As the rapidly evolving business dynamics increasingly flatten the gender barrier, there is a growing presence of women entrepreneurs in the world’s third-largest startup economy as well, with more than 7,000 ventures being led by women. 

An Inc42 report estimated that women-led startups had raised more than $930 Mn from 136 deals by the end of 2024. This was a steep 93.75% surge from the $480 Mn mopped up from 118 deals a year ago. 

According to a recent commerce ministry statement, more than 73,000 startups have at least one woman director on the board. This represents nearly half of the 1,57,066 startups recognised under the Startup India Initiative. To foster women entrepreneurship, the Union Budget 2025 has rolled out a scheme to offer up to INR 2 Cr term loans to 5 Lakh first-time entrepreneurs from scheduled castes and tribes. 

Driven by an undaunted entrepreneurial spirit, backed by supportive policies, and armed with the ability to bring in a change, a host of women founders have cradled some of the biggest unicorns and soonicorns in the country. Entrepreneurs like Falguni Nayar, Ruchi Deepak, and Ghazal Alagh have built startups that crossed the $1 Bn valuation mark. 

On the International Women’s Day today, Inc42 celebrates the contributions made by women leaders to the Indian startup ecosystem. We have listed the real trailblazers behind some leading unicorns and soonicorns. 

Amrita Sirohia | Cofounder, INDmoney 

Amrita Sirohia helms investech startup INDmoney as a cofounder with Ashish Kashyap. Incorporated in 2019, INDmoney claims to be a one-stop super finance app for saving and investing. The startup allows users to invest in stocks, mutual funds, IPOs, and fixed deposits. 

Users can also invest in US stocks through the INDmoney app. The startups is backed by marquee investors like Tiger Global, Steadview Capital, and Sixteenth Street Capital.

Sirohia was earlier associated with HSBC Bank for almost 14 years, starting from 2015. She left HSBC Bank as a vice-president in August 2018. 

Deena Jacob | Cofounder and CFO, Open Financial Technologies

With more than 20 years of experience in the finance industry, Deena Jacob helms the financial affairs at the Open Bank. She founded the company back in 2017, along with three more cofounders. 

Jacob had earlier worked as the CFO at coupon startup Tapzo, which was later acquired by global giant Amazon. She has also led the finance segment at companies, including Zansaar.con and TaxiForSure.com.

In 2016, Jacob was also awarded as the most influential CFO by the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

Divya Gokulnath | Cofounder, BYJU’s

After being an engineer for years, Divya found her interest in the teaching and education sector. That’s when she founded BYJU’s with her husband Byju Raveendran in 2011.

With her extensive knowledge in technology, she led a disruption in the edtech space and promoted tech-based learning solutions. Her startup reached a valuation of $22 Bn in 2021 and gained a lot of traction across the world.

The startup, however, ran into rough weather and is fighting multiple legal cases. 

Falguni Nayar | Founder and CEO, Nykaa

Falguni Nayar, who leads beauty and personal care unicorn Nykaa, took a long road to success.

After her 18-year stint in investment banking, Nayar founded Nykaa in 2012. The company became India’s first woman-led unicorn in 2020 and entered the public market in 2021.

Under Nayar’s leadership, Nykaa continues to see healthy growth with its net profit surging to INR 26.4 Cr in Q3 of FY25. In 2022, She became India’s richest self-made woman, according to the IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List. Nayar also made it to the Forbes 10 richest women in India 2025 list with a net worth of $2.9 Bn.

Garima Sawhney | Cofounder, Pristyn Care

A gynaecologist by profession, Garima Sawhney founded Pristyn Care in 2018, with two cofounders. Her healthtech startup turned a unicorn in 2021, after raising $96 Mn in its Series E round.

Holding a degree in medicine, Sawhney brings her medical expertise to scale Pristyn. The company offers healthcare services to patients across 42 cities in India.

“As a doctor, I have had a 360-degree view of the healthcare system. I practised at several hospitals and experienced their strengths and weaknesses firsthand. These experiences became a wellspring of knowledge for me,” the doctor-turned-entrepreneur told Inc42 last year.  

Gazal Kalra | Cofounder, Rivigo

A Harvard Kennedy School alumnus, Gazal Kalra, started off as a business analyst at McKinsey & Company. After seven years in the business and financial sector, she found her way to entrepreneurship and set up logistics startup Rivigo in 2014.

After turning into a unicorn in 2019, Rivigo was acquired by Mahindra Logistics in 2022. Later, Kalra also founded D2C home appliances brand Nuuk in 2023.

