Bellwethers Of Change: Meet 23 Women Entrepreneurs Reshaping The Indian Startup Ecosystem

The startup world has come a long way since the early 2000s, and so have the women in entrepreneurship. From trailblazing entrepreneurs like Vineeta Singh of SUGAR Cosmetics, Ghazal Alagh of Mamaearth, and Falguni Nayar of Nykaa, women founders have demonstrated exemplary leadership in how businesses are led with grace.

According to Preeti Nellore Sampat, the cofounder and managing partner of Eximius Ventures, this transition has helped the country’s women workforce, including entrepreneurs, to mark a shift from labels like “women in tech”, “women in investing”, and “women in science” to simply being recognised as businesspersons, investors, or scientists. 

“Instead of being defined by gender, we are being recognised for our roles and contributions. We’re fortunate to live in a time of change, where the future holds immense potential for all of us,” she said.

However, while challenges like gender bias, including limited diversity within VC funds and fewer opportunities for women, are still persistent in the larger startup ecosystem, these headwinds have not stopped women from proving their might and becoming true bellwethers of change.

Notably, India’s current shift towards a more supportive socioeconomic environment for women is spearheaded by women themselves. Recent statistics reveal that 14% of entrepreneurs in India are women. Furthermore, businesses led by women constitute more than 20% of the country’s MSME sector.

While a majority of these women entrepreneurs run microenterprises, an increasing number of them continue to wade into the country’s vibrant tech startup ecosystem, undeterred by the obstacles it entails. 

“India’s entrepreneurial ecosystem has evolved remarkably. With nearly 8.05 Mn women entrepreneurs at its helm, this landscape reflects a paradigm shift towards inclusivity and empowerment. Beyond government support and market evolution, this number also reflects how women founders consistently outperform expectations, showcasing their resilience, and business acumen,” Apoorva Sharma, Managing Partner, Stride Ventures said.

It is this business acumen and resilience of Indian women founders that we have decided to celebrate on this International Women’s Day. With that said, here is a list of women entrepreneurs that are making significant strides and breaking barriers across various industries, all while inspiring countless minds in their relentless pursuit for excellence.

Note: This is not an exhaustive list or ranking of any kind. We have placed the names of women startup founders in alphabetical order. 

1. Aarti Gill

Aarti Gill is the cofounder and CEO of plant-based wellness startup OZiva. Founded in 2016, along with Mihir Gadani, the D2C brand sells products across categories such as women’s health, skincare, haircare, and general wellness.

An alumna of IIT Roorkee and INSEAD, Gill initially worked with financial services company Capital One but soon changed tracks and took the entrepreneurial plunge. 

In 2015, Gill and Gadani founded their startup FitCircle –  a Facebook messenger-based fitness consulting platform that connected members with experts to help the former achieve fitness goals through personalised workouts and diet plans.

The duo saw a major whitespace in the ‘clean’ nutrition products market and launched the D2C brand OZiva in 2016. Later in 2022, FMCG giant Hindustan Unilever announced the acquisition of a 51% equity stake, and eventually the remaining 49%, in the startup via a combination of primary infusion and secondary buyouts. 

2. Ashwini Asokan

Ashwini Asokan is the CEO and cofounder of Mad Street Den. She, along with her husband Anand Chandrasekaran, founded the AI startup in 2013 and registered it in the US in 2016 as Mad Street Den Inc.

The startup’s flagship platform Vue.ai enables large enterprises around the world to build a wide range of AI-enabled applications across workflows and functions.

Vue.ai integrates image, video, and text data across the enterprise, utilising its AI stack to decode information and enable data-driven decision-making.

With a combination of ready-to-use APIs, no-code, and low-code tools, Vue.ai enables marketing, product, business and technology teams to bring an order of magnitude impact to revenue growth, efficiency and cost reduction. The platform is currently deployed across various industries, including retail, finance, insurance, logistics and healthcare.

A Carnegie Mellon alumna, her work centres on the intersection of technology, people, and complex organisational systems.

3. Divya Gokulnath

Divya Gokulnath, an Indian entrepreneur and educator, is renowned as the cofounder and director of BYJU’S. Her journey began in 2008 at the age of 21 when she embarked on her teaching career.

In 2012, Gokulnath, along with her husband Byju Raveendran, founded the educational technology company in Bengaluru. Hailing from a middle-class family, she acquired technological skills and effectively integrated them into the education sector.

