Top 35+ Successful Women Entrepreneurs in India (2022)

Building a business is hard. However, every entrepreneur must start somewhere. There is no magic shortcut to building a good business. However, there is no bias in business either. It doesn’t matter when you start or where you start your journey. These Women Entrepreneurs in India prove just that.

If you are good, you will succeed. Though it can sometimes take years before you reach somewhere you are proud.

Oftentimes we look at our favourite Indian women entrepreneurs for inspiration and guidance.

Let’s take a look at the top women entrepreneurs in India below!

35+ Successful Women Entrepreneurs in India to Remind You That You Can Truly Start Anywhere

Also Read – Top 10 Coworking Space in Andheri West

1. Aditi Gupta: The Co-founder of Menstrupedia

Aditi Gupta is one of the Indian women entrepreneurs who is an author and the co-founder of the comic Menstrupedia. Tired of the myths and misinformation that surrounded Menstruation she took it upon herself to make a change. She and her husband co-founded the comic in 2012. In 2014 she was listed on the Forbes India 30 under 30 list for her work towards breaking the taboo. Today, Menstrupedia has been used in more than 6,000 schools and has benefited more than 10,00,000 girls in over 14 languages.

Aditi is a social woman entrepreneur in India working towards raising awareness about menstruation. She is a Ted Talk speaker and her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, CNBC and BBC

What is Menstrupedia?

Menstrupedia is a complete guide about periods that is taught in more than 30 schools across India. They also have several free resources available to help break the taboo.

Founding Year: 2012
Investors: The Morpheus
Address: Ahmedabad

2. Ashwani Asokana: Founder, Mad Street Den.

Ashwini co-founded a cloud-based platform Mad Street Den with her husband Anand Chandrasekaran. She has experience leading the mobile innovation team at Intel’s Interaction and Experience Research Lab in Silicon Valley. She has more than a decade’s worth of experience in Silicon Valley. This led to her interest in artificial intelligence.

Her experience of being a mother, a UI designer, a business development rep, an ethnographer, a program manager, a product manager and an artist helped her build her own path. Ashwini, a trained classical dancer has been featured in Fortune’s 40 under 40 lists. She has also been featured in several publications like Vogue, TechCrunch, Nikkei and more.

What is Mad Street Den (MAD)?

MAD is an Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision company. Their mission is to build models of generalizable intelligence to make it available for use to billions of people. Today, with a team of 175+ MAD is revolutionising the fashion industry with its Image recognition platform, Vue.ai launched in 2016.

Founding Year: 2013
Funding: $21.2M
investors: Global Brain Corporation, Sequoia Capital, Falcon Edge Capital, KDDI, Array Ventures
Address: Chennai

3. Basudha Shrivastav: ExpressEarth Digital Services

Basudha Shrivastav co-founded Expres Earth Digital services, a travel agency that takes care of all your travel needs, in 2015. Her co-found Himanshu Narula was also her schoolmate. Both of them were interested in starting a venture in travel. Which is why they quit their jobs and jumped into entrepreneurship and a marriage. Express Earth takes care of all your travel needs, from hotels, cars, flights, insurance and more for both B2B and B2C clients.

Basudha holds a graduation degree from Delhi University and has experience working in the IT sector. Her company has won several awards for being an innovative travel company including the ‘Most Innovative Travel Management Company’ by India Travel Award North.

“When I look back, I see that whenever one door closed, another one would open. I’m happy that certain things didn’t happen, else I would not have known what I know today,”

What is ExpressEarth?

4. Chitra Gurnani Daga: Co-founder, Thrillophilia

Chitra co-founded Thrillophilia with her husband Abhishek Daga. She is an alumni of the Indian School of Business. She decided to take the plunge without any prior experience in the business because of her passion for it. Her family wasn’t one in business and neither was her husband’s. Together, they decided to follow their dreams in an unconventional way. She was led by her passion for travelling and building other’s dreams. She, therefore, hired professionals with the same energy and passion for an adventure as she does.

What is Thrillophilia all about?

Thrillophilia is an Indian adventure travel company that curates local experiences for unique and offbeat travel stories. Today, with 3.5 million monthly users, it has become one of the largest online platforms for travel experiences. With an active website, blog and social media Thrillophilia has managed to build up a brand name for itself. They are one of the most well-known travel companies in India.

Founding Year: 2009
Funding: $260K
Investors: NuVentures, Kishore Ganji, Hyderabad Angels, Navlok Ventures
Address: Rajasthan 

5. Divya Gokulnath: Co-founder BYJU’S

Divya co-founded Byju’s an educational platform to help students learn better. She completed her engineering degree from RV College and was preparing for her GRE to continue her studies abroad. This is when she joined Byju Raveendran’s classes as his student.

Soon Divya became a teacher at Byju’s and then got married to him. When it was time to launch the platform Byjus chose her to do it with. Today, BYJU’s is the most valuable ed-tech company in the world.

Divya was featured as one of Linkedin’s top voices in 2019.

What is BYJU’s?

BYJU’s is the world’s most valuable ed-tech startup. It offers learning through an app and website for competitive exams like JEE, CAT, NEET and IAS and for students in classes 1-12.

It launched its flagship product, the BYJU’S – The Learning App, for classes 4-12 in 2015.
Today, the app has over 42 million registered students and 3 million annual paid subscriptions. An average of 71 minutes is spent by a student on the app every day. The app is created with the vision to make learning fun through visual lessons.

BYJU’S also has an early learning application for students of class 1-3.

The company is backed by several prominent investors like Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Sofina, Verlinvest, IFC, Aarin Capital, TimesInternet, Lightspeed Ventures, Tiger Global, General Atlantic, Tencent, Sequoia Capital, Owl Ventures, Naspers, CPPIB, and Qatar Investment Authority. BYJU’S is also an official sponsor of the Indian Cricket Team.

“There were two things Byju made people understand: nothing is as complicated as you think it is, and you are much better than you think you are. This confidence brought the eight of us closer and passionate about one goal and that’s also the reason why the bunch of us who got together right, in the beginning, are still at Byju’s tied to this passion for education”

 Divya Gokulnath net worth- 1800 crore.

