India's Top 10 Loss-Making Startups That Have Raised Millions of Dollars in Funding

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

*Listen to this episode as a podcast here:* open.spotify.com/episode/20oAmo1QD1bjRtcSlOlVo8?si=hcra9UKFSkeB1QQ2vSL-Dg&dl_branch=1 *Sign up for our weekly startup newsletter:* mailchi.mp/6853d5e7f5d0/bwm-newsletter-signup *Subscribe to our Hindi channel here:* kzbin.info/door/MspFCCJpRkaiiHFetgauPQ *Subscribe to our Uncut channel for all our upcoming interviews here:* kzbin.info/door/pVR5rkBD9baBcrgaI5zJjA

[@KavateJayesh]

Do fix the Time stamps! i think u missed some

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

@Jayesh Kavate Thanks for that Jayesh 🙂 Looks like I missed quite a few lol. -Varun

[@arvapallimanikanta336]

you missed byju's

[@sankalpchauhan5884]

I feel that Indian startups should focus on being industry leaders, rather than focusing on exit strategies. We need a stable ecosystem, rather than a bubble that could burst at any time. Bootstrapping is the way to go forward, it takes time, yes, but it ensures profitability and success. Take Zoho and Directi for example.

[@krishnanvenkat4426]

True. But the current VC-funded zero-sum ecosystem makes it close to impossible to compete with the funded firms in marketing and sales. Starting a Zoho or Directi by bootstrapping was possible up to 2013. I do not think it is remotely possible now.

[@icemaqe99]

Zerodha!

[@saikatbag3961]

These companies will turn profitable but they need more time. Zomato is one of them who is going for ipo.

[@RoshanDixit]

This how the game works it's all about the EXIT ! That's also how the American startup scene is

[@ashishnair136]

Most companies here arent bubble. It has become fashionable to label everything as a bubble. Mowt companies on this list like Paytm, Delhivery has fantastic future.

[@oirohit]

This Chanel deserves much more views and subscribers. One of the best channel I have on my subscription list.

[@explicit5058]

Totally totally agreed brother!!

[@RohitSingh-yo2yl]

This Louis Vuitton deserves more views

[@jacksonjegatheesan5045]

fun fact: I've talked to a few IIM-B students there they are actually teaching a good way of how to attract investments rather than teaching actual business, if you look closer you can see a pattern on these loss-making startup founders were actually mostly from IIM(getting funded as a non-tier-one college alum is still a daydream ), something somewhere is wrong in the model

[@rahulanilkumar9562]

@oof Lol. BITS Pilani has produced the third highest number of startups in the country after IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay. Being a BITSian still gives you an edge when it comes to start up funding.

[@blobofconsciousness]

@oof tier 2-3 colleges..should also innovate and have access..

[@debabratachandra5954]

We want a video on "India's Top 10 Profitable Startups" aswell.

[@abhishekdev258]

True. Their is already a video on top 10 bootstrapped startups on this channel.

[@sunnypandey6630]

Doesn't exist

[@namanjain5763]

Atleast in top 3 there would be zerodha

[@nextinvention4906]

Magicstick making profit without investment.. Going to be next Apple 🍎 from India.

[@PankajDoharey]

Not Yet they all are burning money.

[@Yeager098]

Please make a video on explaining, why investors are still investing heavily on these loss making startups, their thinking and exit strategies, etc and also a video on profitable startups of India. Thanks BwM Team

[@just_a_curious_thinker]

We definitely need this video👍

[@rohankucheriya]

+1

[@rajmishra6189]

+1

[@rambot670]

Agree!

[@Ravi9A]

"thinking"

[@manaspol4288]

Two things: 1:the time stamp for Delhivery is longer than it is supposed to be. 2:the losses are surprising.

