Women in Start-ups: How Women Founders are Reshaping India’s Start-Up Landscape

Beauty and personal care products retailer Nykaa and Niramai Health Analytix, which offers early breast cancer screening, are among India’s start-up success stories of the past decade. Founded by Falguni Nayar and Geeta Manjunath, respectively, they paved the way for a generation of woman entrepreneurs in India. Their success broke the myth that start-ups were a male preserve. The days when women were listed as nominal co-founders just to unlock government benefits—although not entirely gone—no longer define the landscape.

As of June 2025, of the 170,000 start-ups in the country, 76,000 were led by women, generating over 1.7 million jobs, according to Dun and Bradstreet. The momentum is building. But is it enough? Not quite. Are we moving forward? Absolutely.

For start-ups led by women, the journey to success is anything but smooth. Building a start-up is hard for anyone—but for women, the climb is often steeper.

Take Suta, the maker of handmade saris, blouses and other apparel, which derives its name from co-founders Sujata and Tanya Biswas. In less than 10 years of inception, the company has engaged 16,000 weavers, built a customer base of 300,000 and logs Rs 76 crore in annual revenue. It sells its products online and also runs 18 stores.

Yet, co-founder Sujata Biswas isn’t quite rah-rah when talking about the breakthrough achieved by women in the world of start-ups. When a woman wants to set up a business, she is still not taken seriously, she says. The siblings founded Suta in 2016.

“When we started out, entrepreneurship wasn’t such a big conversation, nor was there a well-developed ecosystem for founders,” says Sujata Biswas, who studied in College of Engineering and Technology, Bhubaneswar, and Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi.

“And yes, being women came with its own set of challenges—people assumed they could fool us, or dismissed what we were building as a ‘passion project.’ It’s common: when women start something, it’s often seen as something they can do from home, an add-on, a side hustle,” she adds.

Why is it tougher for women than men to be taken seriously and attain success in the start-up world? From conversations with several woman founders, one common thread emerged: mindset.

Resilience, hard work, funding

Can women founders thrive only in retail or direct-to-consumer businesses such as Nykaa Fashion and Sugar Cosmetics? That, again, is a mindset issue.

Sonam Motwani of Karkhana.io is a compelling counterexample. Karkhana.io, an on-demand manufacturing platform offering flexible, scalable turnkey solutions across electronics, automotive and aerospace businesses, operates in a sector long dominated by men. Even so, Motwani stepped in—and never stepped back.

“It’s definitely easier for a man than for a woman. I had to work much harder to break barriers and build serious relationships with suppliers, or even to pitch what I was trying to create with Karkhana.io. In the initial months, it took far more effort for people to take me seriously, and a lot of that came down to gender,” says Motwani.

Fast forward to today from 2018: Karkhana.io is a Rs 71 crore start-up backed by Arkam Ventures and Trifecta Capital, among others.

Resilience and hard work do matter, but access to capital is an entirely different battle—one in which many woman founders struggle. According to a 2024 report by Kalaari Capital, the average cheque size for start-ups with female co-founders is half that of those led by men. And for every Rs 100 invested in start-ups, only Rs 4 goes to companies with women chief executive officers. The report says 80% investors surveyed acknowledged that gender plays a role in evaluating start-ups.

The challenges

Neha Singh, co-founder of Tracxn, which follows start-ups, says 2021 was the most prosperous year for start-ups led by women that together raised more than $7 billion. That year was an outlier because edtech firm Byjus, with Divya Gokulnath as co-founder, skewed the figures by raising $2 billion.

“Critical challenges persist, including limited access to capital, with woman founders receiving a small fraction of venture capital, prevalent gender biases in funding, lack of social and institutional support, and inadequate visibility in mainstream networks,” says Singh.

According to Singh, many woman entrepreneurs face hurdles such as family reluctance to back their ventures, difficulties in securing loans, and a strong need for mentorship. Although government schemes exist, only a small percentage of woman entrepreneurs benefit from them because of lack of awareness and accessibility

Several government initiatives like NITI Aayog’s Women Entrepreneurship Platform and start-up incubators are making measurable progress in supporting woman founders by addressing access to capital, mentorship, networking and market linkages.

The Dun & Bradstreet report shows that in April–June 2025, fund-raising remained a major concern for 64% women entrepreneurs, who do not expect easy access to capital. There is some progress: 36% now believe external funding will be easier to obtain, up from 28% in October–December 2024.  

‘Hobby’ business?

Take Heads Up for Tails, a Rs 237 crore pet care company that started in 2008 and has raised one Series A funding round. According to founder Rashi Narang, when she started out, pet care in India didn’t exist as a real category. There were no benchmarks, no playbooks, and very little belief that this business could grow. Investors didn’t understand the emotional depth of pet parenting, and many thought of it as a “hobby business,” not a serious opportunity.

While the business is backed by Venture Capital firms Peak XV, Amitell Capital and so on, Narang says in the early days, the biases were subtle but constant.

“Investors questioned whether the category—and sometimes whether I—had the capability to scale up. People often dismissed pet care as an indulgence that would never become mainstream. I learnt very quickly that the only way to change minds was through consistency and care,” she says.

For female entrepreneurship to expand, a change in mindset is important. Tech and digital literacy are also vital for would-be woman entrepreneurs.

Technology is key

Women entrepreneurs rank ‘Leadership and Management’ as the top skill for success, followed by ‘Entrepreneurial Mindset’ and ‘Financial Literacy,’ according to a study by Dun & Bradstreet. Yet only 8% consider digital literacy essential and just 5% prioritise soft skills. That must change.“Tech is inevitable. Any brand that doesn’t take it seriously will perish, because technology is making life so much simpler,” says Biswas.

A 2025 study by Global Entrepreneurship Monitor found that women are 47% more likely than men to discontinue their businesses owing to family or personal commitments. Women also are less likely than men to prefer an ICT (Information and Communication Technology) business.

When access to capital, mindset shift and digital fluency catch up, the question will no longer be whether women can scale up, but how far they can go.

@palakagarwal64