While the world is battling the Covid 19 pandemic, some extraordinary start-ups are paving their way to a successful future. As they rightly say, ideas are easy, implementation is tough and the ones who implement their vision with utmost diligence are the real heroes. These successful startups follow just one mantra and that is learning, evolving, and not giving up.
Today, starting a business and making it grow is a task as compared to 10 years back, this is because of ever-increasing competition and the start-up which manages to overcome this competition through its out-of-the-box ideas becomes a startup to watch and admire.
Indian Startups to Watch This Year
Let us dive into the list of most influential start-ups to keep your eye on in 2021 curated by The Nxt Unicorn.
1. Dunzo
Everybody craves hassle-free and simplified product delivery and Dunzo turned this widespread need into a widely acknowledged service. This commendable application allows its users to comfortably send and receive products while slouching on their couches.
Dunzo’s client base is growing so rapidly majorly because of its customer delight and ever-growing understanding.
Dunzo is successfully operating in 8 Indian metropolitan cities and is pretty confident that it will double its revenue in just 2 years of time. Dunzo doesn’t just act as a savior for customers who want doorstep delivery but also acts as a godsend for independent shops that can’t afford home deliveries for their customers.
It is not only an average delivery app but a lightning-fast delivery services app with not many competitors in the market.
There is no doubt that Dunzo will establish its footprints throughout the country or even internationally in the coming years.
Founded just 7 years back, Dunzo is backed by Google now and is all set to grow and expand its reach.
2. Zest Money
As it is rightly said ‘see things in the present even if they are in the future, this is what the 3 founders of zest money must have thought when launching a digital lending platform back in 2015. Zest money is a one-stop destination for small-ticket loans which are approved instantly. This start-up is a perfect amalgamation of mobile technology, digital banking, and artificial intelligence.ZestMoney is full of customer-friendly features and also allows customers to pay through EMIs in stores.
In India, digital lending will not just benefit the customers but also benefit the evolving e-commerce industry, digital service providers as well as private labels working digitally.
Now one may ask how come this app provides small loans to everybody without any prerequisites, to which the only answer is that newly registered client with inadequate credit bureau data are requested to provide extra data points to analyze the customer and then move forward with the loan. This application successfully eliminates the credit card and credit score system and equips customers to purchase products up to 2.12 lakhs on EMIs.
The year of 2019 turned out to be quite profitable for Zest money when it raised funding from venture debt fund Alteria Capital. Acting as an EMI partner for Amazon, Flipkart, and many more, Zest money has achieved many such milestones and is expanding and growing at a steady rate.
3. Cure.fit
If I ask you to launch a new start-up in covid times, the majority of you guys’ responses would revolve around the health and wellbeing sector and that’s exactly what cure.fit delivers. Cure.fit is basically a health and fitness initiative launched in the year 2016, this start-up is a perfect blend of technology and data to benefit people with a much improved and health-conscious lifestyle and that too at affordable prices. Crefit works on its customer delight services regularly and provides incomparable services across the fields of fitness, nutrition as well as mental well-being.
Curefit was launched with a simple aim in mind and that was to make fitness simple and fun and they’re easy understand interface made clients resonate well with the business idea. The amount of options this application provides its audience with is applaudable too, people have an option to workout with a range of trainers that too in individual or group classes and not just that, the app also allows its users to choose between online and offline training sessions. Curefit is a successful integration of four services i.e. cult.fit, mind.fit, eat.fit and care.fit.
Curefit has played a major role in expanding the health and lifestyle industry digitally in the country. It has created widespread awareness and sensitivity towards mental health and fitness as well.
After successfully acquiring a name in our country, curefit is all set to expand in the US, stretching to new geographies was always a key goal for curefit founders and finally, their goals are being accomplished
4. Razorpay
When it comes to online payments in India, Razorpay is a staple name. The platform offers its users, mostly a variety of businesses, access to a huge variety of methods to help with their online transactions including but not limited to net banking, UPI, credit, and debit cards. The startup also offers access to wallets like Ola Money, Mobikwik, and the likes. Users are able to use the platform and it’s easy to navigate the dashboard via mobile and web applications.
It is quickly becoming one of the largest platforms in India and became a unicorn just a few months ago. Started humbly, the founders of Razorpay had to struggle for quite some time to get a seriously needed push in business. However, the growth has been so much lately that in recent years, the startup even launched a neo-banking platform and has started providing loans to small businesses.
Razorpay has ambitious aims, and from the way things are looking for them right now, they might very well complete their goal of processing over $25 billion in transactions this year. As per one of the founders, the startup also aims to connect with over 50 million businesses by the year 2025.
Evidently, Razorpay plays an increasingly important role in the lives of Indian businesses, and it is yet to explore all its potentialities. Needless to say, Razorpay has a bright future ahead of it.
5. Udaan
It is already pretty hard for small and medium businesses in India to make it in the highly competitive market. However, the startup Udaan, which is a B2B trade marketplace, is here to aid the mostly unorganized business-to-business market.
Udaan connects retailers to wholesalers and dealers without the hassle of actually going to said wholesalers while also giving them the power to negotiate in transactions, while also giving its users facilities like accounting and management of payments and orders.
Recently, the onset of nationwide lockdown in India highlighted the need for small general stores and businesses. This attention and utility trickled down to Udaan as well and helped the already star-bound startup grow even more.
Even though giants like Amazon and Reliance have attempted to gain a foothold in the Indian B2B market, Udaan still dominates it all. Owing to its domination in the market, Udaan also managed to make it to the Unicorn Club of startups and has plans to potentially become another source of loans for merchants.
The platform not only acts as a source of relief and aid for small merchants but also reflects the greatness of e-commerce in India. All things considered, Udaan really does have a long flight ahead of it, and one look at the figures tells us that this flight is bound to be a great one.
