There are several top startups in India but the importance and interest in startups have grown tremendously in the few decades. Each one of us today wants to own a startup and if you too feel the same, then we have prepared a list of top startups in India to give one insight about the idea, concept, investment and technology on which the various startups are based.
For all these tops startups they are backed by top incubators in India who are funding and helping strategically and in monetary terms.
Top Startups of India
Startup #1 Acko General Insurance
Acko General Insurance is a private sector company in India founded by Varun Dua, in November 2016. The company offers it’s all operations through the digital platform and follows an online led model.
Acko General Insurance offers retail products such as motor insurance, in-trip domestic insurance, and mobile insurance. Acko raised ₹274 crores ($42 million) in funding in 2018. In July 2020, Amazon Pay in partnership with Acko to its customers provided auto insurance policy.
Website- https://www.acko.com/
Startup #2 BYJU’S
BYJU’S – The Learning App founded in 2011 by Byju Raveendran at Bangalore is an Indian educational technology and online tutoring firm. In September 2020, with a valuation of $11.1 billion, BYJU’S became the world’s most valued edtech company.
BYJU’S runs on a freemium model. BYJU’S limits free access to content to 15 days after the registration. Their main product is available through a mobile app named BYJU’S-The Learning App launched in August 2015.
Goto byju’s here!
Startup #3 CARS24
Headquartered in Gurgaon, India CARS24 is an online used car marketplace that sells over 150,000 cars annually. It was founded by Vikram Chopra, Mehul Agrawal, Gajendra Jangid and Ruchit Agarwal in 2015 as a platform to buy and sell used cars.
The Cars24 platform facilitates the transaction and has an offline presence. Apart from selling used cars, the company’s services include paperwork such as transferring the car to the name of the new owner which enables end-to-end transactions and offers an online auction platform to businesses looking to sell their pre-owned cars. In 2019 the company started offering verified used cars where the company offered a buyback guarantee on the vehicles verified by inspection.
Go to cars24 here!
Startup #4 CarTrade.com
Vinay Sanghi and Rajan Mehra found CarTrade.com in 2010. CarTrade.com is an online auto classifieds platform. It serves as a marketplace for users interested in buying and selling new and used vehicles.
Along with car listings, the portal also offers car price information, certification, insurance, used car finance, comparisons, on-road prices, and reviews. The used car certification program is jointly conducted by CarTrade engineers and sellers who inspect the initial condition of cars at different levels, and a detailed condition report is presented as part of the online listing.
Go to CarTrade.com here!
Startup #5 Cure.Fit
Cure.fit (CureFit Healthcare Pvt. Ltd) headquartered in Bengaluru, India is a preventive and curative healthcare & fitness company, founded by Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori in May 2016.
A fitness and well-being start-up, Cure.fit has under its umbrella eat.fit, cult.fit, mind.fit and care.fit offering digital and offline experiences in fitness, nutrition, and mental well-being. In its first two years of operations, Cure.fit has raised over $170 million.
On September 5th 2019, Cure.fit announced the launch of its sportswear brand Cultsport that offers apparel functional for workout formats like running, field training, and gym.
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Startup #6 Dailyhunt
Dailyhunt (formerly Newshunt), is an Indian content based in Bangalore, India that provides local language content in 14 Indian languages from multiple content providers. The company’s mission is “the Indic platform empowering a billion Indians to discover, consume and socialise with content that informs, enriches and entertains”.
In September 2020, Dailyhunt officially launched a short-video app called Josh (passion or enthusiasm).
Startup #7 Delhivery
Delhivery is an Indian supply chain service provider encompassing over 17,500 PIN codes in India. It was founded in 2011 by Sahil Barua, Mohit Tandon, Bhavesh Manglani, Suraj Saharan, and Kapil Bharati.
The Gurugram-based company has approximately 75 fulfilment centres, 70 hubs, 2,500 delivery centres, 8,000 partner centres, 14,000 vehicles, and 40,000 employees. At present, Delhivery can process over 10 lakhs (1 million) parcels per day. In March 2019, Delhivery raised its biggest round of funding with a $413 million investment from SoftBank.
