20 Most Successful Startup companies in India: Unique & Innovative

Every Day a New Startup Company is Launched in India. Some of them are hardly successful.

But there are few startups which are doing extremely Well and are valued as a Billion Dollar Startups.

Do you wish to know which are the most successful startup companies in India?

In this article, we list the top 20 startups in India.

Over the years, India has evolved an excellent startup culture and ecosystem.

Consequently, we have thousands of entrepreneurs from all ages opening startup ventures in India.

If you are considering entrepreneurship and want to launch a startup, this list of most successful companies will definitely provide encouragement.

List of Top 20 Most Successful Startup Companies in India

These startups began as small ventures. Their main focus has always been providing some much-needed service to Indians, either individuals or businesses.

Hence, they found a growing demand and became successful.

1. Flipkart

Everyone in India knows about Flipkart. It is the largest, home-grown online store in India.

The company was founded in 2007 as an online book retailer and Now is the best and Most Successful startup company in India.

Flipkart is a brainchild of Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal. The company is the toughest competitor in India to global online retail giant Amazon.

2. OYO Rooms

OYO Rooms now hires nearly 5,000 people and is rapidly spreading its wings worldwide. The company was founded in 2012 by Ritesh Agarwal.

It is an accommodations aggregator. This means OYO Rooms lists budget hotels and other accommodations in India and abroad. It is the biggest rival in India for global giant, Airbnb.

3. Digit Insurance

This Bangalore-based startup was established in 2015. It is an online general insurance company that is said to settle claims within 24 hours.

Recently, it received a boost of US$22million from a venture capitalist. Digit Insurance is also expanding operations worldwide. They insure cars, bikes, homes and mobile devices.

4. RedBus

Any mention of successful Indian startups is incomplete without RedBus. It was founded in 2006.

According to popular legend, its founder, Phanindra Sama could not find a bus to visit his family during Diwali vacations in 2005.

He, therefore, decided to aggregate bus bookings online that would make it easy for people to reserve tickets in advance. The company is now owned by Ibibo group.

5. Paytm

India’s favourite mobile wallet and payments app Paytm is the brainchild of Vijay Shekhar Sharma.

With the belief that mobile phones can be used for making online payments, Sharma invested Rs.2 million to found Paytm.

Post-November 9, 2016 demonetization of the Indian currency, Paytm became immensely popular to pay for everything from mobiles to vegetables.

Now Paytm also runs an eponymous payments bank in India. It has over 12 million users.

6. Place of Origin

Ashish Nichani and Sudarshan Metla thought about Indians that leave their native places to take jobs at distant locations.

They wanted to bring the taste of home to such women and men. The duo launched Place of Origin in 2014.

Here you can buy famous foods from your native place in India. The company has since diversified into online retail of ethnic garments with websites such as Craftsvilla and Sutva.

7. Razorpay

Bangalore-based payments gateway, Razorpay was launched by IIT graduates Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur in 2014 from Jaipur.

It is now a company funded by various venture capitalists. MasterCard has also invested millions of Dollars in this company.

It’s the latest funding of US$20 million came in January 2018. Razorpay is expanding its operations as a payment gateway. The boom of e-commerce is fueling the growth of Razorpay.

8. Zomato

Coming down to basics, Zomato is India’s single largest and most favourite online portal and app for ordering food.

Zomato is the brainchild of Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah. It was launched in 2008. Zomato now has over 1.5 million restaurants in 27 countries worldwide.

It ranks among the top food order apps in the world. The app is available in different Indian languages and several foreign ones too.

9. Acko General Insurance

Acko General Insurance was founded in 2014 by entrepreneur Varun Dua. It is a startup that is best known for insuring smartphones.

Most major online retailers provide mobile insurance policies from Acko. The company is now funded by Amazon and other venture capitalists.

Acko also provides in-trip insurance for passengers of Ola Cabs. Their most popular product is mobile screen insurance.

10. Ola Cabs

Founded on lines of a global taxi aggregator, Ola Cabs was founded in 2010 by Ankit Bhati and Bhavish Agarwal.

It ranks as India’s topmost, home-grown taxi service. Ola Cabs now serves almost every nook and corner of India.

Their airport transfer and intercity services are immensely popular among Indian travellers.

Over the years, Ola Cabs has also bought over several smaller taxi companies in India.

11. Exadatum Software Services

Exadatum Software Services provides big data transfers and other related services to some of the top Fortune 500 companies in the world.

This Pune-based startup is known for its high-velocity big data management services.

It was founded in 2014 by IT expert, Divya Rakesh and his two colleagues. The company now has over 70 employees worldwide and is billed as an employer of choice.

12. FreeCharge

Anyone looking for attractive discounts and cashback offers while recharging prepaid mobile phones knows of FreeCharge.

This startup was founded in 2010 by Sandeep Tandon and Kunal Shah. As FreeCharge popularity is rising, the company now also offers an online wallet and payments app for online and offline shopping.

It shot into the limelight following the November 9, 2016 demonetization of Indian currency notes of Rs.500 and Rs.1,000.

FreeCharge offers discounts for every phone recharge in India and online payment of bills, discounts on shopping for payments made using their app and lots more.

