Did you know there are lots of women entrepreneurs in India?
Yes, you read that right. Women are doing quite well and have taken the world by storm!
These entrepreneurs have successfully founded their own Startups in India and changed the lives of thousands of people around them.
They have succeeded to create their own businesses from scratch, despite all odds and failures, by sheer determination and untiring work ethic.
Here is a list of top women entrepreneurs in India with their education, prior work experiences and achievements.
1. Chitra Gurnani Daga (Thrillophilia.com)
Chitra Gurnani Daga is the Co-founder & CEO of Thrillophilia, India’s biggest platform for booking travel experiences.
Thrillophilia offers tours, adventures, activities, rentals, and offbeat places to stay. Chitra did her MBA in Strategy and Leadership at the Indian School Of Business in Hyderabad.
She wanted to start her own travel company. With a loan for her MBA, and money needed for the start-up, Chitra’s choices did not appear to be financially sound to her family, but she was committed, determined and persistent.
She has been recognized for her outstanding contributions to tourism by the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.
In 2020 the company had over 3 Million users as a result of 12,500 activities across 125 + destinations. The funding for Thirllophilia is $1.24M, valued at $4.84M. Chitra’s net worth is 165 crores.
2. Upasana Taku (MobiKwik)
Upasana Taku is the Co-founder of MobiKwik & Zaakpay. MobiKwik is a payment service provider that provides a mobile phone-based payment system and digital wallet.
Upasana finished her schooling in Surat and went on to pursue engineering at the National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar in Industrial Engineering.
Later, she did her MS in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University, US. She initially worked with HSBC in San Diego and later, went on to work with PayPal. She came back and founded Zaakpay in 2009.
At the same time, she met Bipin and came to know that he was eager to work for the betterment of the startup ecosystem as well.
Within six months, Upasana was helping him with many aspects of the business, and later, she joined Mobikwik as its co-founder.
She received the Best Woman Entrepreneur Award in 2017. Mobikwik has an active user base of 2.4 million. The company’s total funding is $181.2M at a valuation of $1B.
3. Aditi Gupta (Menstrupedia)
Aditi Gupta is the founder of Menstrupedia, a company that aims at creating awareness about Menstruation.
She grew up in Jharkhand and witnessed the difficulties faced by women during menstruation and decided to do something about it.
Aditi started Menstrupedia to educate the women about menstruation and make them aware of the ways to deal with it.
She was listed on the Forbes India U-30 list & her net worth is approximately between $1.5 Million to $5.5 Million.
4. Divya Gokulnath (Byju’s)
Divya Gokulnath is the Co-founder of one of India's largest ed-tech startups, Byju’s.
Divya pursued a B.Tech in Biotechnology from Bengaluru. She started her career as a teacher before co-founding Byju’s in 2011.
During the COVID-19 lockdown in India, Divya managed user experience, content, and brand marketing.
She received multiple awards like MAKERS India Conference, Entrepreneur of the Year, & Women Who Make India.
Byju’s has raised total funding of $5.5B at a valuation of $23B. While Divya & her husband Byju Raveendran have a combined net worth of $3.05B.
5. Suchi Mukherjee (Limeroad)
Suchi Mukherjee is the founder & CEO of Limeroad, an Indian online clothing marketplace.
Suchi studied economics at the school of Cambridge and completed her master's in Economics and Finance from London School of Economics.
She started her first job as a Senior Associate for Corporate Finance at Lehman Brothers Inc in 1998. Then she worked for Virgin Media and later joined eBay. She returned to India in 2011 with a dream to create a global brand based in India.
She encountered problems with the Indian system like inappropriate infrastructure, complicated bank processes, a complex company filing procedure, unreliable internet connectivity, and much more.
But she made her way through the obstacles to build Limeroad. She received the coolest startup of the year award, Unicorn startup of the year, Infocom Woman of the Year, & ET Startup Award. Limeroad has a funding of $51.9M at a valuation of $117.4M.
6. Falguni Nayar (Nykaa)
Falguni Nayar is the founder & CEO of Nykaa. S
he is one of the famous female entrepreneurs in India. After completing her studies at IIM Ahemdabad, she worked as a venture investor and merchant with Kotak Mahindra Group for around 20 years.
Falguni resigned from her position at Kotak Mahindra bank to embark on her entreprenurial journey. She has been facilitated by the "Most powerful business" at Business today and "Women ahead" at Economic times awards.
The women-centered online marketplace Nykaa records over 1.5 million orders a month and over 15 million registered users. The total funding for Nykaa is $148.5M at a valuation of $14B, while Falguni’s estimated net worth is around $1.1B.
