Amid various challenges, women startup founders find ways to thrive and support one another
As per data from Tracxn, only 6.97% of Venture Capitalfunded money went to Indian startups with female founders in 2023. In Karnataka, the figure was lower – 3.11%
On the eve of women’s day, a post by angel investor and business strategist Jermina Menon on LinkedIn garnered some attention. In the post, she described how Vineeta Singh, founder of the ₹420 crore brand Sugar Cosmetics, reportedly faced challenges securing investment for her company because of her gender.
As per data from Tracxn, only 6.97% of Venture Capitalfunded money went to Indian startups with female founders in 2023. In Karnataka, the figure was lower – 3.11%. Data also shows that the percentage of womenled startups in Karnataka stands at a mere 9.66%.
The good news, however, is the emergence of more womenfocused funds, womenheaded incubators, and an increased sense of sisterhood perpetuated through communities of women entrepreneurs.
Shreya Krishnan, MD of
AnitaB.org, an NGO that supports women in tech, notes that women founders often have to put in more energy and effort to get funded than their male counterparts. This makes scaling process.
Tanul Mishra, founder and CEO of Bengalurubased fintech incubator Afthonia Lab, believes that the change in the Indian startup ecosystem has been faster and better when compared to global numbers. Nevertheless, she feels two areas need to see more momentum. Women founders see more cheques being written for them in the early stages of their startups. Towards later stages it gets difficult, Ms. Mishra says.
“The other is that checks are being cut for women entrepreneurs in certain segments…When you look at more techheavy domains like fintech or space tech the number of women founders is lesser and the number of investments that go to them even lesser than what you would see in other segup
adifficult ments,” she says.
Alternative options According to Susmita Ghosh, AVP Women Entrepreneurship and Head Funding Desk at NSRCEL, not just Venture Capital (VC) money, but other external financing options are also not easy to come by for women founders. “VC is one of the options. I think banks and others have much more apprehension about giving loans to a new female founder.”
She also notes that of the 70 Central schemes and 433 State schemes for entrepreneurs, only 7% focus on women beneficiaries. “There is no way to find out which schemes are these unless you browse through different Ministry websites and dig them out. Access to relevant information is very important.”
Despite the odds, women in the ecosystem swear it’s not all doom and gloom anymore.
Silver lining
Jayanti Bhattacharya, cofounder of Bengalurubased India Hemp and Co, feels that things are slowly changing and points to several initiatives including NSRCEL’s networks that reach out to rural women entrepreneurs, CSR initiatives that support and mentor women and VCs with a dedicated focus on women entrepreneurs. More women are also participating on the ‘other side of the deal table’ as investors and incubation heads.
“A lot of womenled networking groups have come up, and they are doing a phenomenal job of supporting each other. Men have always had bro clubs. Now women are doing it on our own time. We might not meet for drinks on a Saturday night. We might meet at 10 or 11 in the morning for coffee, but it’s efficient. It’s fast. These networks empower women and create a safe space to ask questions, to not be shut down, to not be ridiculed.”
Interest among female students to join entrepreneurship courses also seems to be on the rise. Five years back when CMSJain (deemedtobeuniversity) started the BBA Entrepreneurship (WoW) programme, of the 21 students who enrolled, only three were women. The current batch has 11 women out of 40.
“It is largely because there is a culture building up back in schools for ideation. Families are also today encouraging girls to turn into entrepreneurs,” says Anila Bajpai, who heads the programme.