According to Women in India’s Startup Ecosystem Report (WISER), in the past 5 years women led startups rise to 18%
- IBEF
- October 31, 2023
The booming startup system has witnessed female founders turning their entrepreneurial journeys into successful businesses. As a result, women-led startups have risen to 18% in India in the past five years, says Women in India’s Startup Ecosystem Report (WISER).
In India, there were about 6,000 businesses in 2017; 10% of these had female founders. By 2022, there were 80,000, and the percentage of women-led startups rose to 18%.
The report also mentioned that 105 startups became unicorns in 2022, up from 13 in 2017. As a result, the percentage of women-led unicorn firms rose from 8% to 17%. Unicorn refers to a startup company with a value of over US$ 1 billion in the venture capital industry. There has been participation from more than 200 startups including Urban Company, Meesho, Zomato, etc., in the WISER report.
The report further stated that in 2017, the Venture Capital (VC) funding for Indian startups was US$ 5.9 billion. Out of which, women-led startups touched a funding share of 11%, and by the year 2022, the VCs funding rose to US$ 21.9 billion. While the corresponding share of funding for women-led startups rose to 20% by 2022.
According to Ms. Aakanksha Gulati, Director of ACT, over the last 5 years there has been tremendous growth in the number of startups in India, from 6,000 to 80,000, and the growth in women-led startups, both in numbers and funding is outpacing the industry average. With this trend, it is expected to witness a continuous rise in the percentage of women-led startups over the next decade.
The report highlighted the increasing number of women leading startups as opposed to large corporations. Currently, startups are doing better than established businesses; 32% of women hold managerial roles in startups compared to 21% in corporates. At the Chief Experience Officer (CXO) level, where corporates have only 5% of women in leadership roles compared to 18% in startups, this disparity is much more apparent. Furthermore, compared to firms created by men, those with a female founder have 2.5 times as many women in senior positions. But even though the overall numbers are encouraging, there is still a lot of work to be done. Ten years into their careers, 8 out of ten men in startups hold director-level roles or higher, compared to just 5 out of ten women.
Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.
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