LinkedIn reveals the top 25 startups in India; CRED, upGrad, and Groww take top 3 spots

LinkedIn, the world’s largest online professional network, today released its 2022 LinkedIn Top Startups List for India, revealing the top 25 startups that have shown resilience in an uncertain market environment, and are continuing to innovate in 2022.

To compile this year’s list, LinkedIn looked at platform data from July 2021 to June 2022 across four pillars: employee growth; jobseeker interest; member engagement within the company and its employees; and how well these startups pulled talent from its flagship LinkedIn Top Companies list (more details about methodology at the end).

Topping this year’s list is unified payment interface CRED (#1). Valued at $6.4 billion, this young startup maintained its podium position on the LinkedIn Top Startups list, moving from #3 in 2021 to #1 in 2022. Besides gaining popularity for its quirky ads in the past two years, CRED is also setting new benchmarks for employee well-being by offering benefits such as ElderCare, egg freezing, and one-on-one support for mental wellness to its employees.

The next highest placing businesses on the list include upGrad (#2), one of India’s largest online higher education companies that curates vast upskilling opportunities for professionals and college students, followed by Groww (#3), an online investment platform that provides an objective evaluation of various investment opportunities through stocks and mutual funds.

This year’s list also features new entrants including e-grocery company Zepto (#4), full-stack car buying platform Spinny (#7), and insurtech startup Ditto Insurance (#12) – all of which are online platforms that are making financial, mobility, and essentials more accessible for consumers in India today. Fitness platform Ultrahuman (#19) and organic food marketplace Living Food (#20) also debuted this year’s list by enabling consumers to lead a conscious and healthy lifestyle.

With 13 out of the top 25 startups based out of Bengaluru, the city affirms its reputation as the ‘Silicon Valley of India’. In fact, 58% of all jobs posted by these startups on LinkedIn during the same period from August 1, 2021 to July 31, 2022 were based out of Bengaluru.

Speaking on the list, Nirajita Banerjee, Managing Editor at LinkedIn News India said, “The Indian startup ecosystem displays great resilience as we continue to see the rise of new startups with 68% of entrants on the list appearing for the first time. These startups are navigating the uncertain macro environment by optimising their businesses for sustainable growth and taking a more prudent approach towards scaling their business. It’s also great to see young professionals embrace India’s startup ecosystem, with 56% of all hires in the top 25 startups being aged below 30, and 17% aged below 25, at the time of joining. This list is a great resource for job seekers excited by the opportunity to innovate, solve big problems, and grow their skills within these startups.”

Here’s a list of the 25 companies that made it to the LinkedIn Top Startups 2022 India list, in order of ranking:

1. CRED

2. upGrad

3. Groww

4. Zepto

5. Skyroot Aerospace

6. MBA Chai Wala

7. Spinny

8. The Good Glamm Group

9. GrowthSchool

10. BluSmart

11. ShareChat

12. Ditto Insurance

13. Simpl

14. Rapido

15. Classplus

16. Park+

17. BlissClub

18. DealShare

19. Ultrahuman

20. Living Food

21. FamPay

22. AgniKul Cosmos

23. Stanza Living

24. Pocket FM

25. Zypp Electric

To know more about what makes them the Top 25 startups in India, watch this video by LinkedIn News India here.

LinkedIn Top Startups 2022 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 the methodology time frame, which must be a minimum of 10%. 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 normalised across all eligible startups. The methodology time frame is July, 1 2021 through June 30, 2022.

To be eligible, companies must be fully independent, 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.