Unicorn club: No dip in momentum in FY22

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Online automobile platform Droom is the latest entrant into the coveted club of unicorn start-ups in the country. The company said it successfully closed the first leg of its funding wherein it raised $200 million that catapulted its valuation to $1.2 billion. Some of the new investors that have come on board are 57 Stars and Seven Train Ventures. The company had previously raised close to $125 million from a slew of investors, including Toyota Tsusho Corporation, Digital Garage, Integrated Asset Management, Beenext, Lightbox and others.

Expansion

Sandeep Aggarwal,  founder and CEO of Droom, said that the total amount of $200 million will be raised in multiple tranches and a big part of it has already been raised so far.

He also said that with the existing scale coupled with technology-oriented business and operational efficiency, Droom is inching close to becoming profitable.

The company is IPO-bound and is in pursuit of getting listed either in India or at NASDAQ (USA) in 2022. As per a statement, Droom’s current annual run rate for Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) is $1.7 billion, while its net revenue is $54 million. It also added that it is in line to touch GMV of $2 billion along with net revenue of $65 million in the calendar year 2021.

13 unicorns in FY 22 so far

As many as 13 firms have got the status of unicorn in financial year 2021-2022. Social commerce platform Meesho entered the club in April after it was valued at $2.1 billion in a fresh funding of $300 million, led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2.

ShareChat, Cred and Urban Company are three others which became unicorn with valuation of above $ 2 billion this financial year ( see the accompanying table).

In 2021, 18 companies have got the unicorn status till now. SaaS company BrowserStack, which is currently valued at $4 billion, leads the list in terms of valuation. It is followed by insurer Digit ($3.5 billion) and ShareChat ($2.8 billion).