Here are the Top Most Successful Indian Start-ups from the past year and this year.
TRIPOTO: Online community for travelers to share stories and itineraries
Founders: Anirudh Gupta & Michael Lyngdoh
Founded in 2014, now it is looking to expand its user base and will also monetize the itineraries this year. It is a very well running startup. It has got funding from IDG Ventures, Outbox Ventures, 500 Startups, Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal among others.
FAIRCENT: Peer-to-peer lending marketplace
Founders: Rajat Gandhi & Vinay Mathews
Government policies from the previous year have done a lot to boost the fortunes of the peer-to-peer lending company, FairCent . Also, the era of Digital India has benefited FairCent last year and looks to grow further in 2017. “From disbursing Rs 15-20 lakh loans a month, we are now disbursing Rs 1.5 crore a month. India’s shift to digital payments has boosted up the company,” says Rajat Gandhi, founder, FairCent. The company, which began operations in 2014, helps customers get cheaper loans based on their creditworthiness and helps lenders earn high returns from their peers or community. This is how the startup is expanding from past years very well.
NOWFLOATS: Platform to get local businesses online
Founders: Jasminder Singh Gulati, Nitin Jain, Ronak Kumar Samantray & Neeraj Sabharwal
NowFloats is a Hyderabad-based company and made headlines in mid-2016 when it acquired LookUp, which was backed by the heavyweights of the startup world — Khosla Impact, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran Ventures. NowFloats has also raised two rounds of undisclosed funding from Omdiyar Networks. It claims to have a customer list of over 2 lakh businesses, of which 80% are paid. “More small-time retailers from tier-2 cities like Ajmer, Coimbatore, and Kolhapur are opening up to the idea of going online,” says co-founder Jasminder Singh Gulati.
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FRESHMENU: Online food delivery
Founder: Rashmi Daga
In the food-tech sector, one of the few startups to emerge is FreshMenu, which cooks and delivers food from its own kitchens in Bengaluru, Mumbai, New Delhi and Gurugram. Founder Rashmi Dagga, an IIM-A alumnus who set up the company in 2014, says that company sees 3 times growth in the number of orders in 2016. FreshMenu is backed by Zodius Capital and LightSpeed Ventures. In 2017, the company plans to increase its product catalog as well as expand to Hyderabad and Pune.
UNBXD: Product discovery services for E-commerce companies
Founders: Pavan Sondur and Prashant Kumar
Unbxd works with 1,200 ecommerce companies in 40 countries, and almost 80% of its revenue comes from outside India. It works with e-commerce companies such as PepperFry, Lenskart and Caratlane to power search, navigation and product recommendations. Their company is backed by Nirvana Ventures, IDG, Inventus and Indian Angel Network. The Bengaluru-based company claims to have grown almost 10 times in 2016. Now it is looking to strengthen its hold in the North American market.
ID FOODS: Packaged ready-to-cook idli/dosa batter, chappatis
Founders: P C Mustafa, Samsudeen T K, Abdul Nazer, Jafar T K & Noushad T A
At an approx. Bengalurians consume 1 crore idlis a day. In that fact, P.C Mustafa sees a daily opportunity of Rs 3 crore (at Rs 3 an idli). That’s what pushed the IIM-B graduate to start iD Fresh Foods with four of his cousins in 2006, delivering homemade batter in Bengaluru. Today, it’s idli/dosa batter is available in 14 cities, and it’s revenues crossed Rs 100 crore last year. 2017 might be the year they cross revenues of Rs 200 crore with plans to launch vada and ragi dosa batter.
STAQU: AI-driven solutions for retailers
Founders: Atul Rai, Abhishek Sharma
Today, 70% of all data online comprises images and videos. This fact that excited Atul Rai, whose company helps users search for products using images rather than words. “If a user wants a floral print dress, she should be able to upload a picture and find similar products,” says Rai, who set up Staqu in June 2015 to provide artificial intelligence (AI) driven solutions for e-commerce. Its product can be integrated into the search technology of e-commerce companies. Some of Staqu’s clients are Roposo, Karbonn, and Panasonic. The Gurugram based company also raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Indian Angel Network.
MYRA: Online pharmacy
Founders: Anirudh Coontoor and Faizan Aziz
Myra is a Bengaluru based online pharmacy that delivers medicines at home in an hour. The startup does approx. 1,000 transactions a day and has managed a customer retention rate of 75%. Founded 12 months ago, the company has over 10,000 customers in Bengaluru and is backed by angel investors including Pranay Chulet of Quikr, Pankaj Gupta from Twitter and Prashant Malik from LimeRoad. “We hope to have a positive impact on the lives of people who are ill, old or anyone who needs access to medicare,” says co-founder Faizan Aziz.
Read more about Leading Startups from this year.