Nuuk recently raised INR 40 Cr ($4.6 Mn) in a Series A funding round. Reflecting on the funding, Kalra told Inc42: “As a second time founder, I wanted to ensure that we have supportive investors on the cap table.”

Ghazal Alagh | Cofounder and Chief Innovation Officer, Mamaearth

After pursuing her career in design for a few years, Ghazal found her true calling in entrepreneurship. She founded D2C beauty and personal care brand Mamaearth under the parent name of Honasa Consumer Pvt Ltd with her husband Varun Alagh.

Under her leadership, the Gurugram-based startup entered the unicorn club in 2022. While she is widely known for Mamaearth, it is not her first stint as a founder. Prior to this, Alagh set up a fitness platform, dietexpert.in, which downed shutters in 2013.

Alagh is also an active investor, backing more than 14 startups, including Humpy Farms, unScript AI, and Wishlink. The entrepreneur was featured as a shark in Indian Shark Tank Season 1.

Kanika Gupta Shori | Cofounder, Square Yards

Kanika Gupta Shori started her entrepreneurial journey with proptech startup Square Yards with her husband Tanuj Shori in 2014. 

The startup is a real estate aggregation and transaction platform which enables the complete lifecycle of owning and living in a home including research, due diligence, selling, financing and more. 

Square Yards offers B2B SaaS services to real estate agents, property developers, banks and other financial institutions and is present across global markets like the Middle East, Australia and Canada. 

A Wharton alumnus, Kanika Shori, had served Tata Mutual Fund and ICICI Bank in different roles before starting her own venture.

Kavitha Subramanian | Founder, Upstox

IIT Bombay graduate Kavitha Subramaniam did her masters in business administration from The Wharton School. 

After working in the business sector for more than a decade, she rolled out trading platform Upstox in 2009. The startup became a unicorn in 2021. 

Prior to this, she worked as the associate director at LeapFrog Investments and investment principal at PE firm Actis.

Mabel Chacko | Cofounder and COO, Open Financial Technologies

Along with Jacob, Mabel Chacko cofounded neobank Open in 2017. In 2022, the fintech startup became India’s 100th unicorn after raising $50 Mn from IIFL.

Chacko helms the operations at the company. While she is widely recognised for founding Open Bank, this is not her first entrepreneurial stint.

She had earlier founded bio-metric payments startup Touch2pay, contactless payments startup Cashnxt, NFC-based payments platform Neartivity Wireless, and developer-focussed payments gateway Zwitch. 

The serial entrepreneur had also led marketing and growth at fintech startup PayU.

Manju Dhawan | Cofounder, Ecom Express

Leveraging her extensive experience in the logistics ecosystem, Manju Dhawan went on to start her own logistics venture Ecom Express in 2012 along with TA Krishnan, K Satyanarayana and Sanjeev Saxena. Krishnan passed away in 2023. 

Ecom Express is a pure play B2C ecommerce logistics solutions provider with a strong focus on the Tier 2 market. The third-party logistics player offers a full range of services, including first-mile pickup, mid-mile transportation and last-mile delivery, as well as reverse logistics and fulfillment. 

The company has been planning to go listed for some time. With an overall experience of close to four decades, Dhawan was associated with Blue Dart Express for almost 25 years before founding Ecom Express. 

Meghna Agarwal | Cofounder, IndiQube

Meghna Agarwal cofounded IndiQube, a Bengaluru-based coworking space provider, in 2015 with Rishi Das.  

IndiQube is a managed office space provider that offers flexible and scalable workspace solutions, catering to startups, enterprises, and multinational corporations across 13 cities. 

It counts Myntra, upGrad, Zerodha, No Broker, Redbus, Juspay, Perfios, Moglix, Ninjacart, among its clients. The company is eyeing public listing soon for which it has filed draft papers with SEBI. 

In 2009, Meghna cofounded UltraFine Minerals, a manufacturing company catering to the cable, polymer, plastic, and paper industries. She started her entrepreneurial journey, leading a recruitment management service, HirePro Consulting, in 2003. 

Neeru Sharma | Cofounder, Infibeam Avenues

Adding another prominent name to India’s evolving fintech landscape, Neeru Sharma cofounded listed payments infrastructure company and soonicorn Infibeam Avenues in 2007. The company, led by Sharma, Vishal Mehta and Sachin Dalal, provides omnichannel and full-stack B2B digital payments solutions through CCAvenue, bill payment solutions through BillAvenue and digital financial services through Go Payments. 