13. SHEROES

SHEROES was founded in 2013 by one of the most Successful female entrepreneur Sairee Chahal. It is an online resource for women job seekers and entrepreneurs.

SHEROES draws inspiration from similar websites in the US that aim at bridging the income gender divide.

Currently, more than 7,000 companies are listed on SHEROES that advertise job vacancies for women. It is a top all-women startup venture in India.

14. Yourstory.com

Founded by female entrepreneur Shraddha Sharma in 2018, Yourstory.com is a website that carries over 60,000 success stories of entrepreneurs and people in India that have touched the lives of others.

It is a runaway success in the online media sector of the country.

Shraddha Sharma is herself a journalist and wanted to give voice to people whose achievements go unsung. Their stories are an inspiration to millions of Indians and foreigners.

15. Sugarbox

Founded in 2014 by Niharika Jhunjhunwala, this famous and very unique Indian startup is for women. Sugarbox is an online portal specially designed for women.

Women can subscribe for a ‘Sugarbox’ by paying a fixed amount of money.

Their curators will then create a box for women that contains surprises such as jewellery, fragrances, treats, garments and lots more.

The contents of the box are kept secret but women get more value than what they pay. It is also an ideal gifting service for women by women.

16. Goji Love

Goji Love is a brand of exquisite Indian lingerie that now sells online on Amazon and other popular online stores.

This startup was founded by Ramina Haorokcham in Imphal, the capital of India’s Manipur state in 2015.

Ramina Haorokcham also features on BBC’s 100 Women Entrepreneur List. The startup has drawn attention abroad: Goji Love lingerie is reasonably priced and features unique styles.

Most Goji Love creations are designed by the startup owner herself. The company has also won several national awards as best startup from India’s North East region.

17. Pepperfry

Launched in 2012 by entrepreneurs Ambareesh Murty and Ashish Shah, Pepperfry.com offers complete solutions for home and office décor.

The duo were colleagues as eBay and drew inspiration from online sales of furniture that occur on that website.

Pepperfry ranks among the topmost online stores in India to buy Furniture. They are best known for quality furniture and furnishings that cannot be found elsewhere in the market. The company also sells its own brand of furniture.

18. Shuttl

Deepanshu Malviya and Amit Singh launched this famous startup, Shuttl which aggregates buses.

It made debut in 2015 in New Delhi by offering shared shuttle bus services between the Indian capital and nearby cities.

The company now handles close to 50,000 rides between New Delhi and five nearby cities.

In recent months, the company managed to attract US$11 million funding from Amazon and Dentsu Capital, Japan. Shuttl now plans to expand operations to other cities in India.

19. BrowserStack

You may never have heard of BrowserStack. This Mumbai-based startup made headlines in 2017 when it got over US$50 million funding from foreign investors.

BrowserStock is a company that has over two million app developers worldwide. They develop apps for over 25,000 companies in various parts of the world.

Some of their famous clients include Facebook, the Walt Disney Co and Tesco group of superstores. The company offers app development and web testing services.

20. Rivigo

Rivigo is a logistics startup that introduced the relay model for carrying freight.

The Gurgaon-based enterprise was founded by Deepak Garg and Ghazal Kaira in 2014.

With Rivigo, clients can post or request full truck requirements to various destinations in India.

They help freight companies to aggregate cargo and ‘relay’ it to other carriers for speedy delivery.

Their unique logistics model is an example for India where delays causes food and fresh produce worth billions of Dollars to be wasted every year.

Some of the largest Indian companies like ITC, Maruti Suzuki and Amazon figure on its list of clients.

Special Mention:

There are some pioneering Indian startups that also deserve mention in this article. They are unique in the field and are very successful.

21. Elrhino Dung Paper

Elrhino Dung Paper is a very successful Indian startup that has gained immense popularity worldwide.

As the name suggests, Elrhino makes paper from the dung of one-horned rhinoceros and elephants found in Assam.

The startup was launched in 2005 by retiree Mahesh Bora and his daughter Nisha Bora in Guwahati, Assam.

The company’s products are famous worldwide as ‘poop paper’. Elrhino paper sources its raw material- rhinoceros and elephant dung from villagers in Assam.

22. InCred Finance

InCred Finance is a Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) startup launched in 2016 by former Deutsche Bank employee, Bhupinder Singh.

The company is fast emerging as a lender of choice. InCred Finance provides five different types of loans.

They provide personal loans, home finance, loans to small and medium enterprises, two-wheeler finance and education loans. The company has found several financial backers to invest and promote its business.

Wrap Up

Ease of doing business, Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency (MUDRA) Bank and other initiatives by the Indian government is helping entrepreneurs to launch startups.

Since India has unique issues that need equally unique solutions, a lot of foreign venture capitalists and financers are now investing heavily in Indian startups.

In fact, a lot of Indian startups have been bought over by foreign giants, with entrepreneurs now remaining on their board of directors.

According to industry estimates, India will see about 1,000 new startup ventures emerge every month in different parts of the country.

Most of these are expected to be in the IT and e-commerce sectors. A few are also expected to emerge in the food service and fashion industry in the coming years.