Online Career Platform For Women SHEROES Raise $1.8 Mn In Series A Funding

SHEROES, a Delhi-based job and career platform for women has raised $1.8 Mn (INR 12 Cr) in Series A funding. The investment was led by Lumis Partners along with participation from The HR Fund and angel investor Rajul Garg. Existing investor, Raghav Bahl led Quintillion Media also participated in the round.

The raised funds will be used to further enhance technological innovation, expand opportunities for work from the home initiative.

The round is a part of the commitment, out of which INR 12 Cr come in immediately. Dexter Capital was the exclusive financial advisor and Vertices Partners was the legal advisors to SHEROES for the Transaction.

It had earlier raised $770K (INR 5 Cr) in an angel round in August 2015, from Raghav Bahl led Quintillion Media, 500 Startups and a group of individuals including Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Rajan Anandan, Binny Bansal, Mekin Maheshwari, Girish Mathrubhootham, Indus Khaitan and Krishna Mehra.

Founded in 2014 by Sairee Chahal, SHEROES aims to be a career destination for women and put women career on the map.Users can find career resources, opportunities, mentorship, etc.  As said by Sairee, “India produces the maximum number of women graduates in the world. We have the most employable women and the least number of employed women. SHEROES helps bridge this gap.”

There are over 300 Mn employable women in India who are ready to connect to opportunities and financial independence. Sairee believes that it’s a hard problem to solve and requires a lot of patience. “There are no shortcuts here and that itself is a big challenge,” she added.

At present, the portal has members from over 20,000 locations and over 12,000 companies actively use the platform. It also runs a career support helpline via phone and app. It also has its communities spread in all major cities across India including major metros, and upcoming cities like Jaipur, Indore, and Pune.

Utkarsh Joshi, CEO of The HR Fund said, “Gender diversity is a pressing issue for India and Sheroes is helping to create the right kind of linkages between women workforce and organisations. SHEROES is The HR Fund’s 5th investment and is a perfect fit for our portfolio. We are very excited to be a playing a significant role in shaping up this reality.”

The portal currently faces major competition from Naukri.com and LinkedIn. Other similar startups in this space include Jobstreet, Careesma, Glassdoor, TimesJobs, Iimjobs and more.