LinkedIn Top Startups 2020: The 10 Indian companies on the rise

The 2020 LinkedIn Top Startups list reveals 10 young companies that have remained resilient during a tumultuous time.

2020 has been a year of upheaval as the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe, upending both business and personal plans. Startups have not been immune, but many have found ways to navigate these changes — or pivot all together — and some have even thrived. Our 3rd annual Top Startups list reflects 10 companies that have remained resilient during a tumultuous time, continuing to attract investment, employees and attention.

Our editors and data scientists parsed millions of actions generated by LinkedIn’s 69 million members in India — and looked across four pillars: employee growth; jobseeker interest; member engagement with the company and its employees; and how well these startups pulled talent from our flagship LinkedIn Top Companies list. To be eligible, companies must be 7 years old or younger, have at least 50 employees, be privately held and headquartered in India. (You can learn more about our methodology at the bottom of this article.)

This list is also meant to be a resource for you. These 10 startups point to growing trends in business, from e-learning to fintech, indicating where there might be career opportunities in the future. (See this analysis on the rise of e-learning startups.) Or, you may want to land a job at one of these companies now. In which case, take a look at who you might know at the company, see what jobs are open or find out the common skills among their workforce. Use this as a resource to connect to opportunity.

Check out this year’s 10 Top Startups in India — and join the conversation using #LinkedInTopStartups.

Headcount: 1,233 | Headquarters: Mumbai | Year founded: 2015 | Most common skills: Digital Marketing, SQL, Customer Relationship Management | Largest job functions: Education, Media and Communication, Engineering | What you should know: Things have been busy at online higher education platform upGrad, which has not only seen a significant uptick in its core MBA and data science verticals but also struck partnerships with local universities to offer new courses. The company had announced pay cuts of up to 30% in the wake of the pandemic, but decided to restore original salaries and reimburse the deducted amount following a turnaround in business.

See jobs at upGrad | See people you may know at upGrad

Headcount: 288 | Headquarters: Bengaluru | Year founded: 2018 | Most common skills: SQL, Java, C++ | Largest job functions: Engineering, Support, Arts and Design | What you should know: Credit card rewards platform Cred, the second venture of Freecharge’s Kunal Shah, has over 25 ex-founders in its team – perhaps that’s what gave it the execution speed to ship new products targeted at solving liquidity issues within weeks of the pandemic hitting India. The company is focussing on affluent consumers, a strategy that gives it the confidence to prioritise scale over revenues for now.

See more about Cred | See people you may know at Cred

Headcount: 125 | Headquarters: Hyderabad | Year founded: 2019 | Most common skills: Digital Marketing, C (Programming Language), Python (Programming Language) | Largest job functions: Operations, Marketing, Business Development | What you should know: An e-mentorship marketplace where subject matter experts can coach learners, Unschool tapped incentives and gamified models to grow its intern workforce during the pandemic. Paid subscribers and revenues have risen nearly 10-fold since February as the T-Hub-incubated startup looks to capitalise on the e-learning boom.

See more about Unschool | See people you may know at Unschool

Headcount: 1,500 | Headquarters: Bengaluru | Year founded: 2015 | Most common skills: C (Programming Language), C++, Customer Relationship Management | Largest job functions: Education, Business Development, Marketing | What you should know: Facebook-backed Unacademy, which helps students prepare for competitive exams, has had a stellar run: it became the second e-learning startup to enter India's unicorn club, acquired several companies to diversify its offerings, and launched new products to supercharge its growth. Buoyed by a 100% increase in its subscriber base since the onset of the pandemic, Unacademy is eyeing new segments like K-12 subscription for school students, and judiciary and law.

See more about Unacademy | See people you may know at Unacademy

Headcount: 350 | Headquarters: Bengaluru | Year founded: 2014 | Most common skills: SQL, Java, Analytics | Largest job functions: Engineering, Support, Sales | What you should know: Software-as-a-service startup Whatfix, which helps businesses drive digital adoption and elevate user experience across enterprise applications, raised $32 million in Series C funding earlier this year. As remote work becomes the norm and more businesses go online, Whatfix sees strong tailwinds going ahead.