Founding Year: 2011
Funding: $ 1.5 B
investors: Bond, Tiger Global Management, General Atlantic, Owl Ventures, Qatar Investment Authority
Address: Delhi, Bangalore

6. Dr Florida Tilton: Founder of Biozone Research Technologies

She has been awarded the All India Women Entrepreneur Award 2018 by Delhi Management Association. Post Graduate honours degree in Plant Biology and completed her Masters of Philosophy in Plant Genetics from the University of Madras Manisha Raisinghani. She is one of the women entrepreneurs in India who has taken the path of science to build her entrepreneurial empire. Dr Florida Tilton started it when two students approached her for coaching after she quit her job at Hindustan College. She one of the most successful women in India in her field.

Under her, Biozone aims to deliver sustainable long term value for biotechnologists across the globe.

Quote “Staying positive in distress and always” “Take risks in your life, if you win, you lead, if you fail, you can guide!”

What is Biozone?

Biozone does research, analytical, academic and publishing services and creates herbal products. It is a research and development organisation which has been recognized by  DSIR (Ministry of Science and Technology, Govt. of India). Their services include customised research in fields of Molecular Biology, Plant Tissue Culture & Herbal research, Animal Cell Culture, Bioinformatics, Microbiology and Analytical services. Currently, their revenue is more than $4 Million.

Founding Year: 2008
Address: Chennai

7. Falguni Nayar: The Founder of Nykaa

Falguni is the founder of Nykaa.com and is popularly known for her entrepreneur journey in India. Equipped with 25 years of experience and grandly successful career in financial services, she took the leap to launch Nykaa.com. Today, Falguni Nayar, an IIM Ahmedabad graduate has built an empire of beauty and skin-care retailing. Her biggest achievement in her early days was being able to build a brand of Nykaa. Today, it truly is a go-to platform for beauty.

She was titled the “Most powerful business “by Business Today and received the “Woman Ahead” award at the Economic Times. Nykaa has recently entered the unicorn club with its fresh Rs 100 crore ($13 million) funding from existing backer Steadview Capital. She definitely is one of the most famous female entrepreneurs in India that you should know about.

According to CNBCTV18, her net worth is Rs 1,300 crore.

“When we started, e-commerce was not a good word. I wanted my assumptions to be proven before I raised money. I had friends who didn’t believe that beauty could be bought without trying. People advised us to do electronics and not beauty. They told us to be marketplace- and not inventory-led. We chose inventory-led. Others advised that the customer experience should be short—they should be able to check out quickly. Whereas we actually put a lot of content—on the homepage, listing pages, tip tiles. We believed if we educated the customer, they would buy more. So, we broke a lot of rules. For us, there was no ‘no’. We didn’t listen to anybody.”

Quote “Think Big, start small”

What Is Nykaa All About?

Valued at an estimate of $1.2 billion Nykaa is a beauty and wellness e-commerce, premier platform for women. They are known for authentic products and trustworthy brand names. They boast about their retail partnerships with top-notch personal care corporations like Unilever, P&G, L’Oreal, Beiersdorf, Johnson & Johnson.

Nykaa has also hosted the ‘Nykaa Femina Beauty Awards’ in partnership with women’s lifestyle magazine Femina (India) since 2015. Recently, they’ve been expanding to newer market segments with Nykaa men, fashion and more.

This recent investment values the retail platform at an estimated $1.2 billion.

Founding Year: 2008
Funding: $ 145M
Address: Mumbai

8. Farah Nathani Menzies: Co-Founder of The Mumum Co.

Farah Nathani Menzies co-found -The Mumum Co. with her partner Shreya Lamba. This woman-led startup focused on helping people get the right nutrition and build a healthier life.

Farah has an MBA from the Harvard Business School and is an undergraduate from The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and College of Arts & Sciences.

“The “very, very real” nature of Mumum Co products comes from our conscious effort to feed our kids with 100% natural and nourishing foods to help their little bodies grow better and faster – with no preservatives or additives”

Founding Year: 2017
Funding: $ 34M
Investors: Siddharth Parekh, Nisaba Godrej, Sumeet Nindrajog
Address: Mumbai

9. Isha Choudhry: Co-Founder ZoloStays

Isha Choudhry is a co-founder and the Head of Human Resource Department at Zolo. She graduated from St. Xavier’s college. ZoloStay was founded in Bengaluru in 2015. The main aim of the startup was to help students find accommodation with wholesome food.

What is ZoloStays?

Zolo Stay helps students find accommodation with food. Today, Zoho Stays has carved its place in the co-living space in India. It has over 600 employees across five cities. Just recently Zolo Stays has raised a funding of $56 million in Series C round from investors like Investcorp, Nexus Venture Partners and more. The total funding raised by the organisation today stands at $90 million. The company announced they will use this series of funding to strengthen their technology, lock in more inventory and strengthen their AI platforms.

“In our sector, the more options we explore in a city, the more amenities we can provide like – bike on rents, cars on rent, gym memberships, etc.”

Founding Year: 2015
Funding: $ 98M
Investors: Trifecta Capital Advisors, Mirae Asset Global Investments, Nexus Venture Partners, IDFC Private Equity
Address: Bengaluru

10. Jaya Jha: Founder: InstaScribe & Pothi

An IIT graduate from Kanpur and a PGDM holder in Marketing and Strategy, Jaya has become a successful women entrepreneurs in India. She founded her two startups – InstaScribe and Pothi.com. Both of these platforms enable people to create their own Ebooks or publish with them.

Jaya is one of the women entrepreneurs in India that also has experience working as an assistant product manager with Google and as an assistant manager at IBM.

Founding Year: 2008
Address: Bengaluru

11. Khushboo Jain: Co-Founder and COO, ImpactGuru.com

Khushboo Jain co-founded Impact guru and leapt into the entrepreneurial life with a mission to help India’s crowdfunding startup scenario. She works as the COO of the company and leads the marketing arm, communication and design teams. Khushboo has a lot of educational experience.

