New Delhi, Founder and CEO of Blockchain platform 5ire, Pratik Gauri, along with and his partner Prateek Dwivedi who raised $100 million and attained the Unicorn status, said on Monday that breaking the stereotype was the crucial hurdle on their journey.

Back in India from their Malaysia meet, the duo was greeted at the airport with a lot of praise and family and well-wishers extended a warm welcome to the founders of 5ire which is India's 105th unicorns with a coveted $1 billion valuation.

Leader of Rajya Sabha and Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal, also extended a congratulatory tweet for the duo, praising them for their entrepreneurial skills and achieving unicorn status.

Talking about being praised by the government, Pratik said: "We did get a lot of help from our government, media, corporates, our team, family, and friends, I mean being grateful doesn't even describe the feeling I have for people who believed in us."

Blockchain startup 5ire raised $100 million in Series A funding from UK-based conglomerate SRAM & MRAM, taking its valuation to $1.5 billion and becoming a new unicorn in the country.

The company was founded by entrepreneurs Gauri and Dwivedi, along with web3 financier Vilma Mattila, in August 2021.

About his journey and some of the deep-rooted challenges they faced, Gauri said: "We started our journey in a tea-shop, me and Pratik were thinking about creating something which will help 100 million people, we wanted to make their lives better, and Blockchain company was the answer. We were certain that within a year we want to achieve the unicorn status, one of the fastest growing billion dollar companies in the world."

"In the beginning no one believed in us, we hail from very moderate households, we were not rich, so breaking that stereotype that kids from moderate households can dream big and create something bigger, was the biggest challenge for us, but we did it," added Gauri.

5ire had earlier raised $21 million in its seed round at a valuation of $110 million, with participation from both private and institutional investors like Alphabet, Marshland Capital, Launchpool Labs, Moonrock Capital, and others.

Adding about his company and core philosophy of 5th industrial revolution with his incorporated in company name 5ire, Gauri added that "Fifth industrial revolution thesis is something I created, the soul objective is explore space between profits and charity, we businesses are only thinking about profits, and big rich houses only believe in charity, but I wanted to create a balance and working environment between the two."

Making India as their operational hub, the company is planning on expansion and venturing into different sectors and three continents: Asia, North America, and Europe.