Research and writing from the US-India corridor.

The 2025 anchor report is the natural base layer for a recurring future unicorn watch. It widens the lens from future unicorns alone to the full CGU pipeline: Cheetahs, Gazelles, and Unicorns.

The fifth edition found 73 Indian unicorns and 150 future unicorns. That matters because the research does not only capture companies that have already crossed $1 billion. It tracks the pressure building below that threshold: Gazelles between $500 million and $1 billion, and Cheetahs between $200 million and $500 million.

The 2025 report also shows that India's startup pipeline is becoming more institutionally legible. Eleven new unicorns entered the list, including Ai.tech, Navi Technologies, Vivriti Capital, Rapido, Netradyne, Jumbotail, DarwinBox, Moneyview, Veritas Finance, Juspay, and Drools.

For Callapina, this is the thought-leadership flywheel: Anas's Hurun research can become a recurring map of which sectors, cities, founders, and investor networks are creating the next generation of value in India.

Future unicorn watch can turn the annual anchor report into quarterly commentary: who is moving from Cheetah to Gazelle, which sectors are adding density, where capital is returning, and which founder archetypes are becoming more visible.

When risk-on and risk-off assets both reach all-time highs, the driver is not fundamentals, it is liquidity distortion.

Despite higher policy rates, the US is still running deficits of roughly $1.8 trillion, over 6% of GDP, while total federal spending has remained elevated at roughly 24% of GDP. That fiscal impulse ultimately recycles into financial assets and supports elevated valuations.

At the same time, equity indices are being driven by unusually narrow leadership. Everyone is chasing the Magnificent 7 at 30-40x earnings. The Mag 7 now represent roughly 34% of the S&P 500's total market cap, with Nvidia alone accounting for over 7%, equivalent to the bottom roughly 230 companies combined.

Meanwhile, gold, historically a risk-off asset, has hit all-time highs at the same time as equities, indicating uncertainty and low confidence in the macro environment. Gold has compounded 30%+ annually over 2024-2025, while central banks have bought over 1,000 tons per year for three consecutive years, the most aggressive official-sector accumulation since Bretton Woods.

I would rather back the next 7: Indian diaspora founders building real, cash-generating AI and DeepTech businesses at sane early-stage valuations.