It’s a man’s world so they say, but throughout history and in modern times, women too have played an important part in society. Women have proved her in every situation; they are no less than their male counterparts in this society too. Every start-up is based on an idea that can either solve an existing problem or will enhance the already existing mechanism.
Every successful entrepreneur has come a long way to achieve what he or she is in their life now. There is no magic stick which will help you to achieve this. So, here is a list of some successful women entrepreneurs in India. who have come a long way and surpassed their male equivalents and gave the answer of who are the women entrepreneurs in India.
1) FALGUNI NAYYAR – CEO, Nykaa
Falguni Nayyer
She had a great successful 25 years in financial services, 18 of which were spent with the Kotak Mahindra group as Managing Director, among other designations, but after 25 years of success Falguni Nayyar took the entrepreneurial plunge and decided to launch Nykaa.com, a beauty and wellness ecommerce, premier platform for women. Nykaa has around 850 curated, well priced and genuine brands with over 1 lakh products This IIM Ahmadabad graduate launched her website in the latter end of 2012 and soon enough Nykaa was already boasting of retail partnerships with the world’s top notch personal care corporations like Unilever, P&G, L’Oreal, Beiersdorf, Johnson & Johnson and going onto raise 20 crores in funding from private investors with plans to expand to new technologies, a mobile app and physical stores in the country. She is a successful woman entrepreneurs in India for every generation because she has proved her in every possible aspect. Today, Nykaa has emerged as the largest beauty destination in India with half a million customers depending on it. Girls are depending on it not just for their favourite brands but also for advice, updates, expert tips and videos on how to look and feel gorgeous always. In 2015, Nykaa has decided to move from being a pure play online venture to establish an offline presence, with the opening of five Nykaa Luxe stores in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. It has also a physical store in New Delhi’s international airport too.
She has a great marketing experience in various industries like retail, eCommerce, fashion & lifestyle, advertising & public relations, Radhika Ghai Aggarwal is a successful women entrepreneur women in India who co-founded Shopclues.com in Silicon Valley in 2011 and is currently India’s first and largest fully managed marketplace with more than 7 million visitors every month, serving nine thousand cities, towns and villages in India. Radhika Ghai Aggarwal is an Internet entrepreneur and India’s first woman to enter the Unicorn Club. According to company filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the company’s revenue stood at Rs 79 crore in the last fiscal year, compared to about Rs 31 crore in FY 2014. In January this year, they raised $100 million in funding in a Series E round led by a Singapore-based fund, and joined the Indian unicorn club.
3) RICHA KAR – Co-founder & CEO, Zivame
Richa Kar
Richa Kar is the Co-founder of Zivame. Zivame is a Bangalore based start-up for women apparels online lingerie store, Zivame.com. It has acquired its fame for being the first web platform having over two thousand styles to choose from. The company was incepted in 2011 in Bangalore and has seen a great amount of success since then. Prior to this, Richa also had experience in branding, retail marketing and operations. Having studied the Indian lingerie retail market, she noticed that women weren’t exactly comfortable shopping for lingerie in physical outlet stores. Thus she thought of creating Zivame, a place where women can understand, choose and get to explore their lingerie needs, browse through styles, sizes and get the goods delivered at their doorstep without all the embarrassment. Furthermore, for the comfort of the Indian woman, Zivame even takes care to deliver its products discreetly, being packed without any show of branding and product description. She launched the brand in 2011, with all her savings and Rs. 35 lakhs which she borrowed from her friends. Richa got her first client from Indore who was trying to buy materials from her worth of Rs. 7000. Gradually, Zivame claims growth of 300% yearly. Investors got impressed from dedication and hard work of Richa Kar and she received her first funding of $3Mn in May 2012. Then another funding of $6Mn in Dec 2013 and $40Mn in 2015. Today her company valuation is more than Rs. 681 Crores.
