WOMEN / ENTREPRENEUR SPECIAL.... 10 Indian startups with women founders

WOMEN ENTREPRENEUR SPECIAL 10 Indian startups with women founders

Women have been equally involved in the Indian startup industry, having founded/co-founded some of the prominent ventures. Here's a list of 10 startups with women entrepreneurs behind them.

MyDala, Anisha Singh

Almost anyone who shops online knows about MyDala. Among the largest online coupon and discount platforms in India, MyDala was founded in 2009 by Anisha Singh. And in just a few years, it has grown to handling around 2, 00,000 transactions everyday and targeting 400 million consumers in over 200 cities.
Speaking of the founder, Anisha Singh holds a masters degree in political communication and an MBA in information systems from American University. Prior to MyDala, she worked for the Clinton administration and raised funds for helping women entrepreneurs.

ShopClues, Radhika Ghai Aggarwal

ShopClues, an online shopping place selling products including everything from technology and fashion to footwear and jewellery, was co-founded by Radhika Ghai Aggarwal. She is currently the chief business officer of the ecommerce company. Prior to joining ShopClues, Radhika worked with Goldman Sachs and Nordstorm. In fact, even ShopClues is not her first entrepreneurial venture. She had earlier started a company called FashionClues, which was a content portal for NRI women. Aggarwal holds an MBA from Washington University and has also studied Web 2.0 and Creative Writing at Stanford.

MobiKwik, Upasana Taku

Upasana Taku, along with Bipin Preet Singh, founded the semi-closed mobile wallet and online payment platform MobiKwik in 2009. But this is not her only venture. She also founded Zaakpay, another payment gateway. Before turning an entrepreneur, Taku did her B.Tech from NIIT in 2001, and MS in management science & engineering from Stanford University. She then worked at PayPal in San Jose, California as product manager, before returning to India in 2008.

Yatra, Sabina Chopra

Yatra.com was founded by Dhruv Shringi, Manish Amin and Sabina Chopra in August 2006. It is among the largest online travel related websites in India. Speaking about the co-founder, Sabina Chopra is the COO of corporate hotels at Yatra. In the past, she has also served as the executive vice president of operations. Before co-founding Yatra.com, Chopra headed India based operations of ebookers, an online travel company based in Europe. She completed her education from Delhi University.

Infibeam, Neeru Sharma

Involved in online retailing, e-commerce, software and internet services, Infibeam has Neeru Sharma as its co-founder and head of corporate and business development. Before Infibeam, Neeru worked at Alcatel India as product manager, leading R&D projects in the intelligent network services domain for major telecom partners in India, Australia and France. She holds an MBA degree from Carnegie Mellon University and an engineering degree in computer science.

Zivame, Richa Kar

After realizing that lingerie is an under-served category in India, Richa Kar co-founded Zivame in 2011. Today, it is the biggest online retailer of lingerie in India and is getting increasingly accepted by women as a comfortable way of shopping innerwear online.

LimeRoad, Suchi Mukherjee

Gurugram-based LimeRoad happens to be India's first boutique fashion marketplace for women, and is run by Suchi Mukherjee. Realizing that there was no way to discover such products easily, Mukherjee, a former eBay UK executive, decided to create a lifestyle platform for women's products. LimeRoad is an e-commerce platform where one can discover, share and shop. The startup has also raised a funding of $50 million from investors.

Sheroes, Sairee Chahal

Sheroes curates work from home jobs in India and helps women seeking careers while still giving time to their homes. The portal also helps women find relevant resources and mentors. It organizes community meets, job fairs, special workshops and programs, as well as coaching, mentoring, community resources to help women professionals. It was founded in 2014 by Sairee Chahal. She also co-founded Fleximoms, a platform for flexible jobs and returning professionals. Sairee is a well known TED speaker and a finalist for Cartier's Women's Award Initiative for 2012.

Sugarbox, Niharika Jhunjhunwala

For those who don't know, Sugarbox is a gift subscription service aimed at women. The gifts include products in categories such as fashion, beauty, lifestyle and gourmet products. The woman behind Sugarbox is Niharika Jhunjhunwala. Hailing from Kolkata, the 25-year old entrepreneur studied economics and management from London School of Economics. After completing her studies, she returned to India and did a brief training programme in the performance management division of 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. But when that didn't work out, she came up with the idea of Sugarbox, which was founded in November 2014.

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