Leap.Club is a private professional network for women launched by former Zomato executives Ragini Das and Anand Sinha in May 2020
In May this year, the platform raised $340,000 in a pre-seed round from a range of investors
Leap.Club claims to have 200 signees so far and a waiting list of 5000 women
Leap.Club, a private professional network for women, on Monday, raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Titan Capital, the venture capital fund created by Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, and Ankita Vashishtha, who is the managing partner at Saha Fund, an early-stage VC fund.
Founded in December 2019 by former Zomato executives, Ragini Das and Anand Sinha, Leap.Club is meant to bring better networking opportunities for women and beat the clutter of existing professional social networks such as Linkedin. The platform was launched in May 2020, when it also raised $340,000 in a pre-seed round from a range of investors, such as Whiteboard Capital (Sandeep Tandon’s VC fund), FirstCheque, Artha India Ventures, Sweta Rau (founder, White Ventures), Amrish Rau (CEO Pinelabs, founder Citrus Pay), Deepak Abbot (former SVP, Paytm) and Harpreet Singh Grover (co-founder, Co-Cubes) among others.
“We are happy to welcome Kunal, Rohit and Ankita to Leap.Club and are fortunate to be working with the best investors in India. The capital will help us grow faster and create a wider impact,” Leap.Club founders said in a joint statement.
The platform is currently offering a paid membership for women professionals, claiming to help them in their professional growth through services such as curated professional network, executive coaching, focus on mental wellness, masterclasses, and more. Memberships launched in May 2020 and nearly 200 women have already signed up. The company claims to have a waiting list of 5000 women and is now launching memberships in Bengaluru on 1st August and Mumbai on 1st September.
“I am thrilled to be working with the team at Leap.Club. There is a growing need for a community-led private professional network and they have fantastic early traction and growth. I hope more women join their mission and accelerate women entrepreneurship, empowerment and engagement,” said Ankita Vashistha of Titan Capital in a statement.
The Leap.Club website highlights trends which suggest that women are less likely to be promoted to managerial positions in India. Leap.Club claims that while 48% of all employees working in entry-level positions in India’s corporate sector are women, their representation progressively declines as we move up the corporate ladder, with only 21% of C-suite executives in India being women.
The lack of women representation in corporate positions isn’t India-specific. In December 2018, the World Economic Forum said that it would take 108 years to close the overall gender gap and 202 years to bring parity in the workplace.
