The number of Indian unicorns — start-ups valued at $1 billion and above — could increase to 52 in the next two years. The country at present has a little over 30 unicorns.

“The start-up ecosystem, which started with one unicorn in 2012, has grown to 30 unicorns by now and we foresee that we will be able to create about 52 unicorns by 2022. This gives assurance and hope that in times to come India would actually become a software product nation and give a much-needed leadership to the rest of the world,” Onkar Rai, director-general of Software Technology Parks of India, said at Infocom 2020, the flagship event of ABP Group.

Data from Venture Intelligence show there are 33 unicorns in the country across segments. The largest unicorn in terms of valuation is Paytm estimated at around $16 billion, while Byju’s is valued at $10.8 billion. A key trend in the start-up segment this year is the continuous rise in the number of unicorns in India despite the pandemic. Six start-ups have crossed the $1-billion valuation this year.

The rise in the number of large start-ups could also give a fillip to the software products market in India, which is at present a fraction of the global industry. This is unlike the outsourcing market where the country has a 56 per cent share globally.

“In terms of software products, we are still at infancy. We have about $10-billion revenue in the software product market in India whereas world over the market stands at $520 billion which is expected to grow to $1 trillion by 2025.

“A national policy on software products has already come out in 2019 and we want to take the software product industry in India to be somewhere between $70-80 billion by 2025,” Rai said.

He added that STPI is collaborating with the Union ministry of electronics and information technology, state governments, academia and industry leaders for its centre of excellence initiative focussing on the access to mentor pool, seed capital, market access, laboratory and standards for the benefit of the start-ups.

Rai said during the lockdown, the demand for made-in-India products and technology services has gone up, resulting in a growth of the digital profile of the country. “As the world is moving towards industry 4.0, the focus is on software and IT products. We are trying to build on talent and cost arbitrage and capitalise on the indigenous demand,” he said.