenues of $3 billion to $3.5 billion and net revenues of $110 million to $120 million. Droom will grow in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos by 2020 thanks to the MOU with Toyota that was just signed. They desire recognition outside of Droom India.

ShareChat

● Headquarter- Bangalore
● Sector- Social Media
● Founders- Farid Ahsan, Bhanu Singh, Ankush Sachdeva
● CEO- Ankush Sachdeva
● Founded- 2015
● Total Valuation- $5 billion (June 2022)
● Revenue- $10.48 mn (Rs 80 crores in FY21)
● Funding- $1.47 billion (March 2022)
● Parent Organization- Mohalla Tech Pvt Ltd

ShareChat - About & How It Works?

Similar to other social networking sites, ShareChat enables its members to create, find, and share content with one another. In addition, Sharechat users can follow other users on the same platform, whether they are friends, content creators, or anybody else of interest, and keep up with their regular updates. The users of ShareChat are enthusiastic about both watching and contributing to the information that is found on the platform.

In 2018, ShareChat Talkies introduced a number of interesting new features, including direct texting and anonymous chat options. Other fascinating recently introduced features are:

Through a personal chat, "Shake-N-Chat" links at random two or more individuals who are interacting with content from creatively related genres. The goal of "Private Messaging" is to persuade people to choose one-on-one conversation in the diverse Indian languages.
The function known as "open tagging" enables users to create tags and upload pertinent content under these particular user-generated tags.

ShareChat - Startup Story

ShareChat's foundation is a very broad insight. The co-founders noticed that there is a group of users who would love to express themselves but do not have a platform, and if given the chance, they would not hesitate to do so. This is how it all began. Therefore, in an ideal world, this regional audience would have its own preferences for how it consumes material, which social goods utilised by the metro audience most definitely cannot accommodate. The co-founders claim that before ShareChat entered the scene, this regional segment of the audience was mostly untapped and the market was largely untapped. As a result of three intelligent individuals capitalising on a broad insight, ShareChat was created, and it has since grown to be a multimillion dollar firm.

The ShareChat founders set out on their adventure with the goal of offering excellent communication and later a networking platform.

Sharechat's business history begins in 2015, when three IIT Kanpur alumni, Farid Ahsan, Bhanu Singh, and Ankush Sachdeva, were sitting in frustration. Ankush Sachdeva has previously made 17 attempts to launch startups, all of which appeared to be failures. In addition, the college years came to a close in 2015. Companies began to request candidates, and Ankush was eager to land a good position. Ankush's situation grew more tense when one of his classmates received an offer from Oracle for Rs 2 crore. It quickly gained widespread attention and reached Ankush's family, who together with his relatives began pressuring Ankush to find employment.

They were suddenly given hope when a Facebook growth hacker posted that he would be talking about Sachin Tendulkar and cricket in a WhatsApp group and encouraged others to comment on their phone numbers in the same group. Ankush saw the post right away, then he collaborated with his pals Farid Ahsan and Bhanu Singh to write a method to extract the numbers from the Whatsapp post, which they then utilised to create Whatsapp groups.

These groups were mostly utilised for behavioural study. Ankush was surprised to see that despite the fact that the group members were complete strangers, they were united by their love of cricket and Sachin. Soon after, they began sharing videos and memes of Sachin. The realisation that consumers wanted to consume material but had no idea how to get quality content gave Ankush and his friends the idea for their $5 billion company. So they required a way to find quality content. As a result, Ankush, Farid, and Bhanu got together to create the Sharechat app, which was launched in October 2015. Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, and other regional languages were used in place of English here because the target audience was from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.

The app quickly gained popularity and within three months had 1 lakh downloads. As more users embraced the app, India Quotient soon invested Rs 50 lakh in Sharechat. Ankush Sachdeva changed Sharechat to use User Generated Content (UGC) in 2016.

2019 saw the beginning of the next growth phase after TikTok was outlawed by the Indian government. Ankush Sachdeva and his team saw this as a great potential, so they set to work right away on adapting the TikTok concept to create Moj, which is presently one of the most well-liked short-form video apps in India.

Next, the pandemic hit, which undoubtedly made things difficult for most firms in India and those operating abroad, but was a blessing in disguise for Sharechat. Indeed, Sharechat's user base increased from 60 million to 160 million as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak. Even Google was impressed by the company's growth and made Sharechat an acquisition offer of $1 billion. Ankush and others turned down the offer.

Presently, Sharechat claims to have over 400 million users and soon hopes to have 1 billion. Ankush Sachdeva is to be thanked for not taking the placement exams back in college.

ShareChat originally began as a content-sharing solution for users of the popular messaging software WhatsApp who needed to share more than 100K pieces of content per day. However, the website effectively developed over time into a social networking platform that is driven by regional languages.

ShareChat - Startup Challenges

One of the co-founders, Ankush, stated that "teaching the audience what a feed is, why you follow someone, and why you create content" is one of our toughest problems. All social networks lack that one element, which is why our audience—this new audience that has emerged in India—finds it really challenging to utilise Facebook, Twitter, or Snapchat.

ShareChat - Business & Revenue Model

The online community for content marketing mostly uses two different types of business structures. The first one aids in creating a network where the platforms' producers and owners own the content. The second type of model, on the other hand, aids in the creation of a significant portion of the customers' content. ShareChat performs this.

ShareChat aspires to be a well-known social networking site where users may post content—such as images and videos—as well as interact with one another and make new friends. But unlike other social networking sites, Sharechat enables communication in all of India's regional languages.

Users of ShareChat are not required to pay to generate income. Instead, it makes money through sponsored initiatives, payments, and adverts.

ShareChat - Funding and Investors

ShareChat has raised $1.47 billion to date and is currently valued at $5 billion. On June 16, 2022, the company raised a $77.7 million Series H round led by none other than the dominant search engine, Google, and followed by Temasek and Times Group. This is Google's second significant investment in India's short video market. With this round, Google holds 1.07 percent of Sharechat's shares at the capitalization table. This round might be regarded as Sharechat's first equity round of 2022. Tencent Capital, which presently owns 2.64 percent of the Sharechat stocks, provided debt capital to it in a previous round in February 2022.

ShareChat - Future Plans

ShareChat promises significant changes to the way the programme works in the near future. Users should reasonably anticipate far greater variety in content types. Additionally, fans should anticipate seeing more content creators becoming celebs and celebrities on ShareChat. India also has more than 1600 known dialects and 22 official languages. ShareChat therefore intends to serve more localised audiences. The platform does not want to focus solely on India. With more than 130 million active monthly users (MAUs), ShareChat has been attempting to capitalise on TikTok's absence from India due to the government's prohibition.

ShareChat and MX TakaTak have already joined, and the new site aims to reach 100 million producers, 300 million monthly active users, and nearly 250 billion video views.