Take an evening walk on 17th Cross Road in Bengaluru's HSR Layout district, and you bump into tech types stepping out of their start-up's office and into one of the local microbreweries.

They might work for Udaan (e-commerce), Vedantu (education technology) or another of the growing herd of private start-ups valued at US$1 billion (S$1.3 billion), whose proliferation in the area has prompted locals to dub it "unicorn street". That name might be outdated, says Mr Mohit Yadav, co-founder of Bolt.Earth, a unicorn wannabe housed in the MyGate building. "Unicorn neighbourhood" would be more apt, he chuckles.