Top 20 Indian Startups Leading the Innovation Story

Business Innovation in India: 20 startups are excelling despite economic challenges, showcasing appeal to investors and talent. Although The selection process was data-driven, considering factors like employee growth, job seeker interest, and internal engagement. Besides these startups stand out in a year marked by funding difficulties, layoffs, and cautious investor behavior.

Here are the companies that have risen to the challenges and marched ahead:

Zepto
- Full-time headcount: 1,400+
- Headquarters: Mumbai
- Year founded: 2021
- What they do: Zepto is a quick commerce company delivering groceries and essentials across 10 cities in India. In August, the company achieved unicorn status – India’s first this year – with $200 million in fresh funding, symbolizing the extraordinary potential and innovation in the country’s startup ecosystem.
BluSmart
- Full-time headcount: 620
- Headquarters: Gurugram
- Year founded: 2018
- What they do: With a fleet of 4,500 electric vehicles, BluSmart provides electric ride-hailing services in the Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) and Bengaluru. The startup intends to increase its fleet to 10,000 vehicles by the end of the year and invest more in installing electric chargers all over the country.
Ditto Insurance
- Full-time headcount: 250+
- Headquarters: Bengaluru
- Year founded: 2018
- What they do: Ditto Insurance is an insurtech startup that helps people compare plans, understand policies, and buy insurance through its online platform. The company plans to hire hundreds of freshmen in the upcoming year.
Pocket FM
- Full-time headcount: 480+
- Headquarters: Bengaluru
- Year founded: 2018
- What they do: Pocket FM offers audio entertainment across genres and Indian languages through its 100,000+ hours-strong content library. The company claims it has 80 million listeners globally.
Skyroot Aerospace
- Full-time headcount: 260
- Headquarters: Hyderabad
- Year founded: 2018
- What they do: Skyroot Aerospace specializes in futuristic space-launch vehicle design and building. With its maiden mission, Prarambh, the startup in 2022 became the first Indian private company to launch a rocket into space.
GoKwik
- Full-time headcount: 275
- Headquarters: New Delhi
- Year founded: 2020
- What they do: GoKwik offers data and technology-led solutions for e-commerce and direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands to improve customer experience across the shopping funnel and boost conversion rates and revenue growth.
Fi
- Full-time headcount: 400
- Headquarters: Bengaluru
- Year founded: 2019
- What they do: Fi is a financial app with an in-built savings account that also offers mutual fund investment options and other financial services such as personal loans in partnership with regulated entities.
Sprinto
- Full-time headcount: 150+
- Headquarters: Bengaluru
- Year founded: 2019
- What they do: Sprinto automates information security compliances and privacy laws for software-as-a-service companies and helps monitor entity-level risks and controls.
Supersourcing
- Full-time headcount: 120
- Headquarters: Indore
- Year founded: 2020
- What they do: Supersourcing is a business-to-business (B2B) artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled platform for hiring remote engineers and provides pre-vetted developers to medium and small-sized businesses, enterprises, and funded startups.
GrowthSchool
- Full-time headcount: 180
- Headquarters: Bengaluru
- Year founded: 2021
- What they do: GrowthSchool partners with instructors to create cohort-based courses on personal and professional growth topics such as marketing, design, and business.
Jar
- Full-time headcount: 180+
- Headquarters: Bengaluru
- Year founded: 2021
- What they do: Jar is an automated gold savings app that allows people to save spare change from their online transactions and invest it in digital gold, as well as offers manual and daily, weekly, or monthly savings options. Launched in 2021, the app currently has more than 1.5 crore users.
Shyft
- Full-time headcount: 70
- Headquarters: Gurugram
- Year founded: 2019
- What they do: Shyft, formerly known as Mindhouse, is a wellness and life management and tracking platform that offers health, yoga, nutrition, and dermatology programs.
Teachnook
- Full-time headcount: 130+
- Headquarters: Bengaluru
- Year founded: 2021
- What they do: Teachnook offers students curated programs to help them upskill on topics such as Web3, augmented reality/virtual reality, business development, and performance marketing.
StockGro
- Full-time headcount: 60+
- Headquarters: Bengaluru
- Year founded: 2020
- What they do: StockGro aims to educate young investors about trading and investment. It allows people to build their trading skills in a simulated environment, follow experts and top investors, and also provides investment recommendations and portfolio management solutions.
Exponent Energy
- Full-time headcount: 185
- Headquarters: Bengaluru
- Year founded: 2020
- What they do: Exponent Energy is on a mission to simplify energy for electric vehicles (EVs) and in fact offers a 15-minute rapid charging solution for EVs.
Housr
- Full-time headcount: 100
- Headquarters: Gurugram
- Year founded: 2019
- What they do: Housr provides luxury co-living and accommodation solutions across five Indian cities, moreover focused exclusively on millennials and working professionals, and boasts more than 75 properties.
AccioJob
- Full-time headcount: 190
- Headquarters: Gurugram
- Year founded: 2018
- What they do: AccioJob offers courses around full-stack web development and data analytics, indeed run by IIT-Delhi alumni.
TravClan
- Full-time headcount: 190+
- Headquarters: New Delhi
- Year founded: 2019
- What they do: TravClan is a B2B platform offering business solutions for travel companies, including flight and hotel bookings, travel websites, payment gateways, and also marketing material.
DotPe
- Full-time headcount: 450+
- Headquarters: Gurugram
- Year founded: 2019
- What they do: DotPe offers business solutions for omnichannel selling, including point of sale, e-commerce website, QR, payments, and delivery. Additionally it provides a full-stack food tech offering for food and beverage companies.
Fasal
- Full-time headcount: 170
- Headquarters: Bengaluru
- Year founded: 2018
- What they do: Fasal is a full-stack platform for horticulture farming that provides farmers with farm-specific, crop-specific, and crop-stage-specific actionable advisory through its AI-driven platform, thus helping them reduce the cost of cultivation and increase quality and yield.

These startups represent a diverse range of industries and demonstrate the innovative spirit and potential of the Indian startup ecosystem. Therefore they are not only addressing current challenges but also shaping the future of their respective industries, besides making Business Innovation in India.

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Business Innovation in India: Q&A Section

Q: How were these startups selected for the list?

Firstly these startups were selected based on criteria including employee growth, job seeker interest, internal company engagement, and the ability to draw talent from top-ranked companies on LinkedIn.