Why Bengaluru might get a 'unicorn' logo and where it might be placed

A unicorn logo. That's how Karnataka hopes to celebrate Bengaluru, a city that has the most number of startups and unicorns in the country

Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Monday instructed officials to identify a suitable place in the city to put up a ‘unicorn’ logo.

Earlier in June, media company Inc42 had ranked Bengaluru as the top and most well-funded startup location in India in its "The State of Indian Start-up Ecosystem Report, 2022".

Where will the unicorn logo be put up?

The structure is likely to be put up at some place near Vidhana Soudha, the seat of the state legislature and secretariat.

Officials hope that the structure will be a major attraction in the capital city and will highlight Bengaluru’s leadership in the startup sector.

Why Bengaluru? 

According to the Inc 42 report, during the last five quarters, Bengaluru has led the entirety of Delhi National Capital Region (NCR), which includes New Delhi, Noida, Gurugram, Ghaziabad, and Faridabad, in startup funding, averaging about 142 deals per quarter, and recording a chart-topping 179 funding deals in Q3 2021. Delhi NCR, during the same time, recorded an average of slightly more than 114 deals, peaking at 143 deals during Q4 2021.

Bengaluru leads Delhi NCR in various stages of funding as well. Although Delhi made a strong case for itself as a hub for new startups in the recent past, Bengaluru led the race as it was home to the largest seed funding round ever, when Polygon raised $450 million in February 2022, notes the report. 

Similarly, in late stage funding, Bengaluru leads the segment clearly. It amassed a total of $22 billion in late-stage funding over the last five quarters, playing host to some of the largest funding rounds in the country’s history. By contrast, Delhi NCR only saw late stage funding of $8.2 billion. Thus, Bengaluru had thrice as much late-stage funding as Delhi.

According to the Economic Survey 2021-2022, which was tabled in Parliament on January 31, between April 2019 and December 2021, Delhi added more than 5,000 startups to its tally, while Bengaluru got 4,514 new startups. But it is Bengaluru that leads the race in funding now. 

Who will design the unicorn logo? 

The design of the structure of the unicorn logo is currently under progress by a financial solutions company, official sources said.

Unicorns in India

India has seen a surge in the number of such startups in recent years. While delivering an address recently, Jitendra Singh, Union minister of state (Independent) for science and technology, said that India ranks globally third in the startup ecosystem and also in terms of the number of unicorns, with the total number of privately held startup companies valued at over one billion dollar rising to 105.

Out of the total 105 unicorns in India, 44 were born in 2021 and 19 in 2022. (Unicorns are startups with a valuation of one billion dollars or more.)

Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s launch of Startup India initiative, the minister said, “India in its 75th year of Independence is now home to as many as 75,000 startups, and India’s startups today are not limited to only metros or big cities.” He added that 49 per cent of the startups are from tier-2 and tier-3 cities.