India's Unicorns

 For years, India has proudly advertised itself as the “world’s third-largest startup ecosystem,” boasting more than 120 unicorns. But peel bChatgpt glossy numbers and what emerges is not a story of innovation — but of glorified delivery apps, repackaged convenience services, and businesses built on patching holes that the governments (central and state) never bothered to fix.

I feel that India’s unicorn boom is a statistical illusion, not a technological revolution. Here is why

Deep tech — the domain of real scientific advancement — demands what India refuses to provide: hard research, patient capital, specialized expertise, and the courage to fund breakthroughs rather than quick-commerce clones.

"Deep tech” to me  means:

• AI at foundational levels

• Robotics

• Semiconductors

• Advanced materials

• Quantum computing

• Aerospace engines

• True biotech

These require years of R&D, deep integration with research universities, and investors willing to wait for science to mature. The U.S. and China fund this boldly. China, in fact, backs deep tech with near 100% government-supported capital.

India, meanwhile, offers little more than PowerPoint policies, hackathons, and bureaucratic jargon. Result? Out of 120+ unicorns, India cannot muster more than four or five deep-tech companies — and even those lean heavily toward applied AI or analytics, not core science.

Unicorns Solving Problems the Government Never Solved

What exactly are India’s unicorns innovating?

The answer is painfully simple: they are band-aids on fundamental governance failures.

• Food delivery apps exist because Indian cities don’t work. Either terrible roads or terrible traffic, or both. 

• Logistics unicorns thrive because freight, postal systems, and supply chains don’t.

• Ride-hailing survives because public transport is imbecile.

• Consumer and beauty unicorns scale because Indians distrust regulated retail.

• Fintech unicorns mushroomed simply because banks could not modernize fast enough.

This is *not *innovation but entrepreneurial firefighting.

I got Chatgpt to research the top 120 unicorns in India as of today. Here is a profile break-up:

• 40–45 → Consumer apps (beauty, grocery, delivery, lifestyle)

• 25 → FinTech (payments, credit, lending — basically doing the bank’s job)

• 20+ → SaaS (solid, but not breakthrough tech)

• Rest → Logistics, mobility, EdTech, HealthTech (again: distribution, not discovery)

As of today, India Has ZERO Unicorns In:

• Semiconductors

• Advanced materials

• Core robotics

• Quantum computing

• Aerospace propulsion

• Foundational biotech

So, what Does This Say About a Country Claiming a “Huge Talent Pool”??

It says the talent is real. But the system isn’t. It says India produces brilliant engineers — only to funnel them into IT services, coding for foreign clients, or building the 27th grocery-delivery clone. It says India celebrates valuations, not inventions. It says the ecosystem rewards speed over science, marketing over materials research, pitch decks over prototypes, and quick wins over deep breakthroughs.

Above all, it says India’s startup landscape is not an innovation engine — it is a giant workaround for a state that has failed so far over the last almost 80 years to build basic infrastructure.

Is this changing for the better in 2026? You decide.