Her leadership and contributions to the field were further recognised when she was appointed as the leader of the EdTech Taskforce by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) in March 2022.

4. Falguni Nayar

Falguni Nayar, the founder and CEO of Nykaa, established the beauty ecommerce startup in 2012. Today, Nykaa stands as one of the leading players in the segment. 

Nykaa has a team of over 1,600 members and offers a portfolio of 1,500+ brands, including its private labels, to its customers. With a strong online presence and 68 stores across India, Nykaa has also expanded into new verticals like apparels through Nykaa Fashion.

Nayar, an IIM Ahmedabad graduate, boasts over 26 years of experience in areas such as ecommerce, investment banking, and broking. 

She has also served on the boards of various companies, including Tata Motors and Aviva Life Insurance Company India. Presently, she serves as an independent director on the boards of Kotak Securities, ACC, and Dabur India.

According to Hurun India Rich List 2022, Nayar was India’s richest self-made woman post the public listing of Nykaa in November 2021.

5. Ghazal Alagh

Ghazal Alagh is the cofounder of listed D2C unicorn Mamaearth, which she founded in 2016 with her husband Varun Alagh. The brand sells a range of beauty and personal care (BPC) products across various categories, including hair care, body care, and makeup.  

An active angel investor, she holds a bachelor’s degree in computer application from Panjab University. Prior to establishing Mamaearth, she founded a fitness platform, dietexpert.in, which ceased operations in 2013. 

She is also better known for her stint as a Shark on the maiden season of the popular Indian TV show Shark Tank India. In 2022, she backed 14 startups, including names such as Humpy Farms, unScript AI, Wishlink, BlissClub, HumpyFarm and Uvi Health.

6. Hardika Shah 

Hardika Shah is the founder and CEO of Kinara Capital, a Bengaluru-based fintech startup. Founded in 2011, the platform offers collateral-free business loans between INR 1 Lakh and INR 30 Lakh to MSMEs via its app myKinara.

Before founding Kinara Capital, Shah received a degree in computer sciences from US-based Knox College and then spent almost two decades as a management consultant, executing projects globally. 

Under her leadership, the startup has so far raised $117 Mn in funding from multiple investors, including Gaja Capital, GAWA Capital, Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, and Patamar Capital.

7. Manju Dhawan

Manju Dhawan cofounded the logistics powerhouse Ecom Express in 2012, alongside TA Krishnan, K Satyanarayana, and Sanjeev Saxena. 

Prior to founding Ecom Express, Dhawan spent nearly 25 years at Blue Dart Express, rising up the ladder to become the company’s head customer care.

Ecom Express offers logistics solutions, including first-mile pickup, processing, and last-mile delivery. Since its inception, the logistics giant has expanded its operations to encompass over 3,000 delivery centres, spanning 9.6 Mn sq ft.

8. Minu Margeret

To provide the Indian market with innovative athleisure wear, Minu Margeret founded Blissclub in 2020. 

The founder and CEO of the startup founded the brand, driven by her struggle to find suitable athleisure wear. Confronted with challenges of limited functional, technical, and innovative options, she took matters into her own hands to create a solution for the gaps she identified, paving the way for Blissclub.

Today, the Bengaluru-based fashion apparel startup has expanded its offerings to include 50 products.

Blissclub began operations as an online platform selling activewear products for women. Since then, it has expanded its product line and also opened a few offline stores as well.

An alumna of ISB, Margeret is also a CA. Prior to joining Blissclub, she worked with firms such as PhonePe, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Unilever, and Wipro Technologies.

9. Namrata Asthana

Coming from a background in communications, Namrata Asthana’s life took a different turn after she witnessed a dearth of good places that served coffee in Delhi. Partnering with Matt Chitharanjan, she founded Blue Tokai Coffee in 2012. 

The startup sources single-estate Arabica coffee beans from premium Indian estates, roasts these beans on order, and sells them online directly to consumers and businesses. 

She is an alumna of US-based Vanderbilt University and has previously worked in various capacities with names such as Pepsico, Centre for Finance and Development and the India HIV/AIDS Alliance.

10. Neha Singh

Neha Singh cofounded market intelligence platform Tracxn, along with Abhishek Goyal, in 2012. The startup offers a SaaS-based tool that tracks company financials and captables of entities. It has customers in over 50 countries.

Singh also serves as the chairperson and managing director of Tracxn. 

