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Change Engine to Create 20 Non-Profit Unicorns to Drive India’s Social Transformation

• ByStartupStory     |    May 22, 2025

In a bold reimagining of what it means to build a unicorn in India, Change Engine—a first-of-its kind accelerator focused on social impact—has announced its mission to help build 20 non-profit unicorns: organisations that positively impact over 1 million lives each.

Change Engine, founded by Varun Aggarwal, Shubham Bansal, and Shailendra Nath Jha, is building a scale playbook for non-profits in India. In the startup world, founders can rely on well-proven playbooks to grow a D2C brand or scale a SaaS company. But for non-profit leaders tackling India’s toughest problems, such roadmaps barely exist. Change Engine is changing that—by helping high-potential non-profits unlock scale with the same clarity and ambition as venture-backed startups.

“Innovation in India cannot be limited to profit-first ventures. Social change requires the same kind of entrepreneurial energy and support as commercial success. The future of India’s progress lies in the hands of those creating impact at scale—and they deserve to be funded, celebrated, and scaled. India has the potential to birth 200-300 Unicorns in the social impact space over the next 2-3 years,” said Varun Aggarwal, Cofounder, Change Engine.

As part of this mission, the Gurugram-based accelerator has released a comprehensive report titled “The Playbook for Non-profit Unicorns: Field tested lessons from India’s high impact organisations”.” The report studies 33 high-impact non-profits that have significantly influenced India’s development landscape through scalable, data-driven, and often government-integrated interventions.

Over the past 15 years, India has emerged as a global startup hub, producing over 100 unicorns in sectors ranging from fintech to e-commerce. Despite this economic boom, critical development challenges persist. 12% of the population lives in poverty, nearly half of school-aged children lack basic learning outcomes, and only 51% of graduates are employable, unemployment rates hover around 7 to 8 percent, women’s workforce participation is at 32%, an export deficit of $78B and many challenges in doing high impact scientific research.

This is where non-profits unicorns step in. Among the organizations featured in the study are Breakthrough Trust, Pratham, Agami, SNEHA, Samagra, Lend a Hand India, Vidhi Centre for legal policy, and the Arvind Eye Care. These non-profits have driven population scale impact in India.

Many of these have influenced national policy & have improved government programs. 45% of the nonprofits surveyed contributed to key government reports such as those from NITI Aayog, the Finance Commission, and the National Education Policy. 50% of non-profits in the study work with 5+ states to strengthen the delivery of critical programs. Others have built market-ready products through innovation in technology & business models. Some of them serve up to 7% of their target market.

While non-profits are working on the front lines to bridge these gaps, they are often overlooked by traditional investment mechanisms. Change Engine advocates for stronger participation from philanthropists and donors who are willing to back long-term, systemic change.

The report notes that building a non-profit unicorn is far less capital-intensive than what is usually assumed. Despite solving some of India’s most entrenched problems, these non-profits rarely receive the kind of unrestricted capital enjoyed by their for-profit counterparts. Change Engine estimates that a $500,000 seed investment is crucial to de-risk the first three years of growth, build foundational capacity and find scale levers.

Change Engine’s accelerator program is designed to identify high-potential founders, help them achieve product-market fit, and equip them with the tools to scale meaningfully.

“Too many non-profits stay stuck in pilot mode. We help them move beyond that—by refining their models and finding a path to scale, whether through government partnerships, community-led models, or market-based approaches” added co-founder Shubham Bansal.

About Change Engine

Change Engine supports exceptional founders build nonprofit unicorns – organisations that can impact a million people meaningfully. Through our accelerator program, we identify high potential founders and work closely with them to get to product market fit and set them to scale. In a short period of 2 years, we are working with 7 impact organisations. We have worked closely with these organisations in problem discovery, product design and developing scalable models. Our cohort organisations have raised $2M+ other than our catalytic funding in a short period. Change Engine is founded by Varun Aggarwal, Shubham Bansal and Shailendra Nath Jha, and supported by philanthropists, senior VCs and non-profit leaders.

Varun Aggarwal an entrepreneur (Aspiring Minds, $100M+ exit), AI researcher (1500+ citations) and author (science, deeptech and children books). At Aspiring Minds, Varun built AI-led programming and speech assessments which were sold globally to Fortune 500 companies. Aspiring Minds’ report on employability of graduates have been quoted in NITI Aayog reports, The Economist and Forbes, and added much to build the narrative around the skill gap in India. He also co-founded FAST, India which collaborates with the government to improve India’s science and research ecosystem.

Shubham Bansal is an alumnus of IIT Delhi and EPFL. Shubham was previously the CEO and co-founder of a YC backed startup that helped provide market access to organic farmers. He has worked extensively with clean-tech startups in India and Europe across product, engineering and management roles.

Shailendra Jha is an ISB alumnus. He has 15+ years of experience building and scaling products at companies like MakeMyTrip, Magicbricks & Spinny. He has a solid background in product development, e-commerce, web and mobile analytics and software development.

 

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