Unicorn club: From 1mg to InMobi, here’re 100-plus start-ups in India

The Indian start-up ecosystem achieved a milestone on May 2, 2022, when Bengaluru-based neo-bank platform ‘Open’ became the country’s 100th unicorn.

What makes the development even more commendable is that it was eleven years earlier, in 2011, that the country registered its first billion-dollar enterprise in mobile advertising technology firm InMobi.

As of February 2023, the country has more than 100 enterprises in this realm, with 1mg having acquired the unicorn status in September 2022.

India is the world’s third-largest start-up ecosystem, after the US and China, and the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have emerged as the lead source of unicorn founders in the country. IIT alumni have been the force behind twelve such billion-dollar firms, including Zomato, Flipkart, Ola, ShopClues and Snapdeal.