Mumbai: Radhakishan Damani (69), the founder of Avenue Supermarts, the company that runs the well-known retail chain DMart has topped the IDFC First Private & Hurun India's Top 200 Self-Made Entrepreneurs of the Millenia 2024. Avenue Supermarts is worth over Rs 3.4 lakh crore reflecting a 44 per cent increase in value from last year. Indian consumers' demand for quick commerce placed the founders of Zomato (Deepinder Goyal) and Swiggy’s (Sriharsha Majety and Nandan Reddy) in the second and third spot respectively. Zomato with a valuation surpassing Rs 2.5 lakh crore grew by 190 per cent from a year ago while Swiggy scaled Rs 1.01 lakh crore in equity value. The others among the top 10 were primarily new-age tech-driven entrepreneurs, like MakeMyTrip, Max Healthcare Institute, Zerodha, Dream11, Policybazaar, Razorpay and Nykaa.
The study found that the cumulative value of the 200 companies on the list touched Rs 36 lakh crore, almost equivalent to the GDP of Maharashtra and surpassing the GDP of every other state in the country.
The "India's Top 200 Self-made Entrepreneurs of the Millennia 2024" comprises individuals from 46 cities nationwide. Bengaluru led the chart with 98 entrepreneurs, followed by Mumbai with 73 and New Delhi with 51. These three cities accounted for over half of the entrepreneurs on the list. Financial services dominated the list with 50 companies, while healthcare and retail had 25 entrants each. Notably, 188 companies, representing nearly 94 per cent of the list, have external investors, while the remaining are bootstrapped.
Interestingly, Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) strengthened their reputation as the leading incubators of entrepreneurial talent in India. Nearly one-third of the featured entrepreneurs are IIT graduates, with IIT Delhi emerging as the top undergraduate institution, followed by IIT Bombay and IIT Kharagpur. Other prominent IITs, such as Kanpur, Madras, and Roorkee, also feature prominently, showcasing their role in producing industry leaders like Bhavish Aggarwal (Ola Electric) and Harshil Mathur (Razorpay).
The study contains entrepreneurs whose companies, launched after the year 2000, have transformed India’s business landscape. The average age of the founders of companies featured in the list is 45 years. One-third of the founders on the list are under the age of 40.
Anas Rahman Junaid, MD and Chief Researcher, Hurun India, said, “The IDFC FIRST Private & Hurun India’s Top 200 Self-made Entrepreneurs of the Millennia 2024 showcases the extraordinary impact of self-made entrepreneurs on India's economy, with a total business value of USD 431 billion—equivalent to a quarter of the value of India’s 200 Most Valuable Family Businesses, despite being founded within the last 24 years compared to the latter's 69-year average age. Four companies founded post-2020 are now collectively valued at Rs 69,400 crore.”