She studied Business Management from Sydenham College, Mumbai, then earned an MBA in Marketing from Welingkar Institute of Management Development & Research. She has even studied fashion marketing at the London College of fashion and at Parsons.

Recently, Khushboo has also been recognised in several lists and occasions. She featured in the fortune 40 under 40 lists in India and was amongst the Top 15 winning women entrepreneurs at 2019 Women Transforming India Awards NITI Aayog & United Nations.

Quote“Our mission is to help India’s people find crowdfunding solutions for patients struggling to fund critical illnesses.”

What is ImpactGuru?

Impact Guru is a crowd-funding platform that uses tech for good. It provides the complete crowdfunding solution to empower individuals, NGOs and social serial enterprises. It was launched by Maneka Gandhi, the Union Cabinet minister for Women and child department in 2015. Today, Impact Guru has raised over ₹150 crores (US$21 million) for NGOs and social enterprises in various countries.

The company itself is funded by a Singapore-based venture capital firm RB Investments, and Fundnel, a Southeast Asia based private investment platform with over ₹3.3 crores (US$460,000) secured to them.

They’ve also done a project with a United Nations entity UN women. Together, they ran an initiative by the Singapore Committee for UN Women in partnership with Bain & Company and MasterCard in 2016.

Net Worth- About 950 crore crowdfunded until now.

Founding Year: 2014
Funding: $ 4.5M
Investors: Apollo Hospitals Enterprise, Shorooq Partners, Venture Catalysts, RB Investments Pte. Ltd.
Address: Mumbai

12. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw: The founder of Biocon Limited

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is a billionaire women entrepreneur in India. She is the chairperson and managing director of Biocon Limited, a biotechnology company based in Bangalore, India and the former chairperson of Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. Named among TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, she is recognized as a global thought leader for Biotechnology. Under her stewardship.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has been named EY World Entrepreneur of the Year 2020, becoming the third Indian and the second woman worldwide to win this recognition. She recounts her entrepreneurial struggles.

“Be 100% committed to your career, don’t just give it a shot”

What is Biocon?

Biocon Limited is an Indian biopharmaceutical company based in Bangalore, India. The Company manufactures generic active pharmaceutical ingredients that are sold in over 120 countries across the globe, including the developed markets of the United States and Europe.

Biocon has evolved since its inception in 1978 from an industrial enzymes company to a fully-integrated, innovation-led, emerging global biopharmaceutical enterprise committed to reducing therapy costs of chronic conditions like diabetes, cancer and autoimmune diseases.

Started in 1978 with just Rs 10,000 in hand Biocon today has become India’s largest biotechnology company. They focus on delivering affordable innovation and reducing costs of therapy diseases.

Revenue – ₹4,079 crores (US$570 million) (2016–17)

Founding Year: 1978
Investors: Fusion Microfinance, Glympse Bio
Address: Bangalore

13. Malini Agarwal: Founder and Creative Director of Miss Malini

Miss Malini Agarwal is the founder and the creative director of her own company – Miss Malini. She is one of the women entrepreneurs in India who truly started on the couch and has taken the path of being a host, a digital influencer, a best-selling author and then an entrepreneur. As her fame kept growing she kept on reaching new avenues.

She is counted as one of India’s most influential women. She has also been featured in lists such as GQ’s 50 Most Influential Young Indians and Fortune India’s 40 Under 40.

Today her company has established revenues and has become an entertainment establishment which covers lifestyle articles, celebrity news, tips and tricks and much more!

Miss Malini’s net worth- $1 million- $5 million in 2019.

What is Miss Malini Entertainment?

MissMalini has become a go-to platform for news about Bollywood, Fashion and Lifestyle. Today, it reaches over 40 million people each month and has several digital properties for different niches.

The platform receives 3-4 million unique visitors every month and even caters to an international audience from the US, Canada, Australia, the UK and South Africa.

The Miss Malini Entertainment platform is predominately run by women and two-thirds of their audience is women. The platform has secured a funding of Rs 10.4 crore from Orios Venture Partners and New Enterprise Associates.

Founding Year: 2011
Funding: $ 104M
Investors: New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Orios Venture Partners, Rajan Anandan
Address: Gurugram, Mumbai

14. Meghna Agarwal: Co-Founder- IndiQube

Packed with over 14 years of experience in HR, consulting, commercial real estate and manufacturing Meghna is a co-founder of IndiQube. She holds an MBA in Finance from IMT and a company secretary degree.

She stumbled upon the idea when she had to tell entrepreneurs to vacate the space that they were sub-leasing with them. They were upset about this because over there they got to enjoy benefits like gym, food, transport and IT.

This led to her and her co-founder to build a flexible workspace with options of such benefits without needing to rent the whole space.

 What is IndiQube?

IndiQube is a chain of coworking spaces that provide entrepreneurs with the right environment to work in without worrying about everyday office hassles. IndiQube has carved out its niche by offering flexible work options and facilities. In 2018, IndiQube secured funding of $ 15 million from WestBridge Capital in 2018.

With the growing need for flexible workspaces, IndiQube seems to be on the right path.

“During our initial days of entrepreneurship, we realised that real estate was rigid, non-agile, and involved huge Capex. Either we had tech parks on one side or residential apartments on the other side. A dedicated product for MSMEs, startups, and growing companies was totally missing”

Networth of IndiQube- $3.3 million.

Founding Year: 2015
Funding: $ 15M
Investors: Ashish Gupta, WestBridge Capital
Address: Bengaluru

15. Mehak Sagar: Co-Founder of Wed Me Good

Mehak Sagar co-founded Wed Me Good in 2014 along with her husband Anand Shahani. Today, the portal has become a go-to platform for Indian brides and grooms. Wed me good is a curated portal for everything related to weddings. They personally recommend services and products and take pride in their curation.

She has a masters in economics. Things changed when her blog Peaches and Blushes took off which led to her building a platform for weddings. She says that the heart that they put into things is truly what sets them apart.

