For India's startup ecosystem, 2021 is fast turning into the year of unicorns. The number of billion-dollar startups that India has created so far this year is far too many to name in a single breath.

Twenty startups turned into unicorns in just the last seven months and this last week, we saw three startups -Droom (automobile), OfBusiness (B2B commerce), and BharatPe (fintech)-join the elite club. The sky-rocketing valuations are a consequence of what is turning out to be a record-breaking year in terms of investments made in Indian startups.

So far this year, investors have already pumped in over $18 billion into Indian startups, more than what they did in an entire year over the last three years, according to Venture Intelligence.

As it stands, India is now home to 56 unicorns and this list promises to get longer as the year rolls on.

Rahul Garg, Founder, and CEO of Moglix said, "there are quite a few things that have happened and we have gone through a journey, both I think, as a country and as a world in terms of how to think about supply chain and the importance of supply chain. I think I was really humbled and one of the keynotes by our Prime Minister talks about supply chain and I don't think I have ever heard a government official or Prime Minister of a country talk about the importance of supply chain. I think that is what we realised the most in the COVID times because then you needed in wave one, a PPE kit to be supplied to the doctors, or masks to be available to people or consumers across the world or in the secind wave when you needed oxygen."

He said what happened in terms of the supply chain for Moglix and for many of the B2B commerce, there has been a massive shift towards organised distribution.

Garg said that pre-pandemic, the B2B manufacturing sector would rely on unorganised supply chain and unorganised supply base where there would be less predictability and less control.

"What has happened for Moglix, providing that control over 35 cities, enabling it to be delivered across pan India, people have realised the importance that they could be working from home, they could be working from a beach in Goa or in Himalayas, but they will make sure that they get the products and I think that has been a big driver for Moglix," he said.

Sandeep Aggarwal, Founder and CEO of Droom said, "The first COVID wave was something which we as a country or mankind were not prepared for. Our business in the beginning felt like it was not insulated. We came to almost zero business in April, May and June of last year. But then it kept on growing steadily. While the second wave of COVID was really bad for human life, it did not slow down our business adoption. What really has changed is I would say, across every category is that we are seeing adoption of digital accelerating."

Aggarwal said e-commerce was always a very compelling value proposition. "One by one, we have seen from travel to mobile phone to jobs moving online. We have seen, at least in Droom, automobile buying and selling has moved in a more rapid manner post COVID and that is what we are seeing as a macro trend."

Meanwhile, Souvik Sengupta, Founder of Infra.Market said, "Our focus on profitability and economics has been there since day one, and the raising of investments to make it a unicorn."

However, the company's focus has always been on how to build a sustainable business, he said, adding that for a long time for the first three years of the business, the firm bootstrapped and that emphasised the focus on profitability.

"Once we had those unit economics in place, using venture capital to grow this business out or to scale this up became much, much easier," he explained.

Watch the accompanying video for more.

(Edited by : Kanishka Sarkar)

First Published:Aug 5, 2021 10:58 PM IST