Indian unicorns reduced to 84 from 105 in 5 years: Report

New Delhi, Oct 25 (KNN) According to a report by private market tracker Venture Intelligence from CY18 to CY22 (to date), around 105 startups had attained unicorn status in India, but this has now reduced to 84 active unicorns due to various reasons.

Around seven lost valuations due to investor markdowns and another four getting acquired. Also, around 10 startups were listed in the public markets in the last five years and were excluded from Venture Intelligence’s unicorn tracker list, according to a report in the Financial Express (FE).

According to several experts, the start-up founders are trying to avoid raising money due to unfavorable market conditions. But those who have already taken the "plunge" may lose the status quo as a unicorn. 

"Most big startup investors in India are global tech investors and they usually compare some of the domestic Indian startup valuations with tech stocks in the US, Europe, Chinese and Japanese markets. So, they (the global VCs) will mark down Indian holdings if tech stocks fall, which is a trickle-down effect from public to private markets," a consultant told FE. 

Quikr and Hike lost their Unicorn status due to investor markdowns. Snapdeal, Shopclues and Paytm Mall lost their status due to a fall in valuation by their investors. 

SoftBank, which is an investor in several Indian startups, has also marked down the valuations of over 280 firms, according to FE. This has set a "worrying" precedent for Indian fund managers. 

"Most startups which are currently valued at more than a billion dollars should not be more in that USD 800 million or so in the last two years, we were in a very high valuation environment both globally and domestically. And now due to US tech stock correction, some of that will reflect on the Indian companies and hence, down rounds may happen," Pankaj Makkar, managing director at Bertelsmann India Investments (BII) told FE.  (KNN Bureau)