Quotes“Superwomen are just women who accept and love themselves and understand that it takes sacrifices to achieve whatever goals you have set for yourself in life.”

What is Wed Me Good?

Wed Me Good is the largest wedding portal in India. It helps you discover, book and review vendors. Currently, they earn revenues through their WMG featured vendors, however, in the future will explore monetisation through advertising and wedding planning.

The platform has everything from Mehandi artists to candid photographers with reviews and ratings. This helps a family find the best fit for them.

They have secured a funding of Rs 2.7 crore in its seed funding round led by Hemant Kanakia and Alok Mittal of Indian Angel Network (IAN).

Founding Year: 2014
Funding: $ 3M
Investors: Orchid Asia Group Management, Indian Angel Network, Alok Mittal, Hemant Kanakia
Address: Gurgaon

16. Naiyya Saggi: Founder Babychakra

Naiyya is one of the women entrepreneurs who were able to make her passion her startup. She has had an undeniable impact on the maternity industry of India. She is the CEO and the founder of BabyChakra – a popular parenting app in India. Her passion for healthcare and her experience in Business school helped her build this business. Naiyya is a Harvard Business School graduate and has received the BALLB (Hons.) from National Law School, India

Naiyya Saggi is the CEO and Founder of BabyChakra, a popular parenting app in India. She is a graduate of the Harvard Business School, where she was a Fulbright and J.N. Tata scholar.

She also has experience being a management consultant at McKinsey & Company and at the Bridgespan group (Boston).

What is BabyChakra?

BabyChakra is a parenting and childcare application. They list several important products and services that can be availed through the BabyChakra app. Naiyya said that her aim with the platform is to create a space that allows mothers to help mothers. Their income is primarily made through two sources. Transactions and commissions.

BabyChakra has partnered with popular brands like Johnson and Johnson, Sanofi, Cipla and Abbott.

In 2018, BabyChakra raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Equanimity Ventures Fund, Facebook director Anand Chandrasekaran, Maninder Gulati; and Gideon Marks.

It is safe to say that BabyChakra is on the correct path to building a go-to platform for new parents.

.

Founding Year: 2015
Funding: $ 650K
Investors: Artha India Ventures, Mandar Vaidya, Rajesh Sehgal, Maninder Gulati, Eitan Toledo
Address: Mumbai

17. Neha Motwani: Co-Founder & CEO- Fitternity

Neha Motwani is one of the top women entrepreneurs in India who built a fitness community as big as she has. She was always passionate about fitness and healthcare and therefore, built a network of an enormous fitness community. Neha wanted to get fit but wasn’t sure where she should start. This gave birth to the idea of building a platform which makes it easy to find and locate gyms.

Neha Motwani holds an MBA and has experience of working as a risk advisory analyst at Axis risk consultancy and as a talent and organisation consultant at Aon Hewitt

Quotes “We imbibe the model of ‘Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough!”

Neha Motwani’s net worth- 112 crores

What is Fitternity?

Fitternity is a Mumbai-based fitness startup that allows its users to choose from several fitness activities across various cities through a single membership. This unique offering has truly struck a chord with its audience and has helped them establish their name in the market.

The startup started to make fitness more accessible to an Indian consumer. The platform helps people who are constantly travelling or face the challenge of shifting to continue their gym memberships.

Fitternity has secured a $4 million funding in 2019, from sixth sense ventures.

Founding Year: 2016
Funding: $ 1M
Investors: Techstars, Swastika
Address: Mumbai

18. Priyanshi Choubey:  Co-founder of InstaCar

Priyanshi Choubeya is the co-founder of InstaCar. InstaCar makes it simpler to get car rentals. InstaCar is a marketplace for outstation taxis and cars. Priyanshi studied management from the Indian Institute in India and has experience working as a business analyst at Aspricot. She has been awarded prestigious awards like the ‘Women Entrepreneur of the Year’ in Travel & Hospitality by SheSparks 2018.

What is Insta Car?

InstaCar is a Taxi rental platform. It allows its users to hail intercity taxi reservations. The brand focuses on reliability, user safety and the quality of the car. The startup also provides pick up and drop services for children. The startup claims to have 30k subscribers on their platform.

Founding Year: 2016
Funding: $ 1M
Investors: Techstars, Swastika
Address: Mumbai

19. Radhika Ghai Aggarwal: Co-Founder & CMO, Shopclues.com

Radhika Ghai started Shopclues after a decade’s worth of experience in industries like retail, eCommerce, fashion and lifestyle, advertising and public relations. This tech-driven entrepreneur has done an MBA from Washington University. She is definitely a noteworthy woman entrepreneur in India. She was the first Indian woman to join the Unicorn club.

Radhika also holds a postgraduate degree in Advertising and Public Relations. Radhika has worked with Nordstrom on strategy planning and with Goldman Sachs in its Wealth Management group in New York and Menlo Park, US. She started Shopclues in Silicon Valley in 2011 with her co-founders Sanjay Sethi and Sandeep Aggarwal.

What is Shopclues?

Currently, Shopclues is India’s first and largest fully managed marketplace with more than 7 million visitors every month. It is currently in nine thousand cities, towns and villages in India. Shopclues is known to provide utility items for the kitchen, home, fashion and electronics. Though the company has seen controversies regarding fake products, it is still well-loved and a great market place for several eCommerce brands.

Founding Year: 2011
Funding: $ 279M
Investors: CluesNetwork, Unilazer Ventures, Matrix Partners India, Nexus Venture Partners, InnoVen Capital.
Address: Gurgaon

20. Richa kar: Co-founder & Ex-CEO, Zivame

Richa Kar is the co-founder and the CEO of Zivame, an online lingerie store. She first conceptualized the idea while studying the lingerie retail market. She found that women felt uncomfortable shopping for lingerie in physical outlet stores. Moreover, most cities except the top 10 cities didn’t even have good lingerie brands. Her desire to make the entire experience of buying lingerie easier led to the birth of Zivame.