4) SABINA CHOPRA – Founder, Yatra.com
Sabina Chopra
Sabina Chopra another successful women entrepreneur women in India is the co-founder of famous travel portal Yatra.com. It is among the largest online travel related websites in India. Online travel commerce was just at its initial stages during this time and the start-up so grew to become the leading portal in this space. Before starting Yatra, she was the head of the India operations of eBookers, Europe’s leading online travel company. Besides this, she has also worked with airline companies such as Japan Airlines as well as in the business process outsourcing sector. With over a decade and a half of work experience, Sabina is in charge of operations and sales, aside from heading the start-up’s domestic hotel business. Sabina has also been honoured during the second annual Women Leaders in India Awards, 2010 and was declared the winner in the Travel & Tourism group. Yatra raises the largest venture debt in India with Rs 100cr from Inn oven Capital
Born and brought up in Patna, Bihar, Shradha Sharma is the founder of YourStory.com, India’s top media platform for entrepreneurs for promoting and reporting about start-ups and everything in around the entrepreneurial ecosystem. She has previously worked with the likes of The Times of India and CNBC TV18. During her time gathering work experience, she noticed that the young entrepreneurs had no platform to voice their side of things. Then one night on the job she started Your Story as a blog applying all the business practices she ever learnt from working with newspapers and TV channels. Thus Your Story was born to be the referential and go-to platform for all entrepreneurs and investors in India to read about themselves or and their colleagues.
6) SUCHI MUKHERJEE – Founder & CEO, Limeroad.com
Suchi Mukherjee
Suchi Mukherjee is the founder and CEO of Limeroad.com, a social commerce site for the urban woman. The Lime road site provides unconventional, very unique and interesting lifestyle products with numerous categories ranging from apparels to accessories, home and non-perishable food gathered from collected specific retailers who are mostly manufacturers of their products across India. This website has a unique concept of picking clothes from a magazine-like layout with the simplicity and convenience of an online retail portal. Her massively impressive work experience begins with five years of investment banking at Lehman Brothers, two years as Director and business development manager in the consumer division of Virgin Media, a year working at eBay where she learned the ropes of a consumer business and finally and to top it all off, before starting Lime road, Suchi successful women entrepreneur women in India was a part of the initial development of both Skype and Gumtree.
7)Ekta kapoor
Ekta Kapoor
Ekta Kapoor single handed founded Balaji Telefilms in 1994 and changed the face of Indian television. Her strong business personality and professionalism has made her the Queen Bee of the Indian soap opera scene. Today, she is counted among the top 10 women entrepreneurs in the country and her production house has several hit serials to its credit.
8) Indra Nooyi – CFO and President of PepsiCo
Indra Nooyi
She has been conferred with the prestigious Padma Bhushan for her business accomplishments and being an encouragement to India’s corporate leadership. Her strong business acumen has helped PepsiCo garner as much as $30 billion worth of important deals in the last few years. Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi is an Indian American business executive who served as the Chairwoman and Chief Executive Officer of PepsiCo, the second largest food and beverage business in the world by net revenue, for 12 years from 2006–2018. She has consistently ranked among the world’s 100 most powerful women and successful women entrepreneur women in India.
9) Upasana Taku – Mobikwik
Upasna Taku
Upasana Taku, along with Bipin Preet Singh, founded the semi-closed mobile wallet and online payment platform MobiKwik in 2009. But this is not her only venture. She also founded Zaakpay, another payment gateway. With MobiKwik, they launched the much-needed convenience of an online recharge platform that enabled users to recharge their phones from any location. MobiKwik was the first mobile wallet of India,
10) Anisha Singh – Founder of My dala
Anisha Singh
Almost anyone who shops online knows about MyDala. Among the largest online coupon and discount platforms in India, MyDala was founded in 2009 by Anisha Singh. And in just a few years, it has grown to handling around 2, 00,000 transactions everyday and targeting 400 million consumers in over 200 cities.
Speaking of the founder, Anisha Singh holds a masters degree in political communication and an MBA in information systems from American University. Prior to MyDala, she worked for the Clinton administration and raised funds for helping women entrepreneurs. Mydala.com is expanding and has stepped in the UAE market as well.
She is known for speaking her mind and is a great advocate of women rights and encourages women to fight their fears and do what they want to do. She has spoken at several national and global events on a range of topics — including entrepreneurship, women leadership, the start-up ecosystem in India and more.
I hope the above blog post will gave you the answer of who are the women entrepreneurs in India?