7. Radhika Ghai Aggarwal (Shopclues)
Radhika Ghai was the co-founder & CBO of the e-commerce brand ShopClues, and currently, she is the founder & CEO of Kindlife.in.
Radhika did her MBA from Washington University in advertising and public relations. She also took executive program at Stanford University. After finishing her studies, Radhika worked in marketing for Nordstrom in Seattle.
Later, she worked in strategic planning at Goldman Sachs. She started ShopClues along with Sandeep Aggarwal and Sanjay Sethi in 2011.
Radhika became the first Indian woman to enter the Unicorn club. She has received multiple awards like the Entrepreneur Award, CEO of the Year, Outlook Business Woman of Worth, and Exemplary Woman Entrepreneur of the Year.
Shopclues touched a valuation of $1.1B but was later acquired at a valuation of around $70-$100M by Singapore-based Qoo10. Radhika’s personal net worth is roughly $1M.
8. Richa Kar (Zivame)
Zivame, an established and leading lingerie store, was founded by Richa Kar, one of the most successful female entrepreneurs in India.
She received her MBA from the Indian Institute of Management after studying engineering at BITS Pilani and worked as a corporate attorney in Bangalore.
After finishing her MBA and working as a retail consultant for Spencers Retail and SAP in Bangalore, she learned about the retail sector.
\During her time at SAP Retail, she worked with The Limited, the owner of Victoria's Secret. Victoria's Secret inspired her to start Zivame.
She has received Padma Shri for her immense contribution to the Trade and Industry sector. Zivame has received $69 million in funding at a valuation of $98.6M and her net worth is Rs 749 crores, according to reports.
9. Vandana Luthra (VLCC Group)
Vandana Luthra is the founder of the VLCC group. a very popular beauty, health, and fitness brand.
After completing her graduation from the Polytechnic for Women in New Delhi she went to Europe to gain knowledge about beauty, food and nutrition, and skin care.
In 1989, she started the beauty conglomerate VLCC in New Delhi to make a huge transformation in the wellness industry in India.
VLCC has a strong national and international presence with over a chain of 326 salons in 153 cities from 13 countries.
In 2020, the annual net worth of Vandana and her family stood approximately at $13 Million. Vandana has been awarded The Asian Business Leaders Forum Trailblazer Award, The Enterprise Asia Women Entrepreneur of the Year, & Padma Shri.
10. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw (Biocon Limited)
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is the founder of Biocon Limited and currently working as Executive Chairperson. Biocon Limited is a biopharmaceutical company that is based in Bangalore.
Kiran finished her undergraduate degree in zoology from Bangalore University in 1973 and did her graduate degree in brewing from the University of Ballarat, Melbourne. She began Biocon India in 1978 in the garage of her rented house in Bangalore.
In 2001 Biocon became the primary Indian company to gain the approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the manufacture of a cholesterol-lowering molecule. The company then expanded exponentially.
Meanwhile, Kiran became the recipient of numerous awards - Technology Pioneer, Businesswoman of the year, and Padma Bhushan. Her net worth is around $280 Cr.
11. Neha Behani (Moojic)
Neha Behani is the co-founder of Moojic, an innovative in-store radio service for retail stores. Neha Behani hails from Mumbai.
She pursued her MBA in Marketing from the Asian Institute of Management & worked as an Assistant Product Manager at HP. Later, along with her co-founder Kumaran Mahendran, Neha came up with the idea for Moojic.
Both she and Mahendran quit their jobs to start the company. Now, Moojic has carved out a niche in India as well as abroad and includes Google MD Rajan Anandan as an investor.
It started with 20 outlets, but now it has over 20,000 outlets. Moojic has total funding of $278K at a valuation of $2.41M.
12. Supriya Paul (Josh Talks)
Supriya Paul is the co-founder & CEO of Josh Talks, a media platform that helps audiences from Tier II and III cities get access to proper role models, learn from them, and work on their journey.
Paul studied at Sri Venkateswara College & then co-founded Josh Talks with Shobhit Banga in 2015. The goal of the company is to help people from smaller towns or cities in India who are not fluent in English, have trouble finding jobs, and need career guidance.
The app is available in 10 regional languages, has over one million app installs and over 100K paid users on Josh Skill and provides career guidance to over 500K people per month under Josh Kosh.
It has a funding of $4.99M at a valuation of $20.2M. Supriya featured in Asia 30 under 30 in 2018 and also received SheThePeople Digital Women Award’17 for Best Content Creation.
13. Vineeta Singh (Sugar Cosmetics)
Vineeta Singh is the co-founder & CEO of Sugar Cosmetics, one of India’s most popular cosmetics brands.
