With 21 unicorns, India has emerged as the third-largest ecosystem for more successful startups right behind China and US but ahead of Britain and Israel, according to Hurun Global Unicorn List 2019.

Leading the pack from the country are payments solutions platform One97 Communications (USD 10 billion), cab aggregator Ola Cabs (USD 6 billion), online educator Byjus (USD 6 billion), and travel-stay finder OYO Rooms (USD 5 billion).

China pipped the USA to lead by 206 versus 203, together accounting for over 80 per cent of the world's unicorns. Europe has 35 unicorns.

Hurun Research found 494 unicorns in the world, based in 25 countries and 118 cities. Set up seven years ago on average, they are worth USD 3.4 billion on average and USD 1.7 trillion in total.

"These young companies, only seven years old on an average, are the worlds most exciting start-ups, leading a new generation of disruptive technology," Hurun Report chairman and chief researcher, Rupert Hoogewerf, said.

According to the list, city wise, Beijing is the world's unicorn capital with 82, comfortably ahead of San Francisco with 55, followed by Shanghai, New York and Hangzhou.

As a region, Silicon Valley leads the world with 102 or 21 per cent of the world's unicorns.

The list showed e-commerce and fintech make up 31 per cent of the world's unicorns, followed by cloud and AI.

The world's unicorns span 25 industries, with the Big 5 Industries making up half of the total.