World Race: India Pips UK To Rank Third With 54 Unicorns, Says Hurun Report

Report shows that Bengaluru has more unicorns than cities such as Boston, Palo Alto, Paris, Berlin, Chicago among others, with a tally of 28 such companies — the seventh-highest in the world

There are 1,058 unicorns in 221 cities of 42 countries across the world, and the average age of the unicorns is around eight years, says Hurun report. Image: Getty

New Delhi: With 54 unicorns, India has overtaken UK to rank third in the global ranking, says a new Hurun India report.

The report, which was released on Wednesday, shows that Bengaluru has more unicorns than cities such as Boston, Palo Alto, Paris, Berlin, Chicago among others, with a tally of 28 such companies — the seventh-highest in the world.

Any start-up that has a valuation of over $1 billion is called a unicorn.

Anas Rahman Junaid, MD and chief researcher of Hurun India, said, “India is in the midst of a start-up boom, more than doubling its unicorns to take the country’s official tally of unicorns to 54, and overtake the UK to third place in the world.” Rahman said though most of the 65 unicorns founded by Indians were in the Silicon Valley, those at home rose to 45 per cent from 33 percent last year, “suggesting that the start-up ecosystem in India is maturing.”

The report shows that 15 of the 122 global unicorns in e-commerce are located in India, making it the third-largest after China and the US — with 42 and 28 unicorns, respectively — in the sector.

According to the Hurun report, “There are 1,058 unicorns in 221 cities of 42 countries across the world, and the average age of the unicorns is around eight years, dating back to 2013.”

Hurun Report Chairman and Chief Researcher Rupert Hoogewerf said, “2021 is officially the most successful year for start-ups ever. There are today over 1,000 known unicorns, practically double the number from last year, mainly on the back of surge in unicorns in the US.”    

The report reveals that most of the unicorns, around 81 per cent, are in the IT business, specifically selling software and services. The rest are involved in the business of selling physical products.

At 53 per cent, just over half of them directly deal with consumers. The remaining caters to businesses.

The Hurun report also states that the total value of all unicorns of the world stands at $3.7 trillion, equivalent to the GDP of Germany.