Richa has rich experience in branding, retailing and operations which truly helped her build her brand better.

Richa is one of the women entrepreneurs in India who has truly revolutionised the Lingerie market in India.

What is Zivame?

As mentioned, Zivame is an online lingerie store. It has two thousand plus styles to choose from. Zivame started as a marketplace to be a selection for lingerie wear, however, they started building their own lingerie wear to earn bigger margins.

Zivame doesn’t just make the lingerie buying process easier but also works on educating women about their sizes, styles and more. It has 2.5 million+ visitors every month.

Today, Zivame is valued at $100 million and is leading the market place. It also reported a revenue of Rs. 140 crore in FY19. Today Zivame is led by Amisha Jain.

Founding Year: 2011
Funding: $ 69M
Investors: Avendus Capital, Trifecta Capital Advisors, The Allana Group, Zodius Capital, Khazanah Nasional
Address: Bangalore

21. Richa Singh: Co-founder YourDOST

Richa Singh is the co-founder of the mental health online portal YourDOST. She graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology. During her graduation, she experienced the suicide of a fellow IIT student who was worried about their grades. Therefore, she built a platform that hosts vetted for and affordable counsellors, for free.

She is a social entrepreneur who is truly bringing change into several people’s lives.

Quote“When I was at IIT Guwahati, my hostel mate committed suicide. She was worried about her placements. This could have been avoided if we knew what she was going through. Even though we had counsellors and psychologists in the campus hardly any student was seeking their support or help,”

What is YourDOST?

YourDOST is a platform that allows people to seek help and share their problems through an online interface. It allows its user to be completely anonymous throughout the platform. Though finding professional help is a free voice and video calls are charged Rs 400 per and Rs 600 respectively for a 45-minute session.

Till today, they’ve had more than 70,000 users since its inception in 2014. Today, the platform is funded by angel funds through their pre-Series A round, led by SAIF Partners.

Founding Year: 2013
Funding: $ 1.6M
Investors: Phanindra Sama, Paula Ravindra Mariwala, Subba Rao Telidevara, SAIF Partners.
Address: Bangalore

22. Ritu Kumar: The Fashion designer

She is an extremely popular fashion designer who runs her boutique called ‘Ri’ along with label ‘Ritu Kumar’ which is handled by her son. Ritu is the foremost fashion designer in India. She is also the recipient of the Padma Shri award, Achievement Award in 2012 at L’oreal Paris Femina Women’s Awards and the Indira Gandhi Priyadarshini award for her role in the development of the fashion industry.

She started her career with two small tables and hand-block printing techniques. Her use of traditional designs and contemporary implementations have truly set her apart in the country’s fashion world. Today, she is a respectable fashion designer with several achievements under her belt.

She is usually credited for her online fashion business however, she has also been influential in the India boutique culture. Ritu is a woman entrepreneur in India that has truly revolutionised the fashion industry.

Her work has been worn by top Bollywood actresses and several international celebrities.

Quotes“When women wear denim it (the derriere) must look elegant. It’s the second thing every woman looks at in the mirror, but it’s the first thing she cares about. She does that half twirl, her back arched and her head craned around. If the jeans are right, the experience is transforming, like putting on a magic cloak.”

What is Label Ritu Kumar ?

Ritu started her brand with bridal and fashion wear. With her designs focusing on natural fabric and traditional printing and weaving methods.

Ritu launched her company’s sub-brand called Label in 2002 with her son Amrish Kumar. Together they targeted foreign markets and local fashion markets with their traditional yet contemporary fashion oriented outfits. It is a brand that is created to target a younger audience.

The company’s annual turnover is estimated at around $1 Million – $5 Million.

Founding Year: 1969
Funding: $ 16M
Investors: Everstone
Address: Gurgaon

23. Sairee Chahal: Founder, SHEROES.in

Sairee is one of the serial businesswomen in India. She was a co-founder of Fleximoms and Newslink. Furthermore, she is the founder of Sheroes.in. She is also a TED speaker and was voted the most powerful women in Indian Business in 2012.

She has been awarded the Devi award, Femina Achievers award, Cartier Award, editor’s choice for L’Oreal Femina Women’s Award, Business Today and Most Powerful Women in Indian Business. In 2018, she was ranked 53 on Onalytica’s “Future of Work Top 100 Influencers” list.

“I never sought permission. If it felt right, I just went ahead and did it.”

What is Sheroes.in?

Sheroes is a woman’s only platform for offering support, resources, opportunities and interactions. Furthermore, SHEROES hosts the #SHEROESSummit, a flagship event and #theshift Series to help change the gender narrative and the organise community meets across the country.

They majorly earn through B2B businesses paying them to hire or market on their platform. The platform predominantly focuses on allowing women to talk and learn from each other about various topics.

Their core philosophy is to help women navigate career stages and find work that fits their life.

Founding Year: 2013
Funding: $ 2.6M
Investors: HR Fund, Quintillion media, Lumis Partners, Leo Capital Holdings, Lumis Partners
Address: Delhi

24. Sanna Vohra: Founder & CEO of The Wedding Brigade

Sanna Vohra is the founder and the CEO of The Wedding Brigade. A one-stop-shop to discover and shop for everything related to weddings. Sanna completed her graduation from the Brown University and has even been featured on the Forbes list 30 under 30. She is one of the female entrepreneurs in India that discovered her passion for building startups when she co-founded the largest student-run business during her graduation.

She started with a view of removing the hassles that grooms and brides face while planning for a big fat Indian wedding. This led to the birth of The Wedding Brigade.

What is the Wedding Brigade?

 Wedding Brigade is a portal which helps you throughout your wedding planning. You can discover wedding content on their platform, buy from them and can even use their service to book verified vendors and services.

Until till today, Wedding Brigade has raised a total of $2.6 million. In their latest round of funding, they’ve raised over $1 million (₹6.9 crores) of funding led by Japan-based AET fund and Blume Ventures.

Has raised over $1 million (₹6.9 crores) in a Pre-Series A extension round of funding led by Japan-based AET fund and Blume Ventures.

