When Infosys became a world-class exporter of software services from India, the country had barely heard of the term called 'venture capital', and the word ‘Unicorn’ belonged not in a business lexicon but in the world of fantasy stories and TinTin comic books. Even the word 'startup' was just about beginning to make sense.
Yet, the Bangalore company founded in the early 1980s went on to join the ranks of billion-dollar valuation companies now called unicorns. Decades later, it remains a strong company today in spite of several setbacks. Or, you could say that it is the way that a company deals with setbacks and opportunities that makes it a unicorn in the truest sense of the term.
These thoughts come to me as the hard reality hits home for India's billion-dollar valuation startups, many of whom are given the unicorn tag with futuristic valuations in mind to motivate young employees and give luscious exit values for venture capitalists, who are, in a Shakespearean sense, modern-day Shylocks: they don't give that kind of money and build that kind of hype for cheap.