The “Women In India’s Startup Ecosystem Report” (WISER) was released in October 2023. According to the report, women-led startups were said to have made significant strides over the past 5 years. Time travel back to 2017. India was said to be home to around 6000 startups. At that point in time, about 10% of these were spearheaded by female founders. Fast-forward to 2022. The Indian startup arena was said to have about 80,000 startups.
Women-led startups were said to have captured close to a 20% market share. In 2017, there were close to 15 unicorns in India. By 2022, there were said to be more than 100 unicorns in India. In 2017, VC funding for Indian startups was said to amount to about $6 billion. About 10% of funding was allocated to women-led startups. By 2022, total VC funding had surged to about $22 billion. The proportion directed toward women-led startups was said to have risen to about 20%. Does this mean there’s a brightening of prospects for female entrepreneurs?
There may be more progress of women in leadership positions within startups than in corporate enterprises. Startups were said to outshine traditional businesses in this aspect, with about 30% of women in managerial roles, compared to 20% of women in managerial roles at corporate enterprises. The disparity is said to widen further at the CXO level, where corporates have only 5% of women in leadership roles, while startups have close to 20%. And startups with a woman founder have 2.5x women in senior roles, compared to male-founder startups.
According to the report, initially, both men and women commence their careers with nearly equal representation in entry-level and managerial roles. However, as experience and tenure increase, a divergence is said to emerge that may favour men in securing more substantial footholds in senior roles. That being said, despite progress, more work remains to be done.
