The Story Of Growth-Stage Start-Ups in India

The Outlook Start-Ups Outperformers 2023 ranks growth-stage start-ups across eight sectors in India to give a comprehensive analysis of their evolution and market potential

There are about 4,000 start-ups in India in the growth stage, the ones valued between $10 million and $800 million. While these are spread out across various sectors, the Outlook Start-Up Outperformers 2023 covers the top five ones on the basis of the funding they received in the first two quarters of this calendar year. These include fintech, healthtech, D2C, ecommerce and edtech. A lot of innovation is happening in three other sectors—sustainability, cleantech and deeptech, which is why they have been categorised as “watch out for” sectors.

If Indian start-ups must emerge as job providers and harbingers of innovation, then they need to be nurtured to create intergenerational companies. And the responsibility lies with the entire ecosystem, especially with investors and policymakers.

How are the start-up sectors faring and which among them is attracting maximum interest from founders and investors? Which are the top performing growth-stage start-ups in these sectors? What powers their success or holds them back? How has the funding winter—the decline in overall funding activities—affected them and how have they coped?

Get the November 2023 start-up special issue of Outlook Business to find answers to these questions and get valuable and comprehensive insights into the workings of the dynamic start-up ecosystem in the country.

Read more about the top performers in each the five most-funded sectors and three “watch out for” sectors. Pushed either by desire or by necessity, the founders attempt to plug gaps in the society with their offerings, marrying their ideas with the latest technology to come up with products and services that have caught the fancy of investors and have propelled these start-ups to success.

Factors like their maturity, size, financials and growth, total funding and valuation, market disruption, client and user base, impact on the market, etc. have been taken into consideration while ranking these growth-stage start-ups.

The Outlook ranking, with its eye to detail and 360-degree analysis, will give a better understanding of the market trends and allow stakeholders—entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers— to take away lessons that are most relevant to them.