Founded in 2007, Indian ad-tech firm InMobi had to sweat it out for a decade before it could enter the elite unicorn club. But lately, Indian startups have started reaching ten-digit valuations much faster.
Training the lens on just the unicorn activity, therefore, doesn’t paint the full picture—it just sheds light on the ultimate success stories. “This whole unicorn obsession is misplaced and doesn’t measure the value that the startup will eventually create for the ecosystem,” says Yugal Joshi, vice-president at Texas-based consultancy Everest Group. “It depends on how willing the investors are to put money in an idea, many times driven by herd mentality and global pressure, than the soundness of the business.”
