As a rapidly developing country, India is an incredible opportunity for startups that are looking to disrupt old industries by using modern solutions. The country's massive population along with its ever-growing middle and upper class make this opportunity all the more attractive but what about the startups that aren't just focusing on solving local problems. The startups are trying to make an impact in the world at large by taking the learnings that they've gathered in India and applying them to international markets well. Those are the startups that we're going to be talking about in today's post India's top 10 startups that went global. Coming up right after this so before we jump in I should let you know that with this list we've intentionally chosen not to focus on SAAS (software as a service) startups because if we did quite frankly this list would just be a list of startups and we already made an article about India’s top 10 SAAS startups. So we thought with this one we would focus exclusively on companies that don't fit into that category of software-as-a-service companies. All right with that out of the way let's jump in starting things off at-


10. Fresh to Home

At number ten we have Bengaluru-based fresh meat and vegetable delivery startup Fresh to Home. Back in 2015 Matthew Joseph who had quite a bit of experience in the fish export business teamed up with serial entrepreneur and former Zynga India country manager sean cadavo. They decided to launch a startup that would deliver fresh fish and other types of meat directly to people's homes. From a humble start in Bengaluru, these two co-founders have been able to scale their business to 28 Indian cities making 1.5 million deliveries of fresh meat and vegetables every single month in 2019. They also expanded their operations to the United Arab Emirates and are now one of the top five e-grossers in the country. But they're not stopping therewith the help of their investors who so far have poured 121 million dollars into the startup they're planning to expand further into Saudi Arabia in the near future.

 

9. Cult.fit

At number 9 we have Bengaluru-based health and fitness startup cult.fit. The company was founded by two fitness enthusiasts who had previously worked at Flipkart Ankit Nagori and Mukesh Bunsel. Their first fitness center which they opened in 2016 and called cult center was a huge success and by 2019 cult.fit had 200 centers across India. Things were going really well that is until the pandemic hit resulting in cult.fit shutting down many of their centers and laying off hundreds of employees to survive cult.fit began offering guided online fitness and wellness sessions and these sessions could be hosted and viewed from anywhere. Which opened the door to international expansion they've already launched in the United States and also have plans to expand to Canada as well. They're doing this using funds that they've raised from their investors who so far have pumped 480 million dollars into the startup.

 

8. Mogulix

At number 8 now we have Singapore-based b2b e-commerce unicorn Mogulix which despite being headquartered outside of India is an Indian company as it was initially founded in Noida in 2015 by rahul gerg. Businesses can use moglics to buy equipment and supplies that they wouldn't be able to find on normal consumer e-commerce platforms like Amazon or Flipkart. These are items like industrial power tools and machines and resources like chemicals metals and cement and like many e-commerce platforms, they do export these items to more than 54 countries around the world through logistics partners. But they also have physical offices and a legitimate presence in countries like the United States the United Kingdom the United Arab Emirates and of course India and Singapore. Now as a loss-making start up this kind of global footprint just wouldn't be possible without their investors who so far have pumped 222 million dollars into the startup.

 

7. Cars 24

At number 7 now we have gurugram based online used car marketplace cars 24 founded by Gajendra Jangid Agarwal, Ruchit Agarwal and Vikram Chopra in 2015. Cars 24 has a unique auction system where they actually sell your car before they've even bought it from you which allows them to operate in a relatively risk-free way. They're also able to seamlessly integrate their commission into the sale despite facing competition from companies like carwale, cartrade, cardekho and droom. Cars 24 was the first Indian online used car marketplace to achieve unicorn status and they're currently selling 15 000 cars a month across 170 outlets during the first half of 2021. They also expanded into Australia and the United Arab Emirates to see how their business model holds up in international markets. This is something that they were encouraged to do by their investors who so far have poured 394 million dollars into the startup.