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Thanks for that Manas. I've fixed it now. :) -Varun

[@kshitijshekhar1144]

when life gives you a choice, become like zoho and zerodha, not cred and flipkart

[@yellnitroy2031]

Yup

[@htimus]

Can u expand wht u said

[@learningmaster8060]

Partially agree, but also disagree on Flipkart. Zoho and Zerodha are going to be multi national companies, Flipkart going to be profit in some time. But companies like CRED and Swiggy cannot survive and for sure they are going to die once the funding inflow is stopped. Zomato IPO is going to be a big failure.

[@tanaygupta632]

@@learningmaster8060 Haa you know everything. God is among us

[@prasun6084]

@@learningmaster8060 I agree about Swiggy. Zomato IPO might be failure initially too but it will survive in long run. But what Cred is doing, it still a unchartered territory. It will too early to be decisive.

[@niteshkhetan9757]

Irony is these are the companies which pay their engineers the highest in the industry.

[@kushaljivarajani9863]

Exactly..

[@aruparanjansatapathy7048]

thats why they are in loss , if a resource gets 19 lakhs for 2-3 of exp than you are not paying high you are just screwing the market and you dont have any vision.

[@ultimatum97]

@@aruparanjansatapathy7048 It's good for engineers though. Strike the iron while it's hot

[@aruparanjansatapathy7048]

@@ultimatum97 unless you are justifying that salary for the work you are doing it’s good . Else just reading through Udemy and other courses and getting through interviews and than not justifying it may create great humiliation for the person himself and creates imbalance in the industry for salary and can become fateful for the organisation they have joined .

[@ultimatum97]

@@aruparanjansatapathy7048 Organization is the last thing tech employees care about. Just like traders who make huge profits during times of scarcity, engineers should make the most out of this situation. There's simply nothing wrong in it.

[@RajKumarSahu-gl7uh]

Thank you for this video brother These experiences will motivate each Indian startups to push their boundaries more and learn to adapt.

[@adim3190]

You guys are doing a damn good job. Keep it up 🙂. Waiting for the next video.

[@navdeepredefine]

Thank you for making such nice content... Appreciate your research

[@utkarshchaudhary974]

One more Top Notch video from BWM. 😊

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Hey Utkarsh, glad you liked it! Thank you for watching - Vansh, editor

[@Ihavetoreturnsomevideotapes]

Yes

[@aadarshktofficial]

This amount of losses literally blows my mind

[@Nikhil-tj4pn]

Hey Caleb! It's a suggestion that you can change the thumbnail and include the logos of the companies in it. As the video includes very renowned startups and are loss making will increase the probability of more and more people watching the video.

[@thetimes5664]

It's not ONLY present in India, loss making startup are worldwide whether it is China, US, ASEAN or India. Investors know this fact very well but they bet on future of today's microcompanies/startups. PS: Benzos founded amazon (today's largest blue-chip) on July 5, 1994 but Amazon generated its first quarterly profit in 2001, the final quarter. In 2003, they generated their first annual profit, a whopping $35 million on revenues of $5.3 billion. Source :WION & Wikipedia

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

You're absolutely right Startups Scientist, that's why I kept things as general as possible in the introduction, without referencing India until just before the logo animation. We are an Indian channel, so our focus is always on India, but definitly, loss-making startups are everywhere - losing money in the name of growth is _the predominate_ startup strategy, no matter what ecosystem you're in. -Caleb

[@SumitKumar-qk2ze]

Such a knowledgeable video. This video threw light on the darkest sides of entrepreneurship. It was new to me that such startup are making so much losses just for customer acquisition. 😭👍👍👍👍

[@tanmayeeapte2125]

Please cover ed- tech startups like upGrad, Byjus white hat junior. They are getting funding with sub-par courses.

