According to the data intelligence platform Tracxn, India is now home to 121 unicorns, with Jumbotail, a business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platform focused on the food and grocery sector, being the most recent addition on June 30, 2025. Startups valued at USD 1 billion or above earn the designation of unicorns. These companies represent breakthrough innovation and significant market disruption.

India has solidly positioned itself as the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem, with over 1.59 lakh startups officially recognised by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) as of January 15, 2025, per data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The United States leads with 1,047 unicorns, followed by China with 248 unicorns in second place. Through July 14, 2025, India has witnessed the minting of four new unicorns this year, representing a 25% growth compared to three unicorns during the corresponding timeframe in 2024. Within India’s geography, Bengaluru dominates the unicorn landscape with 52 companies, while Gurugram and Mumbai are tied for second place with 19 unicorns each, per data released by Tracxn.

However, while the magic of unicorns continues to capture popular imagination, a league of startups, better known as ‘soonicorns’, or high-potential startups nearing the billion-dollar valuation club, has been playing a robust role in powering the startup-innovation economy. Today, as soonicorns face the question of scale, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as the key force multiplier, core tech, and strategic pivot accelerating this journey. And at the Economic Times (ET) Soonicorns Summit 2025, scheduled to be held on 22 August in Bengaluru, founders and investors will unpack the proven playbook for scaling from lab experiments to billion-dollar revenue models.

“A soonicorn company would ideally exhibit one or more of the metrics—funding more than $40M or valuation over $100M. Soonicorn companies are potential companies that can soon become unicorns in the near future,” Neha Singh, Co-founder of Tracxn, told Economic Times.

Tracxn also considers multiple factors, Singh informed, such as “innovativeness, the technology used, patents filed by the company, team background, customer base, employee count, social media followings on LinkedIn and Facebook, and presence of marquee investors, apart from valuation and funding to consider a company as a soonicorn”.

If ever there was a moment to ride the AAI wave, it is now. The ET Soonicorns Summit 2025 in Bengaluru on 22 August—India’s largest congregation of soonicorns—dives deep into this momentum with its founder-first, funding-focused, and idea-rich day-long agenda.

Join top VCs in a candid debate about whether India’s AI funding is hype-laden or truly backing disruptive innovation.

Exclusive insights on how AI-first ventures can scale globally—and become unicorns (or soonicorns!) themselves.

The question on everyone’s mind: Can India build ChatGPT‑style agents?
Two of the most closely watched names in India’s generative (Gen) AI ecosystem are Sarvam AI and Krutrim, both of which reflect distinct stages in the soonicorn-to-unicorn journey. Backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners and selected under the IndiaAI Mission, Sarvam AI is building India’s sovereign large language models (LLMs) with a sharp focus on Indic languages and reasoning capabilities. Its flagship release, Sarvam-M, a 24-billion parameter hybrid LLM, has outperformed several global models on Indian language benchmarks.

Meanwhile, Krutrim, founded by Ola’s Bhavish Aggarwal, has already crossed the $1 billion valuation mark, making it one of India’s earliest AI unicorns. Its core product, Kruti, is an agentic AI assistant capable of executing real-world digital tasks in over a dozen Indian languages—positioning Krutrim as a homegrown rival to ChatGPT in a multilingual, mobile-first market. Together, they represent India’s ambition to not just adopt, but architect the next wave of foundational AI.

At the Summit, founders and experts will answer: Can India realistically challenge the global AI giants? The answer lies in tech, talent, and scale. Get ready to hear from experts as they share their roadmap towards building India-centric LLMs and agents.

A no‑holds‑barred conversation with founders, CHROs, and hiring experts about how India’s workforce can adapt and prosper in the age of automating intelligence.

Discussion on data infrastructure, sustainable cloud, and edge computation to democratise AI across Indian cities and towns—fueling both deep tech labs and product-market scale.

This masterclass is essential for soonicorn CFOs eyeing IPO exits in a volatility-driven environment.

A showcase of AI systems that are transforming financial fraud detection—critical for soonicorns in fintech, insurtech, and risk domains.

Hear how AI-enabled analytics and personalisation engines are powering Indian soonicorns to outperform incumbents in retail and direct-to-commerce (D2C) commerce.

Apart from the heavy-duty panels listed above, a chief attraction is the Fireside chat featuring InMobi Co‑founder Mohit Saxena. The topic, ‘The Next Frontier of Coding: Building a New Indigenous Tech Stack in the AI Age,’ dives into the journey from building one of India’s earliest unicorns to how Indian AI startups can create vertically integrated tech stacks, from source code to scale. Expect rich storytelling and granular insights.

Last but not least, the ethical leadership panel, titled ‘AI’s Ethical Crossroads: Innovation vs Manipulation in a Deepfake Era’, is slated to be a timely discussion on responsible AI development, content authenticity, and India’s ethical guardrails for soonicorns entering the global spotlight.

This year’s ET Soonicorns Summit, happening on 22 August 2025 in Bengaluru, is the definitive platform for AI-first founders, soonicorns, unicorn hunters, investors, and policymakers. With its laser theme—‘From Research Labs to Revenue Models: The Billion‑Dollar Blueprint for Scaling Indian AI Startups’—the event promises breakthrough insights, actionable grand strategies, and a roadmap for deep‑tech futures.

The journey from soonicorn to unicorn will be charted through hard data, real stories, and the kind of scale narratives that turn startups into global AI leaders.

360 One Wealth is the presenting partner of the ET Soonicorns Summit 2025.

A startup valued at $1 billion or above earns the unicorn designation, representing breakthrough innovation and significant market disruption.

India is home to 121 unicorns as of 2025, making it the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem after the US (1,047) and China (248).

A soonicorn has raised more than $40M in funding or achieved over $100M valuation—essentially high-potential startups nearing unicorn status.

Bengaluru dominates with 52 unicorns, while Gurugram and Mumbai are tied for second place with 19 unicorns each.

AI has emerged as the key force multiplier and strategic pivot, accelerating soonicorns’ scaling journey toward billion-dollar valuations.

(This article is generated and published by the ET Spotlight team. You can get in touch with them at [email protected].)