Women have been able to turn their entrepreneurship into a successful business in India’s flourishing startup ecosystem. WISER’s Women’s in India’s Startup Ecosystem Report states that the number of women-led businesses in India has increased by 18% in five years.
India has approximately 6,000 startups in 2017, of which about 10% are led by women. This number is expected to increase by 2022 to 80,000 with a 18% share for female-led startups.
The report states that 105 startups, up from 13, will be unicorns in the year 2022. Women-led startups have increased in number from 8% up to 17%. The report added that a unicorn startup is one with an industry value over $1 billion.
WISER is a report that includes the participation of over 200 startups, such as Urban Company, Meesho and Zomato.
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Women entrepreneurs are eligible for funding
In 2017, VCs invested $5.9billion into Indian startups. Of that, women-led startups received 11% of the total. In 2022, women-led startups received a 20% share of the funding.
The number of women-led businesses in India has grown at an incredible rate. Aakanksha Ghuli, Director of ACT stated that if the trend continued, the number and percentage of women led startups would continue to grow over the coming decade.
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“Gender Neutrality in Startups”
This report highlighted the increase in women running startups compared to traditional firms. Startups currently do better than corporates, as 32% women hold managerial roles compared to 21% for traditional firms. At the CXO-level, this gap becomes even more pronounced. Corporates only have 5% of female leaders compared with 18% at startups. In addition, female-founded startups have 2.5 times more senior women than those founded by men. The report said that while overall statistics are encouraging, more work is needed. For example, 10 years later, only five out of every ten startups have women in director-level roles or above.
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Last updated: October 30, 2023 at 01:20 AM IST