She previously served as an associate at The Boston Consulting Group (India) and an investment analyst at Sequoia Capital India (now Peak XV Partners). 

She holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in computer engineering from IIT Bombay and an MBA degree from Stanford University. 

Tracxn raised a total funding of INR 139.22 Cr ($16.8 Mn) before getting listed on the Indian stock exchanges in 2022. 

11. Pallavi Utagi

Pallavi Utagi founded baby and mother care D2C brand SuperBottoms in 2018. SuperBottoms offers a diverse range of products, including cotton langots and kids clothing. 

Prior to founding SuperBottoms, Utagi worked with Lactacyd, Piramal Healthcare, and Strides Arcolab, among others.

In February 2023, SuperBottoms secured $5 Mn in its Series A1 funding round, with Lok Capital and Sharrp Ventures leading the investment. 

The startup has raised a funding of around INR 39 Cr to date and counts DSG Consumer Partners, Saama Capital, Titan Capital, and Venture Catalysts among its backers.

12. Prukalpa Sankar

Prukalpa Sankar cofounded SaaS startup Atlan, along with Varun Banka, in 2018. The enterprise tech platform allows teams to collaborate on projects and help create a single source for all data assets on its platform.

Prior to launching Atlan, Sankar cofounded SocialCops in 2013, a web and mobile platform aimed at fostering connectivity and collaboration within cities.

As a World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer, Sankar also harbours aspirations of becoming a published author. Her writings span various topics, including data teams, culture, metadata & data governance 3.0, startups, and leadership. She has an engineering degree from Nanyang Technological University Singapore.

13. Rajoshi Ghosh

Rajoshi Ghosh is the cofounder and COO of Hasura. Founded in 2018 by Tanmai Gopal and Ghosh, the enterprise tech platform creates realtime GraphQL APIs, enabling businesses to instantly access their data via secure APIs.

Hasura turned unicorn in 2022 after raising a mega $100 Mn Series C funding round led by Greenoaks Capital. 

Prior to incorporating Hasura, Ghosh cofounded a product development company called 34 Cross.

Ghosh was also a founding member of Tech Saloon and the founder of Find A Kadai and Owlink. In addition to her work in the tech industry, Ghosh was a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community. 

She holds a bachelor’s degree in computational biology from the National University of Singapore and completed the Ignite Global Innovations Program from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

14. Ruchi Kalra

Ruchi Kalra is an investor and cofounder of two unicorn startups – OfBusiness and Oxyzo. 

After completing chemical engineering from IIT-Delhi, Kalra pursued her MBA from the Indian School of Business. Prior to founding OfBusiness, she also worked at McKinsey & Company.

She is also an active angel investor and has so far invested in startups such as seafood marketplace Captain Fresh, tyre marketplace TyrePlex, women-led lifestyle brand FableStreet, and B2B pharmacy marketplace Saveo.

15. Sahradayi Modi 

Sahradayi Modi cofounded Pratilipi in 2015, along with Ranjeet Pratap Singh, Sankaranarayanan Devarajan, and Rahul Ranjan. The startup is a self-publishing and reading platform for Indian languages.

The storytelling platform connects readers and writers in 12 languages. It claims to have an extensive readership and listener base of up to 15 Mn subscribers and is home to over 9.5 Lakh writers. 

Modi holds MBA and MSc in biotechnology degrees from Gujarat’s SP University. Prior to cofounding Pratilipi, she worked with DHL and Vodafone India.

Pratilipi’s revenue from operations quadrupled year-on-year to INR 34.89 Cr in the financial year 2022-23 (FY23), while net loss declined 22% to INR 153 Cr.

16. Saumya Singh Rathore

Saumya Singh Rathore cofounded gaming startup WinZO, along with Paavan Nanda, in 2018. 

WinZO collaborates with third-party developers to host games on its mobile app. It currently provides games in 12 languages and boasts over 100 Mn users.

Currently, she is the chief of staff in the core team at ZO Rooms.

In the past, she has worked with the Times Group across verticals (television, distribution, radio, and publishing), focussing on driving growth and supervising execution. 

She also featured in Kotak Private Banking Hurun Leading Wealthy Women list in 2021.

WinZO has raised a total funding of $100 Mn to date.

17. & 18. Shivani Poddar & Tanvi Malik

Tanvi Malik and Shivani Poddar founded High Street Essentials back in 2012, which houses two women-focussed brands, House of Indya and FabAlley. 