[@htimus]

They all gonna gets profits one India uplifts lock down Just hold 🤞

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Let's see Sumith, I hope so! -Caleb

[@ManishGupta-rq5nx]

Amazing information. I loved that information about supreme court decision about Dream 11 being game of skills instead of gambling. I always had doubt how this kind of company running legally and doing ads in IPL

[@tromboner6061]

ya same

[@swapniltiwari6710]

Hello BWB Team, Thank you again for the awesome video. These 14:29 minutes was worth it. You are guys are diamonds. Would also like to appreciate Caleb for answering a gentleman query why Dunzo was not included in this list. Love you guys. Peace & Love.

[@aadarshktofficial]

You can make more case studies... And also various startup knowledge content.. Good channel 👍... Also you can make case studies from various other countries..

[@mhari5160]

🙏I am Expecting more videos as like as discussing sessions.

[@akshatverma8470]

I got sad once I lost a 100 rupee note. Wonder what these stakeholders feel like.

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

A smart investor accepts that there is a 90-95% chance that they won't get their money back Akshat. When investors make investments that they can't afford to lose, we don't call them investors, we call them gamblers 😂 Furthermore, VCs usually aren't even spending their own money. VC firms raise money from LP investors, who hire VCs to invest their money for them. LPs trust VCs to make them money, and the big ones don't really care about losing a few million dollars here and there, because their net profit from all of the investments still outweighs these losses. -Caleb

[@eefonix6274]

@@backstagewithmillionaires true it's very complicated game which is hard for common people to understand.

[@indrayudhsinha524]

Hey! I watch your videos and have watched all of them. Could you please make a video on - "Top Construction Material Supply or Construction startups in India" ? I'm eager to watch it.

[@sameeershah]

How about big startups that failed and eventually shut down or reduced to miniscule numbers like snapdeal

[@vasa6781]

Across sectors all these startups only strategy is to give humongous discounts, once that stops they have no clue how to move ahead, It's sad to say that all these would eventually fail at some stage.

[@akijazz05]

i also feel that . ultimate goal of a business is profit, all startups with goal of growth without profit in sight are bound to fail. investors are basically playing in a casino, they're only betting to win big in 1 and compensate for their loss in 10.

[@punarnavaviswanath4304]

It was indeed a really unique video Hi Caleb , I know it's silly but what differentiates a startup from a business or a company ?

[@BharathRamMS]

This video is just excellent! Thanks for all the research and wonderful presentation.

[@RoyalRaju]

Awesome videos as always 👍

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Thanks Royal Raju! -Caleb

[@abhishekdev258]

1:47 did you guys hire some professional to do that animation or was it done by you guys??

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Haha no, that was me Abhishek. I used a software called Cinema 4D and spent about three days making it! -Caleb

[@abhishekdev258]

@@backstagewithmillionaires looks awesome.

[@shivamverma1117]

@@backstagewithmillionaires hardworking

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Thanks guys 🙂 -Caleb

[@namanydv_garud]

Amazing video and channel for future Entrepreneurs who want to shake the world 😌🌸✌🏻

[@SumitSinghXd]

excellent analysis buddy.. can you make a vid on succesful startups in India and their case study .. That would be very helpful

[@sathish8961]

Unicorns in 2021: USA - 288 China - 133 India - 32 UK - 27 Germany - 15 Caleb as usual wonderful video, Still India has lot of potential to grow.

[@bhagatsingh5019]

Excellent informative video.

[@ajinkya3780]

Most of these companies are planning for an IPO exit.End of the day Retail (common man) Investers will be hurt in long term.

[@namanjain5763]

May be maybe not

[@AshutoshShelkeP]

Zomato IPO

[@varadnilawar9802]

Genuine efforts with powerful content 🙃🙏

[@spoofmy284]

Last time when I checked Amazon globally isnt making profits..!! Yes..its true.!!

[@sumitron2k]

Yes the channel needs more viewers … maybe a metamorphosis will be a ecosystem built to support Kickstarter or collaborate with a few decent ones … it could include talks, interviews, legal support, workflows and assistance for startups which are in conceptualizatiob phases :) … idea for a new startup 🙂

[@ajith-fz8sl]

I really enjoyed this video, few the things I already know, but many surprises

[@RuruBasuMallik]

Very, very informative video. Thank you so much.