Vineeta Singh graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 2005 with a degree in Electrical Engineering and then entered IIM Ahmedabad to pursue her MBA.
She co-founded FAB BAG, a beauty subscription service in 2012. In 2015, Vineeta co-founded Sugar Cosmetics along with her husband Kaushik Mukherjee.
Today, the brand has more than 2500 branded outlets in over 130 cities and a revenue of more than 100 crores.
It has a funding of $85.5M at a valuation of $500M. Vineeta has a net worth of $8M. The Economic Times has recognized her as a young business leader with its 40 Under Forty Award 2020.
14. Ghazal Alagh (Mamaearth)
Ghazal Alagh is the co-founder of Mamaearth, a D2C brand offering natural skincare products.
She completed a BCA (Bachelor of Computer Applications) from Punjab University. Ghazal started her career as a corporate trainer at NIIT and opened her first business with a diet expert, a health startup for customized diets.
In 2016 she and her husband started Mamaearth. As of now, they have 1.5 million loyal and satisfied customers.
Mamaearth has total funding of $112M at a valuation of $1.2B. Ghazal featured in Economic Times 40 under 40 list in 2019. She has a net worth of roughly between $10M to $20M.
15. Anisha Singh (Mydala.com/ She Capital)
Anisha Singh is the founder & Ex-CEO of Mydala.com, an e-commerce platform.
She is currently the founder of She Capital, a fund investing in women-led or women-centric ventures with high growth potential.
Anisha completed her MA and MBA from American University in Washington DC. Anisha's professional journey began as a Strategic Alliance Manager for a software company in the US.
In 2004, Anisha started a company to provide digital content marketing solutions for the real estate and e-learning industry to US companies. She then moved to India and launched Mydala.
Later she founded She Capital to help the next generation of female-led businesses scale to their maximum potential.
Anisha has been recognized as one of The Top 100 Global Diversity Leaders in 2019 and under the Business category in Women in Asia – 50 Most Influential 2018.
16. Ashwini Asokan (Mad Street Den/ Vue.ai)
Ashwini Asokan is the Founder & CEO of two artificial intelligence startups Mad Street Den & Vue.ai.
Her career started with Intel in Silicon Valley. Ashwini set up Mad Street Den (MSD) in 2013 along with her husband Anand Chandrasekaran.
Mad Street Den is a cloud platform-based company that uses artificial intelligence to identify facial expressions and faces with a camera.
Whereas Vue.ai is the retail industry’s leading artificial intelligence platform that promises Intelligent Retail Automation.
Initially bootstrapped, MSD has raised over $35 million & Vue.ai has raised $27.5M. This venture is among top startups in Chennai.
You can learn more about top startups in Chennai here:
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17. Neeru Sharma (Infibeam Avenues)
Neeru Sharma is the founder & director of an eCommerce marketplace, Infibeam. Neeru holds an engineering degree in computer science and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University.
Before Infibeam, Neeru worked at Alcatel India as a product manager. With an MBA in finance and strategy, she worked directly with Jeff Bezos at Amazon. Neeru started Infibeam in 2009.
Infibeam started with books and then moved on to electronics and other categories. They created a B2B platform that enabled brands to have an online presence.
In 2016, Infibeam became profitable and registered for an IPO from which it gained Rs. 450 crores.
18. Gurleen Kaur Tikku (Hareepatti)
Gurleen Kaur Tikku is the Founder & CEO of Hareepatti, a financial advisory firm that advises customers on matters in finance, short and long-term monetary goals, and solutions for investments.
Gurleen is a Certified Financial Planner from FPSB, US & a Certified Mutual Fund Distributor recognized by the Association of Mutual Funds in India.
She has been awarded to be one of top 30 Women Entrepreneurs from India and has been covered by many Media Houses.
You can learn more about top Fintech and Finance startups in India in this blog:
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19. Pranshu Patni (Hello English)
Pranshu Patni is the co-founder of Hello English, an English language-learning application.
Pranshu & her husband Nishant started with a foreign language learning application called Culture Alley.
In 2014, they rebranded and launched Hello English as a mobile app. The Hello English app is now active in 150 countries with more than 10 million installs on Google Play Store, more than 50 million users, and 3 million monthly active users.
Owing to this success, Pranshu had featured in Forbes India’s 30 under 30.
20. Sairee Chahal (Sheroes)
Sairee Chahal is the founder & CEO of Sheroes, an online ecosystem for women, offering support, entrepreneurial and employment opportunities.
With an M.Phil from JNU and a PGDBM from IMT Ghaziabad, Sairee launched her professional career while still in college before co-founding her first startup.