Startup #8 Dunzo
Dunzo is an Indian company that provides delivery services in Bengaluru, Delhi, Gurugram, Pune, Chennai, Jaipur, Mumbai, and Hyderabad. The company also operates a Bike Taxi service in Gurugram. It is headquartered in Bengaluru, India. Kabeer Biswas found it, along with Co-founders Ankur Agarwal, Dalvir Suri, and Mukund Jha, in 2014.
In May 2020, Dunzo partnered with FMCG major PepsiCo to deliver its snacks brands such as Lay’s and Kurkure to customers’ doorsteps in Bengaluru amid the lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic in India in keeping with Pepsico’s ‘Direct-to-Customer’ initiative. In the same month, it also partnered with digital payments app Google Pay to provide grocery and medicine delivery, bike pool, pickup-and-drop, among other services.
Startup #9 FirstCry
FirstCry is an Indian online store for baby product retailing launched in the year 2010. Its motto is “Big store for little ones”.
In January 2020 the merged company had over 380 stores across the country out of which around 350 are franchise stores, making is “Asia’s largest online shopping store for kids & baby products.” FirstCry opened its first outlet in Srinagar in May 2019.
Startup #10 Flipkart
Flipkart is a Singaporean e-commerce company headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal found it in 2007. The company initially focused on book sales, before expanding into other product categories such as consumer electronics, fashion, home essentials & groceries, and lifestyle products.
As of March 2017, Flipkart held a 39.5% market share of India’s e-commerce industry. Flipkart also owns PhonePe, a mobile payments service based on the Unified Payments Interface. In August 2018, U.S.-based retail chain Walmart acquired an 81% controlling stake in Flipkart for US$16 billion, valuing the company at $20 billion.
Startup #11 Grofers
Grofers is an Indian online grocery delivery service. It was founded in December 2013 and is based out of Gurugram. Customers use a mobile application of the company to order groceries online. Grofers employees then secure the items from their warehouse and deliver the items to the consumer. They may schedule the delivery for any time of the day.
Grofers currently operates in 29 cities. During the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Grofers along with Amazon India and Big Basket were among the few online grocery platforms that continued to operate in India.
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Startup #12 Haptik
Haptik was founded by Aakrit Vaish and Swapan Rajdev in August 2013. The Haptik app is a chat-based personal assistant, which lets its users get things done for Android and iOS platforms in India.
By September 2014, over 125 chat experts who helped users with their queries powered the platform. Over time, this grew into a full-blown conversational commerce app with over 2 million downloads with 15 million app installs. In March 2020, The Government of India launched a WhatsApp chatbot called MyGov Corona Helpdesk to create awareness about coronavirus. The bot was built by Haptik.
Startup #13 InCred
Incred Finance is a Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) in India. The company focuses on Consumer Loan, Home Loan, Education Loan, and SME Lending. It is headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The motto of InCred is Borrow. With Confidence.
It received an initial round of funding of ₹500-600 Crore. In 2020 the company secured ₹500 crores in a debt funding round from public sector banks and other financial institutions.
Startup #14 Lenskart
Lenskart is an Indian optical prescription eyewear retail chain. Piyush Bansal founded Lenskart in 2010 along with Amit Chaudhary and Sumeet Kapahi.
As of September 2019, Lenskart had over 500 stores in 70 cities in India. The company had a valuation of $1.5 billion by December 2019. In 2020, Lenskart generated a total revenue of Rs.1000 cr. plus.
Got to LensKart.com
Startup #15 Meesho
Meesho short for “meri shop” (My Shop) is an Indian social commerce platform founded by IIT Delhi graduates Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal in December 2015. It enables small businesses and individuals to start their online stores via social channels such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. Meesho is headquartered in Bengaluru, India.
In September 2018, LinkedIn named Meesho one among India’s Top 25 startups to work for based on talent pull, employee growth, jobseeker interest and level of professional engagement with its employees. In June 2019, Meesho became India’s first startup to receive investment from Facebook.
Startup #16 MobiKwik
MobiKwik is an Indian company founded in 2009 that provides a mobile phone-based payment system and digital wallet. Customers add money to an online wallet that can be used for payments. In November 2016, the company reported having 1.5 million merchants using its service and a user base of 55 million customers.
