Startup founders sparkle in Hurun rich list

Startup founders sparkle in Hurun rich list

The list was topped by Gautam Adani and family with a total wealth of  ₹10.94 trillion. (Photo: Reuters)

The list was topped by Gautam Adani and family with a total wealth of ₹10.94 trillion. (Photo: Reuters)

2 min read . Updated: 22 Sep 2022, 06:04 AM IST

Aman Rawat,Malvika Maloo

The youngest in the list is Kaivalya Vohra, the 19-year-old co-founder of instant grocery app Zepto

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NEW DELHI/BENGALURU : One hundred founders of startups, including Alakh Pandey and Prateek Maheshwari of Physics Wallah, Byju Raveendran and family, and Falguni Nayar and family of Nykaa appear in the latest IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List, featuring people with a net worth of at least ₹1,000 crore. Of the 100, 65 are founders of 37 unicorns.

The youngest in the list is Kaivalya Vohra, the 19-year-old co-founder of instant grocery app Zepto.

Elite clubView Full Image

Elite club

In total, 13 people born in the 1990s made it to the list, including Aadit Palicha, Zepto’s 20-year-old co-founder. That said, the average age of the individuals on this list was 63. The entire wealth list features 1,103 individuals.

Nykaa’s chief executive Nayar, with a wealth of ₹38,700 crore, overtook Biocon’s executive chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw to become the richest self-made Indian woman. Shaw’s wealth stands at ₹24,800 crore, the report added.

With a 345% increase in wealth, Nayar is also the second-biggest gainer this year, behind Ravi Modi of Vedant Fashions (Manyavar and Mohey), who saw his wealth grow 376% to ₹32,400 crore. Both Nykaa and Vedant Fashions listed on the stock exchanges in the past 12 months.

“India has the third-highest number of unicorns and gazelles (fast-growing enterprises with base revenues of $100,000 or more) in the world. IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2022 has 100 entrants from 59 startups and, going forward, the share of startups is likely to increase manifold. This has resulted in more young entrepreneurs entering the IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List. For instance, the youngest ten years ago was 37, last year was 23 and this year is 19," said Anas Rahman Junaid, managing director and chief researcher, Hurun India.

Other unicorn founders featured on the list include Zeta’s Bhavin Turakhia; Zerodha’s Nithin Kamath and family as well as Nikhil Kamath; Eruditus’ Ashwin Damera; BrowserStack’s Nakul Aggarwal and Ritesh Arora; Ashish Mohapatra and Ruchi Kalra of Ofbusiness.

Among investors, Info Edge India’s Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Unilazer Ventures’ and Upgrad cofounder Ronnie Screwvala, Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures, DSP BlackRock’s Hemendra Kothari and family appear on the list.

The cumulative wealth of the 100 startup founders stood at ₹5.06 trillion while their average age was 40 years, as per the report jointly published by Hurun India and IIFL Wealth.

From the fintech space, the list saw several entries, including Kunal Shah of Cred; Upstox’s Raghu Nathan Kumar, Ravi Chandran Kumar, Shrinivas Vishwanath and Kavitha Subramanian; and Anurag Sinha of OneCard.

Most unicorn founders declined to comment.

“It is just paper wealth. It doesn’t matter," said Physics Wallah’s co-founder Maheshwari.

Other sector cohorts also dominated the list.

There were 126 individuals from the pharmaceuticals sector in the list, with Covishield vaccine maker Serum Institute of India’s founder Cyrus Poonawalla at the top.

The chemicals and petrochemicals sector contributed 102 individuals, while there were 84 from the software and services segment. Chemicals industry produced the highest number of new additions this year.

In total, 1,103 individuals made the list, 96 more than last year, across 122 cities. A total of 735 entrepreneurs or 67% of the individuals on the list are self-made, up from 659 last year, and 367 five years ago.

The list was topped by Gautam Adani and family with a total wealth of ₹10.94 trillion, followed by Mukesh Ambani and family at ₹7.94 trillion.

With 283 individuals, Mumbai is home to the highest number of wealthy Indian individuals, followed by New Delhi and Bengaluru at 185 and 89, respectively.