She happened to work at corporates like Heidrick and Battles and CII. She set up SAITA Consulting in 2006 to help tech startups scale.
In a few years, she realized that the Indian internet ecosystem was gender-biased, with a lack of diversity in the workplace and an insignificant amount of women in the workforce.
To help combat this problem she launched SHEROES. She also co-founded Fleximoms, a platform for flexible jobs and returning professionals, and has also been a board member at Paytm Payments Bank.
Sairee is a Devi Award winner, apart from the Femina Achievers Award, Editor’s choice for L’Oreal Femina Women’s Award, Business Today, and Most Powerful Women in Indian Business.
Sheroes has total funding of $5.98M at a valuation of $29M. Sairee’s net worth is around Rs.95 Cr.
21. Sabina Chopra (Yatra Online)
Sabina Chopra is the Co-Founder of Yatra Online, Inc. and also the Chief Operating Officer of Corporate Hotels. Before that, she worked as an Executive Vice President of Operations at the company.
She completed her education at the University of Delhi with BA. Sabina started her professional career as a Supervisor at Japan Airlines in 1991 and worked in different organizations before starting Yatra in 2006 Dhruv Shringi &Manish Amin.
She also worked as the MD at Wyndham Destinations, the world's largest vacation club, and exchange firm. She was bestowed with the Women Leader in Travel and Tourism, Women in Leadership Excellence Award, Women of the Decade, and many other awards.
Yatra’s total funding stands at $87.5M at a valuation of $218M.
22. Shradha Sharma (YourStory Media)
Shradha Sharma is the founder & CEO of YourStory, a digital media platform dedicated to startups and entrepreneurs.
Shradha completed her Bachelor's and Master's degree in History from St. Stephen's College, Delhi University. Moreover, she completed Design Management from MICA, Ahmedabad.
Shradha served as the Brand Advisor at The Times of India & later as the Assistant Vice President at CNBC TV18.
While working at CBNC TV18, she realized her interest in startups. She used to write stories about successful people and shared them through her blog. She eventually turned her blog into a website and got noticed by the masses.
YourStory is one of India's leading online media ventures for Entrepreneurs and Startups.
YourStory has published over 40k stories of entrepreneurs which are read by 10 million readers each month. It has total funding of $14.5M at a valuation of $41.5M.
23. Niharika Jhunjhunwala (Sugarbox)
Niharika Jhunjhunwala is the founder of Sugarbox, a gift subscription service aimed at women. Niharika studied economics and management at London School of Economics.
After completing her studies, she returned to India and took a training program in performance management at the Delhi Cabinet Secretariat.
It was only after she got married that she decided to start her own venture. At first, Niharika thought of starting a line of organic baby products.
However, it didn’t work out. Then she came up with the idea of Sugarbox, which was founded in November 2014.
24. Kanika Tekriwal (JetSetGo)
Kanika Tekriwal is the co-founder & CEO of JetSetGo, a private jet and helicopter charter service company. The startup is now pioneering air taxis with intra-city connectivity in India using electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.
Pursuing her graduation in economics, alongside a diploma in visual communication and designing, from Mumbai, Kanika knew both subjects would have to take a backseat.
She was determined to seek business studies and went to London to get her MBA from Coventry College.
In 2011, she returned to India to set up her company, Today, her Delhi-based company manages and operates planes for commercial plane operators, even selling services and parts to them.
JetSetGo progressed at over 600 percent, as the company’s revenue shot up from Rs. 70 million in 2016 to Rs. 500 million in 2017.
She has been awarded Women Transforming India, National Entrepreneurship Award. JetSetGo has total funding of $2.84M at a valuation of $10.4M
25. Pooja Dhingra (Le15 Patisserie)
Pooja Dhingra founded the Le15 chain of patisseries. She graduated from Cesar Ritz College in Switzerland with a degree in hospitality and then studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris for a patisserie diploma.
After completing her course, Pooja returned to Mumbai and opened her first store in March 2010 with the goal of bringing Parisian-style culinary experiences to India.
In addition to her INK fellowship, Pooja hosts the podcast NoSugarCoat. Forbes India listed her as one of the '30 Under 30' achievers for 2014 and the '30 Under 30 Asia' list for Forbes in addition to publishing six books.
26. Ravina Raj Kohli (Star News/ JobCorp)
Ravina Raj Kohli has been working as JobCorp's CEO since she completed her MBA at Bangalore University. She resumed her education after having a successful career as a media professional at Star News.
She received a degree in Psychology, Economics, and Literature. She also studied Journalism at the London School of Journalism.
As CEO of Channel 9, she was the first woman in India's television business. After that, she served as CEO at Star News in 2003.