MobiKwik launched an e-wallet system in 2012 that enabled users to deposit money online to use for bill payments and other features. MobiKwik provides financial services including loan, accident insurance, life insurance, fire insurance, money transfer, credit card bill payment, mutual funds, and DTH recharge. They also introduced the feature of sending and receiving money via a mobile app.
Startup #17 Nykaa
Nykaa is an Indian retail seller of beauty, wellness, and fashion products. Falguni Nayar, a former managing director at Kotak Mahindra Capital Company, founded Nykaa in 2012. It was launched as an ecommerce portal curating a range of beauty and wellness products. The brand name Nykaa is derived from the Sanskrit word nayaka, meaning ‘one in the spotlight’.
Nykaa follows an inventory-based model with warehouses in Mumbai, New Delhi and Bangalore. It claims to have over 3 lakh products across 1,500 brands.
It has two offline store formats called Nykaa Luxe and Nykaa On Trend. The Luxe format features Indian and international luxury beauty brands along with Nykaa Beauty, the in-house collection of beauty products. The latter format has products curated by category basis their popularity.
In 2015, Nykaa launched its collection of in-house beauty products. In March 2016, it introduced privately labelled products in the bath and body care category.
Startup #18 Ola Cabs
Ola Cabs (stylised as OLΛ) is an Indian ridesharing company offering services that include a vehicle for hire and food delivery. The company is based in Bangalore, Karnataka, India and was developed by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd. As of October 2019, Ola was valued at about $6.5 billion.
Ola offers different levels of service, ranging from economic to luxury travel. The cabs are reserved through a mobile app and also through their website, and the service accepts both cash and cashless payments with Ola money. It claims to clock an average of over 1,50,000 bookings per day and commands 60% of the market share in India as of 2014.
As of 2019, the company has expanded to a network of over 15 lakhs (1.5 million) drivers across 250 cities. In November 2014, Ola diversified to incorporate auto rickshaws trial in Bangalore. After the trial phase, Ola Auto expanded to other cities like Delhi, Pune, Chennai and Hyderabad starting in December 2014.
Startup #19 Oyo
Oyo Rooms, also known as Oyo Hotels & Homes, are an Indian hospitality chain of leased and franchised hotels, homes and living spaces. Founded in 2013 by Ritesh Agarwal, OYO initially consisted mainly of budget hotels.
In 2012, Ritesh Agarwal launched Oravel Stays to enable listing and booking of budget accommodations. After undertaking months of research and staying in various bed-and-breakfast homes, guest houses, and small hotels across India, he pivoted Oravel to OYO in 2013. In 2019, OYO registered a revenue of USD 951 million, a 4.5 times increase on a year on year basis, as compared to USD 211 million.
Startup #20 Paytm
Paytm was founded in August 2010 with an initial investment of $2 million by its founder, Vijay Shekhar Sharma in Noida. It started as a prepaid mobile and DTH recharge platform and later added data card, postpaid mobile and landline bill payments in 2013.
Paytm is an Indian e-commerce payment system and financial technology company, based in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India. Paytm is currently available in 11 Indian languages and offers online use-cases as mobile recharges, utility bill payments, travel, movies, and events bookings.
As of January 2018, Paytm is valued at $10 billion. It is planning to launch its initial public offering (IPO) in 2022. As per the company, over 7 million merchants across India use this QR code to accept payments directly into their bank account.
Startup #21 Policybazaar
Founded in June 2008 by Yashish Dahiya, Alok Bansal and Avaneesh Nirjar Policybazaar provide a digital platform – website and app – where users compare financial services from major insurance companies. The startup is headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana, India and is the country’s largest insurance aggregator.
Policybazaar began as a price-comparison website and an information portal for learning about insurance and insurance programs. The aim was to provide Indian insurance buyers with an online platform to compare and buy a policy plan. The website subsequently expanded to become a marketplace for insurance policies.
The company claims to process nearly 25% of India’s life insurance and over 7% of the country’s retail health cover. Policybazaar provides many insurance plans like life insurance, health insurance, motor insurance, travel insurance and group plans.
