WOMEN STARTUPS IN INDIA

  WOMEN STARTUPS IN INDIA

Emergence of Women entrepreneurs has led to an engendered perspective in the realm of entrepreneurship. Despite the challenges women today are realizing their entrepreneurial dreams of running and sustaining a business at par with their male counterparts. The phenomenon of entrepreneurship is gaining steam in India.

Dr. Aparna Patil, Kolhapur
Mobile 98906 18393
doctorate in the discipline of Humanities

In a largely male dominated world, women are finally braving their feet to celebrate their entrepreneurial ideas and pacing their way to becoming successful entrepreneurs.  With November 19^th declared as Women Entrepreneurship day, women in business need to be celebrated, empowered and supported every day. Today there is a significant shift in the way women entrepreneurs think and act in comparison to a decade back.

“Today they are more confident, passionate and ambitious about their careers,” says Sabena Puri who is the CEO and Co-founder of Stage3 a fashion retail and styling platform.

“I could certainly say that I’ve never underestimated myself, there’s nothing wrong with being ambitious,” said Angele Merkel, the former politician and scientist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021.

“I want to be remembered as someone who put India on the scientific map of the world in terms of large innovation. I want to be remembered for making a difference to global healthcare. And I want to be remembered as someone who did make a difference to social economic development in India,” said .Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, the chair person and managing director  of Biocon.

Women of India have come a long way. From the period where women enjoyed an equal status to men, to the era where women were only confined within four walls and to the post liberalization period where women stand shoulder to shoulder to men in almost all spheres of life, they have evolved and are making a strong place for themselves.  It has been no easy journey for women to climb up the corporate ladder as they overcame, and are still overcoming stereotypical socio-cultural norms embedded in Indian society.

         India has witnessed a rapid growth in entrepreneurship in the last decade and women have entered the league of leading Startups. While pioneers like Kiran Mazumdar- Shaw, Nainalal Kidwai are some of the leading examples of successful entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs like Falguni Nayar the founder of Unicorn Nykaa, Aditi Gupta, the founder of Menstrupedia, Upasana Taku, the Co-founder of Mobikwik are taking the torch of inspiration forward motivating many to join their road towards  success. While success stories about women are on rise, a recent report by World Economic Forum stated that, ‘Eight out of every ten media reports worldwide are about men, with only two of them have women in focus.’ So, though Women entrepreneurs have arrived, there is much that needs to be done.

CONCEPT OF WOMEN STARTUPS

When a woman or a group of women embark on initiating, organizing and managing their enterprise they are termed as entrepreneurs (Suganthi, 2009) .Women entrepreneurship can be considered as ownership, creation and control of business which results in social and economic empowerment of women (Pai, 2018).  J. Schumpeter defines women entrepreneurs as those who initiate, innovate or adopt business actively.

The Government of India defines women entrepreneur as ,’An enterprise owned and controlled by women with having a minimum financial interest of 51% and giving at least 51% of generated employment to women.’ A Startup refers to a new form of business in its early stages of development, focused on rapid growth and generally proposing a technological solution. It focuses on bringing an untested, unique product or service to the market. Its goal is to validate a new business model, find a scalable solution to a problem, meet a market need, and ultimately transform into a larger sustainable business. 

The founders are often evaluated as individuals with a creative, innovative and technology friendly mind set, motivated to build something new and unique. A Startup founded or co-founded by a woman or women can be termed as Woman Startup. 

A Woman Start-up  typically  focuses on developing innovative  products or services that disrupt existing norms or create new markets. They are entrepreneurs who are driven by fast growth, with a scalability potential in their business activity and they focus on innovation and disruption.

STATUS OF WOMEN STARTUPS IN INDIA

The Industrial policy resolution  1991, highlighted the need of various programmers of women entrepreneurship development. With the introduction of liberalization, privatization and globalization the Indian economy went through a radical change. Multifarious factors like, urbanization, technological advancement and education status of women helped to transform their conditions. Various Entrepreneurship development programmers paved the way for development of women entrepreneurship including the rural women.

The 21^st century brought along even more women entrepreneurship development schemes. The initiatives included the Annapurna Scheme in 2000, Udyogini scheme in 2006, the Bhartiya Mahila business loan scheme in 2016 and the Mahila Udyam Nidhi Scheme2021. It became easy for women to develop their skills, secure finance on liberalized terms and conditions with a changing mind set of society towards them.

In January 2016, the Startup initiative came up into its own form and is designed in a way to develop into an unbiased gender ecosystem (Startup India, 2017).  Today there is a significant change in the field of entrepreneurship. Now investors are looking forward to provide funding and that has increased incubation facilities and Startup ecosystem.

In the current scenario the identity of woman entrepreneur is considerably counted as persevere, creator, risk taker, knowledgeable, passionate and confident with a versatile ability to manage her own enterprise (Manshani and Dubey, 2017).