She then established JobCorp, a firm that aids people in the country to get jobs and employment opportunities. Her net worth is between $1M and $5M.
27. Vani Kola (Kalaari Capital)
Vani Kola is an Indian venture capitalist and founder plus managing director of Kalaari Capital, an Indian early-stage venture capital firm. It is recognised as one of the top venture capital firms in India.
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Born in Hyderabad, she completed her graduation in Electrical Engineering from Osmania University. In the late 1980s, she moved to the USA and completed a Master’s Degree from Arizona State University. Kola had a 22-year career in Silicon Valley.
She was also the founder and CEO of RightWorks, an e-procurement company. The company was sold to ICG after four years for $657 million.
She was then the founder and CEO of Certus Software. Her journey as a venture capitalist began in 2006, she collaborated with Silicon Valley-based entrepreneurs Vinod Dham and Kuar Shiralagi.
They launched a $189 million fund backed by New Enterprise Associates (NEA). This venture was named NEA Indo-US Venture Partners.
After successful 4 years, NEA decided to move out of the joint venture and enter the Indian market directly.
In 2011, Vani along with Shiralagi rebranded the firm and named it Kalaari capital. Kalaari has funded 110+ startups till now and the total capital raised is $740M. Vani was awarded the Midas touch award for the best investor in 2015.
She was also recognized as one of the Most Powerful Women in India by Forbes in 2014 along with Linkedin’s Top Voices in 2016.
28. Swati Bhargava (CashKaro.com)
Swati Bhargava co-founded CashKaro.com, the largest cashback and coupons site in India. She graduated from the London School of Economics - LSE with an honour in economics and mathematics in 2005.
In 2009, she began work as an intern at Goldman Sachs, an American multinational investment bank and financial services company.
Pouring Pounds, a B2B cashback company in the UK, was created by Swati and her husband Rohan in July 2011. In India, Rohan and Swati decided in April 2013 to apply the same strategy.
Today, CashKaro is India's largest coupons site. The firm offers cashback on more than 2000 e-commerce partners, including ShopClues, Paytm, Amazon.in, Flipkart, and Myntra. CashKaro has raised $17.5M to date, at a valuation of $53.9M.
She was named one of Fortune India 40 Under 40 in April.
29. Sakshi Tulsian (POSist)
Posist is a SaaS that provides cloud-based point of sale and restaurant management solutions.
The company's co-founder and chief revenue officer, Sakshi Tulsian, created Posist after she struggled with running a web development company and after investing in a restaurant that turned out to be profitable.
It was difficult to manage vendors, employees, payments, thefts, and pilferages on the counter.
When there was no POS application available, she built one for her own restaurant. Now, Posisted is used by more than 6000 companies in 11 countries. It has raised $517K at a valuation of $1.89M.
30. Udita Pal (Salt)
Udita Pal is the cofounder of Salt, a neobanking fin-tech venture focused on cross-border transactions and compliances.
Salt aims to help SMEs address their banking-related challenges. After leaving her full-time job in 2019, Udita lived in eight different countries for one year straight.
The reason behind starting Salt was bad global banking experience. Udita has been in the Start-Up industry for almost a decade now.
She has worked with over 35+ Start-Ups around the globe, performing roles varying from Brand management, Growth Management, Product Marketing management and has contributed toward building and taking companies from 0 to 1. Salt has received a total funding of $625k.
31. Smita Ram (Rang De)
Smita Ram is the co-founder and CEO of Rang De, a peer-to-peer lending platform that enables everyday citizens to invest in entrepreneurs from low-income backgrounds.
The company was self-funded by Ram and her co-founder Smita and they invested around six thousand pounds; consequently, they got funded.
Initially, they started with one field partner and fifteen borrowers; now they are working with twenty field partners across ten states, disbursing around twelve million dollars to more than two thousand rural entrepreneurs.
The total funding of Rang De is $96.2K at a valuation of $4.08 million.
32. Basudha Shrivastava (ExpressEarth Digital Services)
Basudha Shrivastava is the co-founder of ExpressEarth Digital Services, a travel agency that takes care of all your travel needs from hotels, cars, flights, insurance and more.
Basudha holds a graduation degree from Delhi University and has experience working in the IT sector.
She started the company along with co-founder Himanshu Narula. Her company has won several awards for being an innovative travel company including the ‘Most Innovative Travel Management Company’ by India Travel Award North.
Later in 2021, Basudha founded another startup EmpFly, delivering quality automation solutions to Enterprise Customers.
33. Florida Tilton (Biozone Research Technologies)
Dr. Florida Tilton is the Chairperson & Managing Director of Biozone Research Technologies Pvt Ltd. Biozone Research Technologies Pvt Ltd. is an administration-perceived lab that got started as a Bioscience ability improvement association and then slowly moved into the Contract research area.
