Amid challenges, women startup founders in Bengaluru find ways to thrive and support each other

On the eve of Women’s Day, a post by angel investor and business strategist Jermina Menon on LinkedIn garnered some attention. In the post, she described how Vineetha Singh, founder of the ₹4,000 crore brand Sugar Cosmetics, reportedly faced challenges securing investment for her company because of her gender.

On the eve of Women’s Day, a post by angel investor and business strategist Jermina Menon on LinkedIn garnered some attention. In the post, she described how Vineetha Singh, founder of the ₹4,000 crore brand Sugar Cosmetics, reportedly faced challenges securing investment for her company because of her gender.

As per data from Tracxn, only 6.97% of Venture Capital-funded money went to Indian startups with female founders in 2023. In Karnataka, the figure was lower – 3.11%. Data also shows that the percentage of women-led startups in Karnataka stands at a mere 9.66%.

The good news, however, is the emergence of more women-focused funds, women-headed incubators, and an increased sense of sisterhood perpetuated through communities of women entrepreneurs.

Shreya Krishnan, MD of AnitaB.org, an NGO that supports women in tech, notes that women founders often have to put in more energy and effort to get funded than their male counterparts. This makes scaling up a difficult process.

“There is also a class divide. Most of our women who lead unicorns come from classes where family friends and fraternity would pool in and support them. But for women from mid or lower-income backgrounds, the barriers are high,” she points out.

Tanul Mishna, founder and CEO of Bengaluru-based fintech incubator Afthonia Labs, believes that the change in the Indian startup ecosystem has been faster and better when compared to global numbers. Nevertheless, she feels two areas need to see more momentum. Women founders see more cheques being written for them in the early stages of their startups. Towards later stages it gets difficult, Ms. Mishra says.

“The other is that checks are being cut for women entrepreneurs in certain segments…When you look at more tech-heavy domains like fintech or space tech the number of women founders is lesser and the number of investments that go to them even lesser than what you would see in other segments,” she says.