In the article on YourStory Sanna Vohra wrote:

“It is too easy to get caught up in dousing daily fires instead of really thinking through a new product or strategy that you are supposed to launch in a few months’ time. In the face of these daily fires, putting aside time to dedicate to long-term projects will always seem less important. However, this can then become a pattern and months later, you’ll find yourself scrambling to launch/finish something you initially wanted to put a lot more thought into. “

Founding year: 2016
Funding: $ 2.6M
Investors: AET Fund, Blume Ventures, Keiretsu Forum, Czar Capital, Mountain Pine Capital
Address: Mumbai

25. Sayli Karanjkar: Co-Founders Of PaySense

Sayli Karanjar faced the problem of not being able to get any credit instruments as she was new to credit (NTC). However, she understood that credit was an important enabler which truly was difficult to access. She, therefore, joined hands with her co-founder Prashanth Ranganathan in early 2015 and started this venture.

Sayli completed her undergraduate from the National University of Singapore and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management. She also has experience working in Sun Microsystems and AT&T.

What is Paysense?

Paysense solves the simple problem of credit in India. It works on making it easier, more convenient and transparent.

PaySense EMI is the personalised line of credit which is similar to a personal loan. It can be used online or offline to make instant purchases up to Rs 5 lakh.

Paysense secured a funding of $18 million in their series B funding round. Existing investors Jungle Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners also participated in the round. In its Series A round, PaySensesecured its Series A round of $5.3 million from Jungle Ventures.

Guest“Not having access to finance is one of the big things that bring a family from the middle class to poverty or close. It just takes one major roadblock such as a medical incident or major home breakage or unplanned educational or small business bets to damage an entire family’s future”

Net-Worth of PaySense- 1320 Crore

Founding Year: 2015
Funding: $ 25.6M
Investors: rocketship.VC, Jungle Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, PayU
Address: Mumbai

26. Shahnaz Hussian: CEO of Shahnaz Herbals

Shahnaz got her education in La Martiniere Lucknow and was married while she was a teenager. This led to her becoming a mother extremely early in life.

Today she is known as the “Queen of Herbal Beauty Care” and has been awarded Padma Shri by the Government of India in 2006. She has become one of the most prominent businesswomen in India and runs her business in over 138 countries.

She specialized in cosmetology and trichology while managing the duties of being a wife, a mother and a daughter-in-law. In 1977, she started a salon in the veranda of her house in Delhi, with an investment of 37,000 from her father. This is when she thought of starting a herbal clinic.

She founded her company in 1977 and worked on building ayurvedic herbal cosmetics.

Today, she has been awarded as a national Entrepreneur India Award 2015 for Outstanding Ayurvedic Innovations from Entrepreneur Media India, FICCI, NEN and NASSCOM, National “Woman Super Achiever” Award in Mumbai, sponsored by Femina and many more.

Founding Year: 1970
Address: Delhi

27. Shilpa Bhatia: Founder of Clothing Rental and Terra Inde

Shilpa Bhatia founded the company Clothing Rental in 2005, to solve the problem of buying expensive clothes for one time occasions. Oftentimes the need for fancy wear is temporary, post the occasion it is usually left to catch dust in the closet.

Shilpa Bhatia holds degrees in sociology, fashion design, and fashion marketing from SNDT, IED Milan, and Parsons New York. Furthermore, she has over 15 years of experience as a stylist, and public relations, brand building, and business development specialist. She is also the founder of Terra Inde, a New York-based platform for traditional Indian wear for international audiences.

What is a clothing rental?

Clothing Rental is a renting platform, based in Mumbai, that helps people rent designer wear at a fraction of the cost. It even has an e-commerce portal to order the clothes and has a brick and mortar store in Mumbai.

They cater to several influencers and celebrities for quick fashion fixes. Now, they’ve expanded their delivery networks to truly deliver fashion pan India. Started in 2015, this luxe fashion rental brand is one of the strongest in India’s clothing rental market.

Clothing Rental claims to have achieved 100 percent year-on-year growth since the past four years in 2019.

Founding Year: 1970
Address: Mumbai

28. Shivani Poddar:  Co-founder FabAlley and Indya

Shivani Poddar is a serial entrepreneur with Tanvi Malik. She is a graduate from the Hindu college and has done an MBA from Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi. Shivani Poddar was consistently the class topper in her graduation and one of the top 5 per cent students in her MBA.

She has won several national awards and was a part of the Hindustan Unilever Program. Shivani also has experience working at Avendus Capital as a part of the Investment Banking team. At FabAlley she is responsible for sourcing products and the manufacturing process.

Together, both these women have four brands – apart from FabAlley and Indya, they also have Zyra and a new few months old fashion jewellery brands.

What is FabAlley?

FabAley is a fashion-forward brand which designs all their clothing range in-house. They offer millennial women with great style that fits their body shapes at an affordable price.

FabAlley has become an omnichannel shop as now they are available online as well as offline. Today, they are one of the largest online-led fashion brands in India and are only going to see further growth in the company.

Net Worth of FabAlley- 125 crores in net sales

Founding Year: 2012
Funding: $ 15.2M
Investors: India Quotient, Ashwin Shah, Pratima Singh, Star Global Resources, Abhishek Dalmia
Address: Noida

29. Shradha Sharma: Founder & CEO, YourStory Media Pvt.Ltd

Shraddha Sharma is the founder of YourStory.com, a leading media platform for entrepreneurs for promotion and reporting about their startups. Born and brought up in Patna, Bihar, Shradha Sharma is the founder of YourStory.com. She started with the aim to share untold startup stories in India. From the first taste of success to the dark reflective days Shradha wanted to build a platform to share those stories.

Shradha has been an Assistant Vice President at CNBC TV18 and a brand adviser at The Times of India. She also holds a masters degree in History from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi and MBA from MICA.

Quotes“When you know you have to fend for yourself every step of the way, it gives you a different kind of grit and tenacity”

What is Your Story?