 

6. Urban Company

At number 6 we have guru gram based home services marketplace urban company founded by Abhiraj Singh, Bal Rakhav Chandra and Barun Kaithan in 2014. You can think of the urban company as a kind of like the uber or ola of home services with more than 35 000 professionals offering services like repairs, cleaning, painting, and carpentry to 5 million customers across 35 cities in India. Then in 2018 Urban Company began expanding internationally to countries like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Australia and Singapore and thanks to the professionalism they've inculcated since their beginnings in India. Urban Company has been well received in these international markets causing their revenues to double from 14.25 million dollars in the financial year of 2019 to 29 million dollars in the financial year of 2020. Which is something that their investors have been very happy to see so far. Urban Company has raised 446 million dollars from their bankers at a valuation of 2.1 billion dollars.

 

5. Lenskart

At number 5 now we have gurugram based omnichannel eyewear retailer lenskart. When amid Chaotius Bunsel and Sumit Kapahi started lenskart in 2010 they were strictly an online company. But after a couple of years, they realized that India’s eyewear market was still predominantly offline which prompted them to open their first physical store in 2014. Today they are a profitable business and have more than 750 stores across the country and sell upwards of 8 million glasses a year. If that wasn't enough they've also begun to expand outside of India as well opening 25 stores across Singapore since 2019. They are now one of the top three players in the country and have plans to expand to other Southeast Asian markets shortly to do this they recently raised 220 million dollars from their investors bringing the total external funding that they've raised to 774 million dollars at a 2.5 billion dollar valuation.

 

4. OLA

At number 4 now we have Bengaluru-based ride-hailing unicorn ola cabs back in 2010. Two IIT Bombay graduates Ankit Bhatti and Bhavesh Agarwal started ola trips as a weekend getaway travel service. But quickly pivoted to on-demand cab bookings after bavish had a terrible cab experience where he was left stranded on the side of the road for not paying a fair increase that the driver demanded halfway through the trip today ola is india's leading cab aggregator with 1.5 million driver-partners completing over a billion rides a year across more than 250 cities in 2018 ola went international first to Australia and New Zealand and then to the UK in 2019. Of course the pandemic has hit the company pretty hard but thanks to their investors who have poured 4.3 billion dollars into the startup so far ola cabs has been able to survive.

 

3. OYO

At number three we have gurugram based hospitality unicorn Oyo was founded by Ritesh Agarwal and his ousted co-founder Anesh Sinha in 2013. Oyo was dubbed the world's fastest-growing hotel chain in 2019 with more than 43 000 partner hotels across 80 countries. But of course without any real ownership over a large majority of these hotels when the pandemic hit everything came crumbling down. OYO laid off thousands of employees excited multiple countries shut down periphery businesses and focused on becoming a sustainable business by December of 2020. These efforts had begun to pay off they achieved break-even at an operational level in India and also achieved operational profitability in Europe which was a huge relief for Oyo's investors. Who so far have poured 4.1 billion dollars into the startup and didn't want to see that money go to waste.

 

2. Paytm

At number two now we have Noida based pre-IPO stage digital payments decacorn Paytm was founded by Vijay Shikhar Sharma in 2010. Their IPO is expected to be the largest in Indian history yet many Indians are unaware of the fact that they have an international presence they've been operating in my home country of Canada since 2017. Where the Paytm app allows you to pay your bills in exchange for reward points they also have an app in japan called PayPay which is the country's largest digital payments platform and was built in partnership with Softbank and yahoo japan. Finally in Bangladesh they've partnered with an online shopping company Daraz to launch a gaming platform called dera's first games. Paytm has built and grown all of these international services with the help of their investors who so far have pumped 4.4 billion dollars into Paytm's parent company One97.

 

1. Byju’s

Finally coming in at number one we have Bengaluru-based edtech decacorn by jews founded by Ravindran and Divya Gokul Nath in 2011. Byju’s is the world's most valuable edtech startup and a lot of this value stems from Byju's inorganic growth strategy. They've spent the last few years buying up tons of smaller companies like Osmo, white hat jr and epic among others. All of these acquisitions have culminated in the launch of Byju's future school which is a platform that's modeled after whitehead jr by providing personalized one-on-one teaching to students. In countries like the united states,  UK, Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, and Mexico with 2.7 billion dollars in external funding from their investors. It's very possible that Byju's will be an international household name before the end of this decade.