Indian startups second to US on Y Combinator’s top companies list

Fintech unicorn Razorpay, which
was valued at $7.5 billion in December last year, topped the charts amongst Indian startups in Y Combinator’s top startup list, which featured over 260 startups from the accelerator’s portfolio.

The list contains both public and private companies, which are valued at $150 million or more, and are sorted by their valuation as of February 2022.

Y Combinator said 99 new companies joined the list since its last update in July 2021.

A total of 10 Indian companies featured on the list, including Meesho, Clear, Groww, and Khatabook.

Companies like Instawork, Zepto, FamPay were new additions from India to the overall list this year.

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“Excluding the US, there are more companies in India on the list than any other geography. The international growth is significant, especially when compared to our first list in 2018 — but unsurprising. We find when we fund successful companies, like Razorpay, Groww, and Zepto, there’s a flywheel effect where they inspire locals to start a startup,” Y Combinator said in a statement.

Startups from six new countries were represented in this year’s list including Algeria, Senegal, Brazil, Chile and Singapore.

Of the new companies on the list, 28% were outside of its home market in the US, signalling Y Combinator’s efforts to double down on international geographies and make investments.

Y Combinator also said that it has seen a significant increase in applications from India over the past two years.

“In two years, from the (Winter) 2020 batch to the (Winter) 2022 batch, we’ve seen a 45% increase in applications from India,” added Y Combinator.

According to the US-based startup accelerator more than 260 of its portfolio companies are valued at over $150 million and more than 60 companies are ‘unicorns’, those valued at $1 billion or more.