While House of Indya sells ethnic clothes and jewellery, FabAlley offers western apparel and lounge wear. 

An alumna of Delhi University’s Faculty of Management Studies, Poddar has also worked with Hindustan Unilever and Avendus Capital, before finally taking the entrepreneurial plunge. 

On the other hand, Malik is an alumna of LSR and MICA and worked for a brief period with Tata-owned watchmaking giant Titan.

Together, the two helm HSE that claims to have more than 30 exclusive brand-owned stores across India and partnerships with international marketplaces such as Amazon US, Zalora, and Namshi.

19. Shreedha Singh

Shreedha Singh cofounded The Ayurveda Co (T.A.C) with her husband Param Bhargava in July 2021. She serves as the CEO of the startup.

T.A.C was inspired by Singh’s experience with Ayurveda. After struggling with a skin allergy for about three years, Singh and Bhargava decided to begin the research and founded D2C brand Khadi Essentials in 2019.

Khadi Essentials is known for its diverse range of handcrafted, curated, and designed Ayurvedic beauty and wellness products, promising a transformative experience in beauty and body care. 

Later, the husband-wife duo founded T.A.C, which sells natural and ayurvedic beauty and personal care products. It has raised a total funding of $16 Mn to date and counts the likes of Sixth Sense Ventures, Kajal Aggarwal (Bollywood actor), and Wipro Consumer Care Venture among its investors.

20. Smita Deorah

Smita Deorah, along with Sumeet Mehta, founded edtech unicorn LEAD Group in 2012 to offer innovative edtech solutions to schools.

A chartered accountant-turned-educator, Deorah has over 22 years of experience in finance, leadership and education. After finishing her bachelor’s degree in commerce from Narsee Monjee College of Commerce & Economics, she worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) before her eight-year-long stint at FMCG major P&G.

She is also the founder of a non-profit organisation, Sparsh, which aims to offer high quality education to young children from low-income communities.

21. Srividhya Srinivasan

Srividhya Srinivasan, along with Subramanian and Srinivasan KA, is the brainchild behind media-focussed SaaS unicorn Amagi, which the trio founded in 2008.  

A serial entrepreneur, she also cofounded wireless audio technology brand Impulsesoft (now SiRF) in 1998. 

She started her career as a software engineer at Texas Instruments after completing her B.Tech in computer science from Bharathiar University, Tamil Nadu. She specialises in software architecture, and technical marketing.

Meanwhile, Amagi serves some of the biggest names in the media industry, including Warner Bros, Discovery, NBCUniversal, A+E Networks UK, and Curiosity Stream.  

In 2022, Amagi became the 11th startup to reach unicorn status by raising $95 Mn ina funding round led by Accel. 

22. Upasana Taku

Upasana Taku cofounded MobiKwik, along with Bipin Preet Singh, in 2009. Taku currently serves as the chairperson and chief financial officer of the fintech unicorn.

MobiKwik is a digital banking platform that offers a suite of financial products for both consumers and merchants. It offers online checkout, Kwik QR scan and pay, MobiKwik Vibe (Soundbox), MobiKwik EDC Machine, merchant cash advance, among others, to businesses and merchants.

Taku is an alumna of Punjab Technical University, holding a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering. She earned her master’s degree in management science and engineering from Stanford University 

Prior to starting her entrepreneurial journey, she worked as a product manager in the financial services, global payments, and risk divisions at PayPal and was also on the product team of the auto finance division of HSBC in San Diego.

She has been recognised many times as one of India’s prominent tech founders. In 2018, the President of India honoured her as the first woman to lead a payments startup. In 2020, she was featured in the Kotak Wealth Hurun – Leading Wealthy Women List, ranking as the 12th richest self-made woman in India.

23. Vineeta Singh

Widely recognised for her appearance on Shark Tank India, Vineeta Singh is the cofounder and CEO of beauty and personal care brand SUGAR Cosmetics. 

Singh is a serial entrepreneur and also founded FAB BAG, a beauty and grooming subscription startup. Her visibility on Shark Tank India has catapulted her to fame, and she has subsequently become an investor in several Indian startups featured on the show.

As an angel investor, Singh has invested in startups like Padcare Labs, JhaJi Store, Snitch, and Josh Talks. 

She is an alumna of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

The famous Shark is widely recognised for turning down an INR 1 Cr job offer from top investment bank Deutsche Bank during campus placements to pursue her entrepreneurial passion.

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