[@abhishekm3752]

Zomato is making money by exploiting delivery boys and doing frauds to their salaries while charging customers delivery fees which hardly is given to delivery boys.

[@soumyasarkar4100]

So if a startup can show investors its doing successfully social engineering its valuation increases even though its loss making

[@akkshay9876]

Any update about new start up - Lido education.

[@nrirehan9700]

What an eye open. About the top10 loss making startups

[@abhijeetsingh1364]

You made indian completely naked That's the reality of indian startups Everyone knows that its a bubble it can burst any time

[@hyleenpognaire8134]

Most are service sector, but for such populous region, there's no shortage of labours then still I don't know y they don't step on manufacturing sector (like china).

[@varg92]

Almost all indian startups are copycats. Most are indeed doomed to fail. Next day if reliance starts delivering food, swiggy and zomato will lose share.

[@Akhil-gd7lp]

Not like Indian startups are the only ones making losses. Remember WeWork?

[@magudimaran6045]

This is how the industry operates, bleeds cash till you acquire the user base, basically jio is a success story which pulled off the same thing now they have also leveraged the stock to be debt free. So no nothing is exposed here. This is actually quite common, and there are also n number of American companies doing the same thing.

[@BEBAwrites]

Your logo came RIGHT AFTER THIS. If you get that. 😂

[@techbasics6142]

Where is cure fit, and companies bought by byjus?

[@iota5722]

In India its all about scalability, u need a small business model and push it to large scales. All inspired by jio which was a master piece in itself but jio was much more successful due to digital india push and most importantly UPI in India. It was like a hub of its own.

[@ivinitmittal]

Burning millions of dollars in hope of earning in billions!!🤔

[@prathamjain4023]

Basically investment ise hi kahte hai 😂

[@amartyaasengupta8187]

u summed it well

[@a1t168]

@@prathamjain4023 alllelelele

[@trijit96]

Purana vuisiness hi sahi hai 'lijjad papad'

[@heyrmi]

Sir its Insane that we cal 12-13 year old companies a "startup". These startups are following the amazon model but unlike amazon here the competition is much much more.

[@AbhyTries]

Really good content. Although I can really help you with subtitles if you need help,i can understand with so much script its hard to remember to do everything perfect . Great content though👋

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Hi Abhy, if this is something you'd be interested in helping us out with, we'd love to collaborate. You can reach us at [e-mail] -Caleb

[@shramanpande7721]

Hey Caleb what about the ed tech startup Byju's Even they are not profitable . Can you tell why they are not in the list. TIA

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Hi Shraman, as per BYJU'S latest financial report, they actually are turning a profit. -Caleb

[@techbasics6142]

Imagine job losses when these companies go under...

[@hyleenpognaire8134]

Don't complete that sentence.... They will...

[@magudimaran6045]

Competent people & well connected people will get hired. Attrition rate is quite high

[@ManishKumar-up5yi]

That's why there is no manufacturing startup in your list... Make a video on manufacturing sector (upcoming).

[@unknown-my1vs]

Super content bro

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Thank you, Kancherla :) -Varun

[@manindermann8164]

make a video on Cloud Funding all on how to apply and key selection factors

[@RajeshSaha01234]

The business model of OYO is somewhat sticky. It has lots of problems in their planning. Actually the start-ups in current era are not being started to solve client/customer's real problems, it's always a plan to become rich individually rather than anything else. They are just in wait for a perfect exit point. Stable and pure mind is needed to build a profit making buisness.

[@Play4Tech]

Now make a video about profit making startups

[@PrateekRSrivastava]

1. Urban Company 2. CRED 3. Delhivery 4. Udaan 5. Ola 6. Swiggy 7. Zomato 8. Dream11 9. Oyo 10. Paytm

[@aadarshktofficial]

Very good video

[@abhishekuniyal9700]

Wow man love it ❤️

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Happy to hear that Abhishek, thanks for watching! -Caleb

[@manoramasahoo1756]

My fav KZbin channel.