Florida got a Post Graduate distinctions certificate in Plant Biology, qualified as a Master of Philosophy in Plant Genetics from the University of Madras, and then went on to establish the Department of Biotechnology at Hindustan College of Arts Science, Chennai.
After quitting her job at Hindustan College, she was approached by two of her former students to coach them for their practicals.
Thus started Biozone with two students. Biozone has shaped its business into three key growth verticals to deliver sustainable long-term value for biotechnologists across the globe Currently, their revenue is more than $4 Million.
34. Farah Nathani-Menzies (The Mumum Co.)
Farah Nathani-Menzies is the co-founder of The Mumum Co. which makes healthy and wholesome snacks for kids.
Farah graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and worked as a management consultant at Bain & Co across London, New York, Madrid, and Delhi offices.
In 2016, Farah quit her job and decided to become an entrepreneur. In December 2016, Farah & Shreya joined hands to launch The Mumum Co.
Today they have consolidated their presence across 75 modern trade stores and have moved over 80,000 bags of Mumum Co. snacks.
35. Shreya Lamba (The Mumum Co.)
Shreya Lamba is the co-founder of The Mumum Co. which makes healthy and wholesome snacks for kids.
Shreya obtained undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at LSE and eventually, went to B-school at INSEAD. She returned to India in 2004 to work at the A.T. Kearney office in New Delhi.
She co-founded The Mommy Network (2014) with Kiran Amlani and Tejal Bajla – a community and a passion project. She met her now co-founder Farah Nathani-Menzies around 2016 and started The Mumum Co.
Today, they have consolidated their presence across 75 modern trade stores and have moved over 80,000 bags of Mumum Co. snacks.
36. Khushboo Jain (Impact Guru)
Khushboo Jain is the co-founder & COO of Impact Guru, a crowdfunding platform for medical expenses, personal causes and nonprofits. She completed her undergraduate degree in business and management from 2004 to 2007, along with an MBA.
She also earned degrees in several other subjects. Since its inception in 2015, ImpactGuru has raised over $200 million through its crowdfunding platform and global partners, which has helped provide healthcare for those affected by critical illnesses in India.
Over 10 lakh donors from 165 countries have donated through the platform with an average donation of $1.50 per minute.
ImpactGuru has raised over Rs 15 crore from over 800 COVID-19 related fundraisers to support daily wagers, elderly individuals affected by the crisis, healthcare workers affected by salary cuts due to COVID-19 as well as animals who are suffering as a result of this crisis.
The startup has a total funding of $15.1M at a valuation of $50.8M.
37. Isha Choudhry (ZoloStays)
Isha Choudhry is the co-founder & head of talent acquisition at ZoloStays. It is an online platform to find accommodation with food. She graduated from St. Xavier’s college.
ZoloStays was founded in Bengaluru in 2015. Zolo is today serving in 10+ cities in India including Gurugram, Hyderabad, Kota, Chennai, and Mumbai, with HQ in Bangalore. It has total funding of $111M at a valuation of $179M.
38. Sneha Choudhry (ZoloStays)
Sneha Choudhry is the co-founder of Zolostays, an online platform to find accommodation with food. Sneha is responsible for Business Expansion and Customer Experience at Zolo.
A gold medalist from the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode and an engineer with an MBA from RV College of Engineering, Bengaluru, Sneha has ten years of experience in leading global companies including Deloitte and Oracle as a Strategy & Operations Consultant.
Before setting up Zolo, she co-founded Augbrain—an AI startup that aimed to use artificial intelligence (AI) in education.
Over the past three years, ZoloStays has helped 50,000 individuals find reasonable and high-quality living facilities across their 350 + properties in 10 cities. It has total funding of $111M at a valuation of $179M.
39. Malini Agarwal (MissMalini Entertainment)
Malini Agarwal is the founder and the creative director of her own company – MissMalini Entertainment.
Formerly a radio jockey on Mumbai's Radio One (India) and Head of Digital Content for Channel V India, Malini founded her blog MissMalini.com in 2008.
Today, it reaches over 40 million people each month and has several digital properties for different niches Malini has been awarded Female Entrepreneur of the year in 2020.
In December 2021, the company was acquired MyGlamm. Malini’s net worth is around $1.5M.
40. Mehak Sagar (Wed Me Good)
Mehak Sagar is the co-founder of WedMeGood, a curated portal for everything related to weddings. Mehak has a master’s in economics.