Your story is the top media platform for entrepreneurs, startups and businesses to report about updates and promote their businesses. The platform reaches over 10 million engaged readers every month. It has also been invested in by Ratan Tata.

It has been India’s most defining entrepreneurial platform. Also shows an insight into a company through storytelling. They also host several events like YS Meetups, TechSparks, MobileSparks and SheSparks which have had an impact on over 1.7 million people.

Founding Year: 2008
Funding: $ 13M
Investors: 3one4 Capital, Kalaari Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, UC-RNT Fund, Ratan Tata
Address: Bangalore

30. Shreya Lamba: Co-Founder -The Mumum Co.

Shreya co-founded the Mumum Co with Farah. She holds an undergraduate and a postgraduate degree from LSE. She also has experience working at A.T. Kearney office in New Delhi. While on her pregnancy break Shreya wanted her child to have healthy, real and yet, fun food. She along with her co-founder realised that parents have a very limited amount of options to choose from. This led to the creation of The Mumum Co.

She is also the co-founder of a mommy network with Kiran Amlani and Tejal Bajla. A network that is still alive and gives Shreya a great deal of personal satisfaction.

What is The Mumum Co.?

Mumum Co. is a brand that provides 100% natural and wholesome recipes in snackable sizes for children. It works on making food more fun while remaining healthy. The name of the brand come from the word that children use for food.

The Mumum Co. brand has raised angel funds worth Rs 3.4 crore. The products are currently available in over 100 stores in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Pune.

Mumum Co net worth- 3.4 crore approx.

Founding Year: 2017
Funding: $ 34M
Investors: Siddharth Parekh, Nisaba Godrej, Sumeet Nindrajog
Address: Mumbai

31. Shubhra Chadda: Co-founder, Chumbak

Shubhra co-founded Chumbak with Vivek Prabhakar, an online store for funky accessories and jewellery with an Indian touch. She is one of the women entrepreneurs in India who has truly made things so much more beautiful with a design-led brand.

The idea started when they both noticed that most countries have several quirky souvenirs to offer, however India with all its culture and quirkiness doesn’t. Shubhra managed to balance her two-year-old daughter and the growth stages of this new company. Today, the brand has over 120 retail stores all across the country and has given better souvenir choices to not just tourists but to Indians as well.

What is Chumbak?

Chumbak is a fashion-led lifestyle brand. Today, they’ve expanded into several products from fashion to face masks. They’ve grown to be known from their fun, quirky mix of trends. Their focus on Indian heritage also shows the roots and helps them stand out.  They started with a seed funding on Rs 40 lakhs and have grown.

In 2015 the company saw 300 per cent year on year growth. They started through already present distribution stores like Shoppers Stop and soon grew to start their first brick and mortar store in Bangalore.

Chumbak’s revenue in the financial year 2018-19 was Rs 40 crore. Fashion contributed to around 60 per cent to the company’s overall revenues

Founding Year: 2009
Funding : $ 27M
Investors: seed fund.in, Matrix Partners India, Gaja Capital, BlackSoil
Address: Bangalore

32. Suchi Mukherjee: Founder & CEO of Limeroad

Suchi Mukherjee is a woman entrepreneur in India who started an online clothing and lifestyle accessories marketplace named Limeroad. The company is well known for its stylish fashion for men and women. She always aspired to build a business that relies on simple and yet powerful products.

She has a master’s degree in Finance from The Economic school in London. Equipped with nearly 18 years of experience in the top management of leading consumer technology businesses, Suchi Mukherjee explored the entrepreneurship path while she was on maternity leave. Today, she has been awarded several awards. One of them being the coolest Start-up of the year by Business Today, Infocom woman of the year- Digital Business, and Unicorn Start-up Award by NDTV.

Furthermore, she is the only Indian to receive the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust Scholarship for studying Economics at Cambridge University in 1994.

“Be hungry to build something bold and take the risks they inevitably come with. There will be downs, but if you follow your heart there will be tremendous highs too! But you need to have the drive to stick it out.”

What is Limeroad?

Limeroad is an eCommerce platform for men and women’s fashion. It focuses on user-generated content and engagement to help their audience be completely engrossed with the product. It targets women and works on making online shopping more fun.

However, today it has grown to cater to men’s fashion along with children’s fashion too. It allows you to make a scrapbook and create your own style.

During the recent pandemic, Limeroad has taken steps to help small to medium business owners through their ‘Financial clinic’ for sellers. It works on providing solutions to several sellers on various issues.

Today, Limeroad has raised $30 million in their series C funding round and things are only looking up for them.

Founding Year: 2012
Funding: $ 50M
Investors: Tiger Global Management, Lightspeed India Partners, Matrix Partners India, Lightspeed Venture Partners
Address: Gurgaon

33. Suchita Salwan: Founder and CEO of Little Black Book

Suchita Salwan founded the Little black book or popularly known as LBB because she was tired of Delhi being called a boring city. It all started on Tumblr where she’d share her recent discoveries. Today, the application has over 1 million daily users and is a large online directory of local businesses.

Suchita has a BA Hons in Economics from the Hindu college. She has experience as a creative assistant with Wizcraft International Entertainment Pvt. Ltd.

Quotes“You might hire the brightest bulb but they might turn out to be a tube light if they are not inspired by the same stream of thought that you as a company are inspired by”

What is the Little Black Book?

Little Black Book today is an online platform to find local brands and businesses that are used by 25 million+ people. It is a discovery lead e-commerce platform for retailers. It focuses on helping its customers discover local brands. The Little Black Book includes lifestyle, food, travel and other things.

LBB has secured a funding of $7 million in a Series A funding that was led by Inventus India Ventures, Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG), Blume Ventures, IAN, Rajan Anandan, Sachin Bhatia. She also has experience as a marketing executive with BBC Entertainment in India.

Founding Year: 2012
Funding: $ 8.3M
Investors: Alteria Capital, AET Fund, Blume Ventures, IAN Fund, Inventus Capital
Address: New Delhi

34. Tanvi Malik:  Co-founder FabAlley and Indya

Tanvi Malik entered the fashion eCommerce business in India with ventures like FabAlley and India. She did this with her childhood friend Shivani Poddar. Her fashion-forward western wear brand has truly taken people by storm. She started it with the aim to make fashion trends affordable in India.