India has emerged as the third largest ecosystem for Startups globally with over 99,000  DPIIT recognized Startups over 670 districts of the country as on 31^st May, 2023. As per recent figures Women comprise 14% of the total entrepreneurs in India, which works out to 8 millions. India has 2200 + funded women led Startups. Investment in these have increased 90%   since 2010. 

According to a report published on 5^th July, 2023, by the National Association of Software and Services Company (NASSCOM)  in collaboration with Zinnov, 18 % of Startups in India are led by at least one woman founder or cofounder. Of these, the number of Unicorns and potential Unicorns come up to around 36 in 2022.

 It is interesting to note that according to the report, Startups formed by men and women perform similarly on several measures. Unicorns launched by women provide employment and income at a similar rate to those started by men. 7 out of 1000 Startups  started by women reach at the later  stage, comparable to  8 out of 1000 Startups founded by men, showing that female founders have equal access rates to those of their male counterparts.

India has been steadily building its Startup ecosystem for the past decade. India has become one of the most dynamic Startup hubs with a growing number of successful Startups in different Industries. The last two years, 2021 and 2022 saw the largest number of Startups joining the unicorn league. The year 2022, saw five Startups which had at least one woman co-founder enter the Unicorn club. Lead, Hasura, Amagi, Oxizo and Open, are one third of the total 15 unicorns that emerged. 

This shows that despite the progressive diversity and inclusion initiative, policies and schemes launched to level the playing field a lot still needs to be done to achieve gender equality in the corporate sector. In order for woman –led businesses to cross the coveted billion dollar valuation mart, we need to dive deep and look at the problem from the grass root level.

Two years since the Covid 19 outbreak Indian women in the informal sector continue to pay a heavy price. ‘The Great Gender Divide’ a report by Initiative For What Works to Advance For Women and Girls in the Economy (IWWAGE) says that only 7 out of 100 entrepreneurs in India are women and the most common reason for them to start their own business was out of necessity rather than aspiration. It is no surprise than that India ranks 70^th among 77 countries covered in the Female Entrepreneurship Index. It is a well recognized fact that there is a gender imbalance in the entrepreneur ecosystem. This is the same reflection that impacts the outcome of getting your company to the public market level or even to get to a Unicorn valuation. There is an imbalance at every level. It gets further amplified in how much funding a woman founder receives versus a man and there is disparity play out every funding cycle.

     While women owned businesses generate 10-12 % more income than male-owned businesses of the same age in the same industries, only 5% of the women owned businesses receive venture capital as compared with 77% male –owned businesses and it is this gap that the government is trying to bridge through various schemes and programmers. Government has been taking a major effort in promoting women entrepreneurship through its various policies and programmers. The initiatives by government can be classified as- Regulatory policies, Promotional policies and Credit policies.

Government and state run governments have many schemes in place towards encouraging the financial inclusivity for women.

Few government initiatives that help women entrepreneurs to scale up their business ventures can be stated:

1. The Standup India initiative
2. Pradhan Mantra Mudra Yojna
3.  Deena Shakti Scheme
4. The Stree Shakti Yojna
5. Prime minister Rojgar Yojna
6.  Orient Mahila Vikas Yojna
7.  Orient Mahila Vikas Yojna
8. Annapurna Yojna
9. Entrepreneurial Development Programme
10. Management Development Progrmmes
11. Women’s Development Corporations
12. Bhartiya Mahila Bank business loan
13. Udyogini  Scheme
14. Cent Kalyani Scheme
15. Mahila Udyam Nidhi Scheme
16. Women Entrpreneurship Platform

The WEP a government of India- backed initiative launched by the NITI Aayog in 2017 to promote a conducive ecosystem for women entrepreneurship in India has been a unified aggregator of relevant information and services to strengthen industry linkages and increase awareness of existing programmes among women entrepreneurs. It specifically provides access to programmes for a) Incubation and Acceleration b) Entrepreneurship skilling and mentorship c) Marketing assistance  d) Funding and financial assistance e) Compliance and tax assistance f) Community and networking.

               CONCLUSION

 Emergence of Women entrepreneurs has led to an engendered perspective in the realm of entrepreneurship. Despite the challenges women today are realizing their entrepreneurial dreams of running and sustaining a business at par with their male counterparts. The phenomenon of entrepreneurship is gaining steam in India. Women entrepreneurs are getting spotlighted for their palpable impact they are having across sectors.  The thorough domesticated ladies who could not think beyond the welfare of their families, now are awakened to action. They have a great desire to progress which awakening their dormant individuality. As right put by A.P.J.Kalam, ‘Empowering women is a prerequisite for creating a good nation. When women are empowered society with stability is assured. Empowerment of women is essential as their thoughts and their value systems lead to the development of a good family, good society and ultimately a good nation.’