Things changed when her blog Peaches and Blushes took off which led to her building a platform for weddings. She founded Wed Me Good in 2014 along with her husband Anand Shahani.
The platform currently lists over 80,000+ wedding vendors across cities in India, for all wedding services including Photographers, Makeup Artists, Decor, Bridal Wear, Grooms Wear, Cinematographers, Invitations, Mehendi Artists, Wedding Planners, Jewellery, Trousseau Packers, Venue Bookings, Jewellery, Catering, Wedding Cakes, DJs, Choreographers, and Accessories.
The startup has a funding of $3.07M at a valuation of $9.68M.
41. Naiyya Saggi (BabyChakra, Good Glamm Group)
Naiyya Saggi founded BabyChakra, a parenting platform, and also Co-Founder & Board Member at the Good Glamm Group, a digital-first house of brands that brings together innovative and fast-growing beauty and personal care brands.
A Harvard Business School Graduate, Naiyya has always been a tech enthusiast. Formerly a Management Consultant at McKinsey & Co. and The Bridgespan Group, Naiyya has a degree in Law from National Law School, Bangalore (LLB, HONS). She founded BabyChakra in 2015 with the vision of making parenting easier.
BabyChakra has been consistently recognized as one of the Top Pregnancy Parenting technology products by Global Tech Powerhouses such as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, as well as international technology publications such as Healthline Inc.
In July 2021, BabyChakra merged with MyGlamm and Naiyya joined MyGlamm as a Co-Founder and Board Member to further strengthen the content-to-commerce approach adopted by MyGlamm.
Today, MyGlamm, also known as Good Glamm Group has total funding of $135M at a valuation of $1.2B.
42. Sanna Vohra (The Wedding Brigade)
Sanna Vohra is the founder & CEO of The Wedding Brigade, an inspiration, planning, shopping, and services portal for Indian weddings. Sanna completed her graduation from Brown University.
While at Brown, she co-founded a restaurant discounting company for college students that quickly became the largest student-run enterprise on campus.
During a trip to India to attend a wedding, she realized all the unnecessary hassles and inefficiencies involved in planning a wedding and wanted to create a streamlined solution for the multi-billion dollar wedding industry.
Soon enough, she launched The Wedding Brigade. Until today, Wedding Brigade has raised a total of $3.97M at a valuation of $6.02M.
43. Shivani Poddar (FabAlley & Indya)
Shivani Poddar is the co-founder of FabAlley & Indya, a fashion-forward brand that designs all its clothing range in-house.
Shivani Poddar graduated from Hindu College in 2014 and went on to do an MBA at FMS. After graduation, she was a part of the leadership program at Hindustan Unilever and specialized in the Commercial and Supply Chain function.
She also worked with Avendus Capital as an Investment Banking team member. At FabAlley, she has been responsible for setting up sourcing and manufacturing processes, financial systems, and fully integrated supply chain techniques—all of which have led to the growth of this fashion brand into a world-class brand.
44. Tanvi Malik (FabAlley & Indya)
Tanvi Malik, Co-founder of FabAlley & Indya, started her fashion-forward western wear brand with Shivani Poddar.
Tanvi is an Economics graduate from Delhi’s Lady Shri Ram College, and she also holds an MBA in Brand Management from MICA Ahmedabad.
Her interest in branding and marketing led her to Titan—where she was a Brand & Product Manager for high-end watches before quitting her job to start her dream project.
The duo soon launched an inclusive, accessible fashion brand for Indian women.
45. Shubhra Chadda (Chumbak Design Pvt. Ltd.)
Shubhra Chadda is the co-founder of Chumbak Design Pvt. Ltd. Chumbak is a fashion-led lifestyle brand. Shubhra completed her schooling in Delhi and moved to Bangalore in 1998 to study B.Com from Mount Carmel.
She completed her master’s degree in Public Relations and Advertising from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and interned with the production house Nirvana Films.
Before beginning a career as an entrepreneur, Shubhra worked at an American data-storage company “NetApp”. Chumbak was founded by Shubhra along with Vivek Prabhakar when they both noticed that most countries have several quirky souvenirs to offer but India does not.
Today, Chumbak is present in 30-plus stores in India across 75 product categories including apparel, accessories, home furnishings, etc. It is one of the many big successful startups of Bangalore.
You can learn more about top Startups in Bangalore here:
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46. Suchita Salwan (Little Black Book)
Suchita Salwan is the Founder & CEO of Little Black Book, an online platform to find local brands and businesses.
Suchita has a degree in economics, specializing in marketing and finance. She has experience as a creative assistant with Wizcraft International Entertainment Pvt Ltd., where she helped produce several award-winning movies.
