Amidst the euphoria over Start-up India, one fact stands out: only 9 per cent of the country’s 4,200-odd new-age start-ups are led by women.
But the good news is that more women are jumping onto the bandwagon. According to Nasscom, there was a 50 per cent increase in women joining the start-up ecosystem over last year.
Indeed, start-ups led by women entrepreneurs have been creating quite a buzz lately. They include Shopclues, a unicorn (valued over $1 billion) led by Radhika Agarwal; Kaaryah, founded by Nidhi Agarwal, and CashKaro, founded by Swati Bhargava (both have bagged investments from Ratan Tata); Mapmygenome by Anu Acharya or Limeroad by Suchi Mukherjee, who was in the spotlight during the big-bang Start-up India event.
Barbie mindset
Ask Falguni Nayar, founder CEO of Nykaa.com and former Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra Capital why there are far fewer women entrepreneurs, she says a mindset problem.
“A young boy in a well-off family will use family capital to start off, but girls don’t make such demands. Women need to ask for more opportunities and responsibilities,” she says.
Parents too should not raise girls with a ‘Barbie doll’ mindset, adds Nayar, pointing out how she has been lucky to have parents who treated her at par with her brother. “I was also lucky that in my industry (banking), there is no glass ceiling and women have achieved leadership positions,” says Nayar.
“It is tough for women to take off,” says Nidhi Saxena, the founder of home healthcare start-up Zoctr. “Most have family responsibilities, which take precedence in the early part of their careers.”
However, Saxena says things are changing as women are becoming more ambitious and men are a lot more supportive and encouraging of their wives’ or daughters’ aspirations. She adds that she has never faced any gender bias in attracting VC investments.
Padmaja Ruparel of Indian Angel Network scoffs at any mention of investor bias, saying: “Investors don’t look at an entrepreneur below the neck. The investing decisions are purely clinical.”
She also points out there are two types of entrepreneurship buckets. One is the high-growth start-up ecosystem fuelled by innovation and VC money. The other is the old-economy type of small enterprises that is not high-growth businesses but cash-building companies showing hockey-stick growth. “More women entrepreneurs are in the second bucket,” says Ruparel, adding they face challenges raising capital.
Riding the third wave
In India, there have been three waves of entrepreneurship — the era of IT entrepreneurship led by companies such as Infosys, the second wave led by the likes of Sanjeev Bikhchandani and Deep Kalra, and now the third wave of mobile-based entrepreneurship led by the Zomatos and ShopClues. “In this wave, women entrepreneurs are evolving and shining,” says Ruparel.