See jobs at Whatfix | See people you may know at Whatfix

Headcount: 796 | Headquarters: Bengaluru | Year founded: 2013 | Most common skills: Java, SQL, C++ | Largest job functions: Engineering, Business Development, Sales | What you should know: Payments platform Razorpay has seen demand rise 50% month-on-month since April, prompting it to launch a slew of new features targeted at small businesses, freelancers, and end consumers. Utility payments on Razorpay have shot up, in line with rising digitisation amid the pandemic, while the startup continues to see robust growth for its neobanking arm.

See jobs at Razorpay | See people you may know at Razorpay

Headcount: 86 | Headquarters: Gurugram | Year founded: 2018 | Most common skills: Data Analysis, SQL, Analytics | Largest job functions: Research, Business Development, Engineering | What you should know: To seize opportunities created by the pandemic, Zigram is doubling down on engineering and product development in areas related to digital transformation, risk management and enhanced data asset quality, it tells LinkedIn. The startup, which builds and manages data assets for customers, wants to be “amazing at being predictable, reliable, innovative, and trustworthy” in an uncertain world.

See more about Zigram | See people you may know at Zigram

Headcount: 310 | Headquarters: Bengaluru | Year founded: 2016 | Most common skills: SQL, Java, Python (Programming Language) | Largest job functions: Engineering, Sales, Business Development | What you should know: Yellow Messenger, which offers conversational automation across channels such as WhatsApp and Google Assistant, has been in the thick of action: it closed its $20 million Series B funding in April, surpassed its growth targets in the last two quarters, and is expanding into the US and EU. From marquee names like Schlumberger and Accenture to recent additions like Unicommerce and Spencer’s, the company’s client list is growing as brands look to go direct-to-consumer.

See more about Yellow Messenger | See people you may know at Yellow Messenger

Headcount: 150 | Headquarters: Gurugram | Year founded: 2017 | Most common skills: Sales Management, Graphic Design, Product Development | Largest job functions: Sales, Arts and Design, Marketing | What you should know: Pee Safe, which has disrupted the female hygiene segment with its innovative offerings, launched products like hand sanitisers, surface protectants and face masks just before the onset of the pandemic. The company has seen a spike in online sales since March, which offset a drop in footfall at physical stores.

See more about Pee Safe | See people you may know at Pee Safe

Headcount: 1,300 | Headquarters: Gurugram | Year founded: 2014 | Most common skills: SQL, C (Programming Language), Data Analysis | Largest job functions: Marketing, Engineering, Operations | What you should know: Business has bounced back to pre-Covid levels for Urban Company (formerly Urban Clap), driven by its home-based grooming, appliance repair and maintenance services. Nearly 120 employees across designations and roles recently made money in the company’s third employee stock option buyback programme.

See jobs at Urban Company | See people you may know at Urban Company

Share the full list and your thoughts on this year's Top Startups using #LinkedInTopStartups.

You can also check out the Top Startups in Australia, Singapore, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, Spain, Canada, Brazil and the US.

Methodology

LinkedIn measures startups based on four pillars: employment growth, engagement, job interest and attraction of top talent. Employment growth is measured as percentage headcount increase over methodology time frame, which must be a minimum of 15%. Engagement looks at non-employee views and follows of the company’s LinkedIn page, as well as how many non-employees are viewing employees at that startup. Job interest counts rate at which people are viewing and applying to jobs at the company, including both paid and unpaid postings. Attraction of top talent measures how many employees the startup has recruited away from any global LinkedIn Top Company, as a percentage of the startup’s total workforce. Data is normalized across all eligible startups. The methodology time frame is January through July 2020. 

To be eligible, companies must be independent and privately held, have 50 or more full-time employees, be 7 years old or younger and be headquartered in the country on whose list they appear. We exclude all staffing firms, think tanks, venture capital firms, law firms, management and IT consulting firms, nonprofits and philanthropy, accelerators and government-owned entities. Startups who have laid off 20% or more of their workforce within the methodology time frame are also ineligible. 

About company insights

*Company insights were sourced from LinkedIn Talent Insights. Data reflects aggregated public member data from active LinkedIn profiles in the relevant country and includes full-time employee profiles associated with the company on LinkedIn. We exclude members who identify as part-time or contractors. Headcounts are provided by the companies directly, unless otherwise noted with an asterisk. Those headcounts are based on LinkedIn data. The insights reflect data as of August 2020.