Here are the women who lead India’s billion dollar startups
- Out of the 44 Indian startups that turned unicorns last year, four of them were led by women.
- Four-female led companies have already entered the unicorn club in the first two months of 2022.
- A unicorn, in startup parlance, is a private firm valued at or over a billion dollars.
To make this even better, four-female led companies have already entered the unicorn club in the first two months of 2022. The list includes Ghazal Alagh’s Mamaearth, Rajoshi Ghosh’s Hasura, Smita Seorah’s LEAD School and Dr Garima Sawhney’s Pristyn Care. A unicorn, in startup parlance, is a private firm valued at or over a billion dollars.
“We can look at it as a glass half empty or glass half full. There are now more women entrepreneurs in the startup space than ever before. When I started off as a tech entrepreneur in 2009, we could be counted on one hand. Now there are founders — Falguni Nayar of Nykaa and Upasana Taku of Mobikwik who are at the helm of taking their companies public with many lining up. The reason for the delay in women reaching the mark at the same pace as men is because they started slightly later”- Anisha Singh, founding partner at She Capital, had previously told Business Insider India.
Here is the list of women-led startups valued over a billion dollars [The list does not include Falguni Nayar of Nykaa, which turned unicorn in 2020, as the entity is now publicly listed.]
Ambiga Subramanian — MuSigma
Ambiga Subramanian was the first Indian woman to have led a company into the unicorn club. She — former chief executive (CEO) of data analytics firm Mu Sigma — also became the youngest of India’s eight richest self-made women, according to the Hurun India rich list of 2017.
The same year, she had sold her 24% shareholding in Mu Sigma to her former husband Dhiraj Rajaram following their divorce and he then emerged as the controlling shareholder of the firm. She then turned into an investor and invested in companies like Shuttl, Box8, Piper Biosciences and others.
Divya Gokulnath — Byju’s
Byju’s is the highest valued Indian startup, as well as the highest valued edtech startup in the world, founded by couple Byju Raveendran and Divya Gokulnath in 2011. The company is valued at a whopping $18.5 billion and has over 115 million students registered on the platform.
The company is exploring options to go public in 2022 and has received an offer from one of Churchill Capital’s special-purpose acquisition companies (SPAC) to go public in the USA, at a valuation of $48 billion.
Upasana Taku — Mobikwik
Stanford graduate Upasana Taku is the cofounder and chief operating officer (COO) of soon-to-go-public Mobikwik. She had founded the digital payments company Mobikwik with her spouse Bipin Preet Singh in 2010.
The company has already received Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI) approval to raise ₹1,900 crore through an initial public offering (IPO). The company’s founders have decided to not sell their shareholdings in the IPO.
Ghazal Alagh — Mamaearth
Ghazal Alagh became a household name after she featured on Shark Tank India, a spinoff of the American reality show that has been running since 2009. She, along with her husband Varun Alagh, founded direct-to-customer (D2C) Mamaearth back in 2016. The company currently sells over 80 beauty and personal care products across India.
Mamaearth is a subsidiary of Honasa Consumer Private Limited, which also runs brands like The Derma Co and other personal care brands. The company is backed by Sequoia Capital India, Sofina Ventures, Evolvence and others.
Ruchi Deepak — ACKO Insurance
Ruchi Deepak founded ACKO Insurance in 2017, along with Varun Dua. The company entered the unicorn club last year, after raising $255 million in a round led by General Atlantic and Multiples Private Equity. Amazon India and Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal are the other investors in Acko.
The company sells its insurance products online across cars, bikes, gadgets, health and travel. The company has also partnered with companies like Amazon, MakeMyTrip, Ola, Urban Company and others to distribute their products.
Ruchi Kalra — Ofbusiness
Serial entrepreneur Ruchi Kalra founded business-to-business commerce and fintech company Ofbusiness — along with Asish Mohapatra, Vasant Sridhar, Bhuvan Gupta and Nitin Jain — in 2016. The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi alumna had previously founded Oxyzo Financial Service and has worked as a partner with McKinsey & Company.
Ofbusiness turned unicorn in July, after the $160 million round led by SoftBank Vision Fund II that valued the company at a whopping $1.5 billion. It offers raw material procurement services and credit to small and medium businesses (SMBs).
Priyanka Gill — The Good Glamm Group
Priyanka Gill, the founder of popular content platform PopXo, became a part of the MyGlamm Group in 2020. Gill, along with the founder MyGlamm’s founder Darshan Sanghvi, acquired BabyChakra in August 2021 and launched a new house of brands called The Good Glamm Group a month later.
The company currently owns several personal care as well as content brands like The Mom Co, ScoopWhoop, MissMalini and others.
Rajoshi Ghosh — Hasura
Stanford University alumna Rajoshi Ghosh founded Software-as-a-service company Hasura, along with Tanmai Gopal in 2017. It is an open source platform that provides a host of solutions to developers to make web application development faster.
She had previously founded an appointment booking system for doctors Dokbuk and crowdsourcing local food discovery app Find A Kadai. She was also a cofounder in The Brass Plate and 34 Cross.
Smita Deorah — LEAD School
Smita Deorah founded edtech startup LEAD School with her spouse Sumeet Mehta a decade ago. The Mumbai-based Lead School became the second startup to make it to the unicorn club this year, and is currently standing neck-and-neck with Byju’s, Unacademy, Eruditus, UpGrad and Vedantu.
Prior to this Deorah has worked for nearly nine years with consumer goods company Procter & Gamble (P&G). She has also been associated with PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) and founded a non-profit for young children called Sparsh.
Dr Garima Sawhney — Pristyn Care
Dr Garima Sawhney founded Pristyn Care with Harsimarbir Singh and Vaibhav Kapoor in 2018 to make a change in India’s surgical care system. The company has partnered with 400 hospitals across 30 cities to provide surgeries and treatment for proctology, urology, ENT, vascular, gynaecology and more.
Before founding Pristyn Care, Sawhney was associated with brands like Max Super Speciality and CK Birla Consultant.
Saritha Katikaneni — Zenoti
Zenoti is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution used by salons, spas and medi-spas. According to her LinkedIn profile, Katikaneni was the co-founder and vice president of Zenoti for almost a decade till November 2019. She has taken a sabbatical since then.
Before founding Zenoti, Katikaneni had led 6Pack, a chain of restaurants that serves healthy Indian food. She has also worked as a managing director of SustainLane and a senior director of Marketing at SumTotal Systems.
Gazal Kalra — Rivigo
Trucking logistics firm Rivigo became a unicorn in 2019. The company was founded by Deepak Garg and Gazal Kalra, who resigned from her position in July 2018 to once again start her entrepreneurial journey. According to her LinkedIn profile, she has been working on her latest venture since then. The company is currently in stealth mode.
READ MORE ARTICLES ON
Popular Right Now
Popular Keywords
Advertisement