[@gautham.k.r9868]

BWM please make video on top 10 profitable startup in India

[@venkateshsankella1023]

Hey pal , Can you make a video on how a startup spends the millions of money they raised ?

[@jinzcme]

I wonder if Bangalore based startup nestaway features on the list. Since people have been leaving their homes in the pandemic, i'm sure they've had to suffer a bit in 2020

[@RanjanKumar-wt4hh]

All these zolo and nestaway are never going to make it big. Their services and customer satisfaction is pathetic.

[@lonelylyrics2938]

Face expressions were improved compared to recent vedio. But information was accurate and awesome

[@amartyaasengupta8187]

amazing video

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Thank you Urnewreality! -Caleb

[@sunnysharma1635]

What about the ed tech startups unacademy and Byjus

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Hi Sunny, Unacademy almost made it onto our list, but Urban Company's valuation was $100M more than Unacademy's, so we selected them instead for the #10 spot on the list. But Unacademy would be #11. As for BYJU'S, they actually claim that they're profitable, but the only evidence we have of that is from FY19 - they have no revealed any profit/loss data since then, so we didn't want to include them on this list (or our Top 10 Profitable Startups list) until we have more up-to-date information. -Caleb

[@RaghavK06]

Urban Company has really poor service...used a few times had a bad experience. One time they said they couldn't deliver the service and also refused a refund.

[@rckahale]

I lost it at Zomayto 😂😂😂

[@utkarshchaudhary974]

Hi Caleb, when can we expect a start up story video just Iike Flipkart video?

[@ramz009]

Caleb, Paytm revenues declines by 11% thanks for the covid :-) , I hope it is increased😀

[@kaushikbhide9387]

Hey can you share us the steps through which we can get such data?

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Hi Kaushik, just a bunch of Googling 🙂 first we made the list of startups, by going through all of India's most valuable startups and finding out which ones were loss-making until we had 10. Then we just wrote each paragraph, filling in the details with information we found on various startup news websites and databases like Crunchbase/Tracxn. -Caleb

[@kaushikbhide9387]

@@backstagewithmillionaires Thank You for sharing the steps 👍🏻

[@vachan7069]

Were are these start up respecting their manpower. Employees are best marketing & sales enablers on your company

[@endchoice1073]

what about byjus are they in profit i dont thinks so

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Hey end choice, we don't know the numbers for FY20 or even FY21 for Byju's. However, they actually posted a profit of Rs 20 crore in FY19. -Varun

[@ARUNKUMAR-gh6zp]

It is the 'S' curve of businesses!

[@harshpatel1980]

Deliberately leaving out flipkart? Or is it because it is now owned by Walmart

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Hi Harsh, we had considered adding Flipkart to this list, but the truth is that they're not really a startup anymore, since they are a part of Walmart. -Caleb

[@TheDhayal]

Failure of any one of these Startup could negatively impact all new start up idea coming from India.

[@veenavikraman19]

The only startup I don't understand yet is CRED. I never saw a problem they are actually trying to solve . I genuinely don't think I will use CRED just to track my Credit cards. Nah...

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Hi Veena, Think School made an amazing video explaining CRED's business model, you can check it out here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e4bGh3V6qa-ia68 -Caleb

[@prajwaldz1516]

Payrent,manage all ur credit card at one place

[@samratpatel8060]

@@prajwaldz1516 still not worth of this valuation

[@AbhayKumar-yi9xv]

Amazing as always

[@ranganathprahlad]

Swiggy is good, I wish them come out of that circle and see the growth.

[@ManOfSteel1]

Its not about earning anymore. You can borrow , beg, steel, earn in the end your 100 needs to be 101+.