Startup #22 Quikr
Quikr is an Indian online marketplace and classified advertising platform, headquartered in Bangalore, India. It was founded by Pranay Chulet and Jiby Thomas in 2008.
It helps users to sell, buy, rent, or discover anything across India. Community members can come to their site to find an apartment to live in, sell their old car, bike, music system, laptop or furniture, promote their small business, find a tuition class or get a break as a model or actor. Other services offered include a missed call service and instant messaging.
ShareChat is an Indian social media platform developed by Mohalla Tech Pvt Ltd. and founded by Ankush Sachdeva, Bhanu Pratap Singh and Farid Ahsan. It was incorporated on 8 January 2015. ShareChat has over 130 million monthly active users across 15 Indic languages.
The company’s application offers features that include private messaging, tagging, and a personal messaging feature, enabling users to share videos, jokes, songs and other language-based social content with other unknown users. The company is headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka, and presently employs over 400 people.
Startup #24 Swiggy
Swiggy is India’s largest and highest-valued online food ordering and delivery platform founded in 2014. Swiggy is based in Bangalore, India, and as of March 2019, was operating in 100 Indian cities. In early 2019, Swiggy expanded into general product deliveries under the name Swiggy Stores.
In September 2019, Swiggy launched instant pick up and drop service Swiggy Go. The service is used for a diverse array of items, including laundry and document or parcel deliveries to business clients and retail customers.
Startup #25 Treebo Hotels
Treebo Hotels was founded in June 2015 as Zipotel by Sidharth Gupta, Rahul Chaudhary and Kadam Jeet Jain. Treebo Hotels won the award for the “Best Budget Hotel” category in the Lonely Planet Travel and Lifestyle Leadership Awards 2017.
Treebo Hotels is an Indian budget hotel chain that operates on franchising. As of January 2020, Treebo Hotel has over 600 hotels in 113 cities in India. Treebo Hotels aims to be a budget hotel brand as opposed to competing aggregators and networks like OYO Rooms.
Startup #26 Unacademy
Unacademy is an Indian online education technology company founded by Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, and Hemesh Singh in 2015, and is headquartered in Bangalore. The company has a network of over 18,000 educators and offers preparation material for several professional and educational entrance exams.
Unacademy lessons are as Live Classes, both free and via subscription. The company provides preparation study material for students aspiring for civil services, bank jobs and other competitive exams in India.
Startup #27 Vedantu
Incorporated in 2011, Bangalore-based Vedantu Innovations Pvt. Ltd. is an online tutoring platform launched in October 2014 for the public. The organization is run by four friends from Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs)–Vamsi Krishna, Pulkit Jain, Saurabh Saxena and Anand Prakash.
Vedantu is an Indian interactive online tutoring platform where teachers provide tuitions to students over the internet, using a real-time virtual learning environment named WAVE (Whiteboard Audio Video Environment) a technology built in-house. It is said to operate on a marketplace model for teachers, where students can browse, discover and choose to learn from an online tutor.
Startup #28 Wow! Momo
Wow! Momo is an Indian chain of fast-food restaurants headquartered in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, specializing in momos, a dumpling popular in Nepal, Tibet and India. It was established in 2008 by Sagar Daryani and Binod Homagai.
As of October 2018, WOW! Momo has over 200 outlets across 13 cities in India. In 2019, after Tiger Global Management’s investment of ₹130cr, the company was valued at over ₹860 crores.
Startup #29 Zoomcar
Zoomcar is an Indian self-drive car rental company, headquartered in Bangalore, India. The company was founded in 2013 by David Back and Greg Moran. As of April, the company operates in 45 cities across the country.
Zoomcar has raised total funding of Rs. 673 Cr. and it has been valued at Rs. 1778 Cr. in its latest round of funding.
Startup #30 Zomato
Zomato is an Indian restaurant aggregator and food delivery start-up founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah in 2008. Zomato provides information, menus and user-reviews of restaurants and food delivery options from partner restaurants in select cities.
Zomato also began grocery delivery amid the COVID-19 outbreak. On 21st January 2020, Zomato acquired its rival Uber Eats’ business in India in an all-stock deal, giving Uber Eats 10% of the combined business.