She founded LBB with Dhruv Mathur 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 over 22 million people who discover and shop from 100,000 unique and special products and brands.
LBB has a funding of $8.3M at a valuation of $17.1M. Suchita has received many accolades like The Young Business Women Award at CNBC Young Turks Conclave 2017 and Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2016.
47. Neha Motwani (Fitternity)
Neha Motwani is the founder of Fitternity, a fitness startup that allows its users to choose from several fitness activities across various cities through a single membership.
Neha has a Bachelor's in Management Studies and a Master's in Business Administration from Narsee Monjee College of Commerce & Economics, as well as a PhD in Human Resource Management.
She worked with Aon Hewitt for over five years in talent and organization consulting before starting Fitternity. The idea for Fitternity came from a problem she faced when she was re-starting her own fitness journey in 2013.
Fitternity has over 6 lakh monthly active users across a network of 12,000 gyms, studios, fitness centres, hotels, and swimming pool facilities. The company was acquired by Curefit in 2021.
48. Malika Datt Sadani (The Moms Co.)
Malika Sadani is the founder & CEO of The Moms Co., a homegrown brand for toxin-free, natural, and effective products catering to expectant and new mothers.
Malika pursued her graduation in engineering from Savitribai Phule Pune University & completed her MBA from Welingkar Institute of Management, Mumbai.
Post-MBA, she worked as an assistant manager at ICICI Bank. The idea for The Moms Co. came to Malika when moved back to India from London in 21012 and couldn’t find safe, natural products for her daughters.
The Moms Co. now serves over 1 million moms across 15,000 pin codes, has received several awards, including the Times She UnLTD. Entrepreneur Awards and Business World 40 Under 40 and others.
The Moms Co. was acquired by The Good Glamm Group at $67M in 2021.
49. Sugandha Agarwal (Docttocare)
Sugandha Agarwal is the founder & CEO of Docttocare, an online healthcare service provider that provides information to its users about the best doctors, clinics, hospitals, and diagnostic centers.
An electrical, electronics & communication engineer by qualification, Sugandha worked with organizations like Infosys, Oracle and Google Maps before starting Docttocare.
Driving partnerships with hospital brands, building end-user acquisition strategies, spending time with product positioning, etc are key responsibilities of Sugandha Agarwal at Docttocare.
The company has a funding of $517K.
50. Ruchi Garg (Venuelook)
Ruchi Garg is the co-founder & CEO of Venuelook, an online marketplace that connects people who are looking for the perfect venue, and vendors for their event with the matching, available venue spaces.
Ruchi has a bachelor's degree in computer science. She has professional experience of more than 15 years in building products and teams.
She witnessed that the process of finalizing a venue was full of obstacles, such as visiting the site to decide whether it is suitable or not, haggling on price, and commitment to the quality and value of service.
Hence she decided to do something about it and to mitigate the complexity related to all kinds of events, she came up with the idea of Venuelook in 2014.
They currently have 20,000+ venue profiles on Venuelook and serve around 10,000+ events per month. The company has a funding of $148K at a valuation of $1.2M.
Conclusion
Indian women entrepreneurs can make it big.
If you think that you are talent then you will definitely be able to shine through hardwork and laser sharp focus.
Each one of the listed women is an inspiration to the many young aspiring entrepreneurs who wish to turn their business ideas into a reality and make a mark in the world, as these women have done.
With women contributing a large percentage to our economy every year, there is no doubt that India's entrepreneurial landscape would drastically change for the better with even more women stepping into the startup and small business arena.
FAQ's
Q1. Who is the youngest female CEO in India?
A. At 33, Radhika Gupta is the youngest female CEO in India.
Q2. Who is the first woman entrepreneur in India?
A. Kalpana Saroj, Chairperson of Kamani Tubes is the first woman entrepreneur in India.
Q3. Who is the most famous female entrepreneur in India?
Falguni Nayar, founder of Nykaa is probably the most famous female entrepreneur in India.
Q4. Who are top 10 famous female entrepreneurs?
- Falguni Nayar - Nykaa
- Divya Gokulnath - Byju’s
- Richa Kar - Zivame
- Ghazal Alagh - Mamaearth
- Vineeta Singh - Sugar Cosmetics
- Aditi Gupta – Menstrupedia
- Kiran Mazumdar Shaw – Biocon India
- Vani Kola – Kalaari Capital
- Radhika Agarwal – Shopclues
- Suchi Mukherjee – Limeroad
Q5. Who are the most powerful women in business in 2022?
- Falguni Nayar
- Gita Gopinath
- Kiran Mazumdar Shaw
- Sudha Murty
- Indra Nooyi
- Leena Nair
- Roshni Nadar Malhotra