[@bhushanjss]

Great presentation

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Thanks Vidya! -Caleb

[@akhilsahuodishachhatisgarh3694]

💖💝🥰 from ODISHA 👍🙏🇮🇳

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Woohoo, glad to know we have viewers from outside of Bengaluru haha 🙂 thanks for watching Ghanashiyam. -Caleb

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Here you go! kzbin.info/www/bejne/pWG3mHdnasiqh7c -Caleb

[@rafiuddin3213]

Almost every startup is in loss as they are startups, and compnay shuld not label them as startup after 4 yrs of span, so till then they shuld start making profits if every odds are on their favour. So key point is If startups are in loss then its not something to worry about its part of the game

[@moohsin]

Now, top 10 profitable startups please 😊

[@TheSunAgain756]

BWM, Please research and make a video on whether Edtech startups are really worth it or is it a balloon waiting to burst.

[@Chethangowda10]

Super 🔥🔥👍

[@SDE844]

Nice analysis

[@rahuljain1941]

The real question is if they are losing money then where is all the money going in. None of them are in manufacturing business ???

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Hi Rahul, I believe the money is going towards growth, mainly through customer acquisition via discounts and heavy marketing. With Urban Company they are expanding internationally, which costs a lot of money: marketing in new countries, employing new people, setting up new offices, etc. With CRED, they are onboarding new customers by throwing money at marketing an also offering CRED coins, which can be used to buy rewards - not sure how much of that comes out of CRED's pocket, but I'm sure those companies aren't giving away these rewards for free. Udaan, Ola Cabs, and OYO are using whatever money they have probably just to stay alive. Swiggy and Zomato are offering discounts to customers to continue customer acquisition so that they can stay competitive with one another, and also marketing their services in order to onboard new customers. Dream11 spends _a lot_ on marketing - they are onboarding customers like crazy. And Paytm and Delhivery are actively cutting down on their losses and aiming to break even soon, along with Zomato. Some of these companies also spend quite a bit to keep their employees happy, so there's that as well. -Caleb

[@rahuljain1941]

​@@backstagewithmillionaires Thanks. You got a subscriber

[@mohammadhassannawaz4242]

Speak about the company named EDUFUND which is bringing revolution in the fintech sector

[@varunm7011]

whaaaaatttt... All of sudden I thought, today is Saturday ?

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Hahaha not yet Varun, but we're aiming to post two videos a week moving forward 🙂 this is the first of those videos. -Caleb

[@varunm7011]

@@backstagewithmillionaires good to know. Looking forward for your videos. The Case study you did on Just buy was really a good one.

[@karthikchandra3785]

What about Bijus education platform?

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Hi Karthik, as per BYJU'S most recent filings on expenditure and revenue, they're actually turning a profit. -Caleb

[@techbasics6142]

If your first company was sold at profit , investor will just pour in money the next time. That is in short is Cred

[@tonimahfud3083]

You are too smart. You know talking about India will get you more views! Your startup will be a success 😉😂😂

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Hi Toni, I actually don't talk about India for the views (as opposed to talking about America's startup ecosystem, or my own country of Canada's startup ecosystem). I talk about India and India's startup ecosystem because I live in Bengaluru and my co-founder is an Indian serial entrepreneur! Feel free to check this video out to learn more about why we started BwM here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gZvchINjbMaWr7s -Caleb

[@tonimahfud3083]

@@backstagewithmillionaires heyyyy, I know I have been your regular viewer. I was just joking 😭

[@sohamshelke5460]

OYO is growing 😂

[@sociopath2108]

We know why and after civid i think its evaluation will be more 😂😂

[@htimus]

Great vid

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

Thanks Sumith 🙂 -Caleb

[@handlemeifyoucan144]

Why wasn't byjus included

[@backstagewithmillionaires]

BYJU'S is profitable Telesophic Stanza. -Caleb

[@ginnimahi8337]

Well go and see 'Chamath Pahalpitiya's " Silicon valley" video Bro🔥👍.