Tanvi is an economics graduate from Delhi’s Lady Shri Ram College and also holds an MBA in Brand Management from MICA Ahmedabad. She worked at Titan to do branding for high-end designer watches before she quit her job to start her dream project. The brand focuses on inclusivity, feminism and creates clothes that suit the Indian aesthetics and body types. Furthermore,

Quotes“Your mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive.”

Founding Year: 2012
Funding: $ 15.2M
Investors: India Quotient, Ashwin Shah, Pratima Singh, Star Global Resources, Abhishek Dalmia
Address: Noida

35. Upasana Taku: Co-Founder of Mobikwik

Upasana Taku is the co-founder of Mobikwik with her husband, Bipin Preet Singh. Mobikwik is a virtual wallet that is tied to a huge network of companies and services. It allows people to recharge and pay virtually at registered places through their app. It also rewards its customers for using their wallet through a concept called SuperCash.

Upasana did her masters in Management Science from Stanford University and by having worked as a senior product manager at PayPal she developed a strong fintech background for herself. She mentioned in her interview that even though she was already working on very big budgets she didn’t feel satisfied. This made her want to come back to India and contribute to the ecosystem back here. In the initial six months of the company she simply helped the founder Bipin Preet Singh until her confidence in the idea grew. She then joined Mobikwik full time as a co-founder.

Quotes“MobiKwik was very simple and need-based. We launched MobiKwik as a recharge platform and, soon, it became the mobile wallet of every Indian. I take pride in saying that MobiKwik was the first mobile wallet of India,”

What is Mobikwik?

Mobikwik is a fintech startup that was founded in April 2009. It is a phone-based payment system and digital wallet. It helps bridge the digital divide between consumers and companies. Also allows payment of bills, DTH, data card and much more through their app. This has helped Mobikwik earn 19-184.6cr INR in FY19.

MobiKwik has been awarded several awards like the mBillionth Award South Asia in the category of Mobile Business, for socially valuable contributions to South Asia’s digital infrastructure.

Founding Year: 2009
Funding: $ 131M
Investors: NDTV Limited, Trifecta Capital Advisors, Tianying Fu, Gaurav Manglik, Sequoia Capital India
Address: Gurugram

36. Vandana Luthra: The founder of VLCC

Queen of Wellness

Vandana Luthra is popularly known as the queen of wellness. She is a woman entrepreneur in India and the founder of VLCC, a one-stop beauty and wellness service. Vandana started VLCC in her rented house with a small bank loan in 1989 when the concept itself was alien. She focused on health and beauty services and products. She is one of the woman entrepreneurs in India that you cannot miss.

Vandana was featured in Fortune magazine’s 2018 list of Fortune India Next 500.

Vandana Luthra is also well-known for her Philanthropy. She is the patron of the Amar Jyoti Charitable Trust, she is the Vice-Chairperson of the NGO, Khushii and is a member of  Morarji Desai National Institute of Yoga and of the Steering Committee and the Sub-Committee.

What is VLCC?

VLCC is the largest organisation in terms of scale and breadth of operations in the beauty and wellness service in India. Today VLCC has crossed borders and has a presence across over 350+ locations in 165 cities spanning 16 countries in South Asia, South East Asia, Middle East and East Africa. They also have an employee strength of over 4,500.  According to a report in September 2019, VLCC is worth Rs 1200 crore and is growing at 20% CAGR.

Quotes“I have this view that there is no such thing as stress. If you are overworked then you should learn to enjoy that work.”

Vandana Luthra & Family’s: Net Worth is Rs 1,300 crore.

Founding Year: 1989
Investors: Wellscience, VanityCube
Address: Gurgaon

37. Vani Kola: Founder, Kalaari Capital

Vani Kola is a venture capitalist and founder and managing director of Kalaari Capital. She spent 22 years in Silicon Valley and founded two companies – Rightwrok and Certus software. Once she returned to India, she started her career as a Venture capitalist and partnered with NEA (New Enterprise Associates). Kalaari Capital started operations in September of 2012 with a 150-million dollar fund. She is well known for her support for the e-commerce sector in India. Her early investments in Flipkart, Myntra and more prove just that. Vani is also on the board of successful startups like Dream11, Snapdeal and Urban Ladder.

She was listed as one of the most powerful women in Indian Business by Fortune India. She has won the NDTV Women of Worth award for entrepreneurship and TiE Delhi-NCR 5th Edition of women Entrepreneurship Summit Award.

What is Kalaari Capital?

Kalaari Capital is a venture company investing in technology-related companies in India. Kalaari is a $160 million venture capital fund. It is backed by a strong advisory team in Bangalore. It invests in early-stage, technology-oriented companies in India. Kalaari Capital helps businesses by nurturing them through every aspect of growth. It  used to be IndoUS Advisors and was in partnership with New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Later it was rebranded as Kalaari Capital.

Kalaari is known to have backed companies like Urban Ladder, Curefit and Myntra, among others

Founding Year: 2011
Address: Bangalore

Conclusion

There you have it, our top 20 inspiring women entrepreneurs in India. Each one of them has risen in the face of challenges and has built their names in their industries. Each one of their journeys is an inspiration for us to break the glass ceiling and challenge our limits. Whether it is Shahnaz who started her education after her marriage and built her own brand in 1977 or Indra Noori who climbed the corporate ladder. Whether it is Shahnaz who  This simple goes on to show us that we shouldn’t limit our aspirations.

We hope after reading through the journeys of Successful Women Entrepreneurs in India 2021, you too feel more motivated and ready to achieve your goals.

Notes:

The above list is in alphabetical order. The details mentioned have been gathered by primary and secondary research on online platforms. In case of any discrepancies, please drop a mail at buzz@smartbusinessbox.com

Sign Up Here to Get The Latest Update And Special
Offer On Business Documents