Before cofounding Infibeam, Sharma had served corporates like Tata Consultancy Services, Nokia and Amazon. 

Gujarat-based Infibeam Avenues caters to clients such as IndiGo, Vistara, Taj, ITC, MakeMyTrip, Jio, Airtel, Myntra, Indian Oil, and ICICI Bank.

Nikita Prasad | Cofounder, Giva

Pursuing her fashion interest, Nikita Prasad turned to build her own silver jewellery brand Giva. The D2C brand was incorporated in 2019 with Ishendra Agarwal as a cofounder. 

Giva deals in authentic 925 fine silver jewellery, which are made of an alloy of 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% copper or zinc. It later forayed into 14 karat and 18 karat gold and lab-grown diamond jewellery segments. The brand runs more than 100 retail stores across the country as well as presence through shop-in-shop formats with Shoppers Stop and other chains.

Prior to Giva, Prasad cofounded another jewellery startup, IndieJewel Fashion, in 2019. She studied in National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Chennai. 

Pallavi Shrivastava | Cofounder, Progcap

Pallavi Shrivastava rolled out fintech startup Progcap in 2017 with Himanshu Chandra. It offers supply chain services and credit to small and medium retailers. The company has a network of more than 8 Lakh retailers from 10 industries across more than 500 cities. 

Shrivastava had previously worked with the World Bank and the IFC. She also held roles at Infosys and Hinduja Group in the early years of her career. 

She is also a part of a non-profit organisation, The Aspen Institute. 

Prukalpa Sankar | Cofounder, Atlan

Second-time entrepreneur Prukalpa Sankar cofounded data collaboration software provider Atlan alongside Varun Banka in 2018. 

The Singapore-headquartered startup allows enterprise teams to collaborate on projects and help create a single source for all data assets on its platform. Atlan claims to have become a next-generation platform for data and AI governance.  

Helmed by Sankar, the company said after its Series C funding round last May that its post-money valuation increased to $750 Mn. 

Sankar began her entrepreneurial journey with SocialCops, a data intelligence company in 2013. She was recognised on the Forbes 30 under 30 list for 2016 for her contributions in technology.

Priya Singh | Cofounder, Chalo

Priya Singh joined the leadership team of mobility startup Chalo as a cofounder in 2019. The startup was incorporated in 2014 by auto marketplace CarWale cofounder Dubey and Vinayak Bhavnani. 

Chalo operates a full-stack tech platform that allows bus owners to digitise their operations by adding features such as live tracking and digital payments and commuters to avail services such as live arrival time, live tracking, and bus cards.  

Singh was also associated with CarWale for seven years till 2017, when she moved on to found Rangrezaaglobal, a not-for-profit organisation, as per its LinkedIn bio in 2017. 

Besides helming Chalo, she is also an advisory board member of New Champions Community, World Economic Forum, as per her LinkedIn profile. 

Rajoshi Ghosh | Cofounder, Hasura

Rajoshi Ghosh cofounded GraphQL developer Hasura with Tanmai Gopal in 2018. The startup, which provides data access and data flow tools and services via GraphQL APIs, became India’s ninth unicorn in 2022 after raising $100 Mn in its Series C funding round.

Ghosh started her career as a bioinformatics specialist in 2009 after completing her graduation in computational biology from the National University of Singapore. While she is prominently known for Hasura, her entrepreneurial journey has seen several turns.

Prior to Hasura, Gosh founded multiple ventures, starting from an appointment booking platform Dokbuk. Later, she built startups like crowdsourced home-cooked food delivery platform The Brass Plate, food discovery app Find A Kadhai, and product development venture 34 Cross.

Rashi Agarwal | Cofounder and CBO, Zypp Electric

Rashi Agarwal cofounded Zypp Electric as an EV fleet management startup. With a background in business and technology, she has been helming the startup with Akash Gupta. 

Incorporated in 2017, Zypp Electric provides e-scooters to local merchants and ecommerce companies for last-mile deliveries. It counts the likes of Swiggy, Zepto, Flipkart, Rapido, Blinkit, Zomato, Uber, and Amazon among its clients.

Prior to Zypp Electric, she founded another startup, LetsFlaunt, in 2015. The Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Kozhikode graduate was earlier associated with S&P Capital IQ in the capacity of a senior consultant. 

Rekha Singh | Cofounder and Chief Technology Officer, Zenwork

Rekha Singh cofounded Texas-based fintech SaaS platform Zenwork with her husband Sanjeev Singh in 2011. It helps over 100,000 businesses manage tax and other compliance. The client base includes certified public accountant firms as well as large enterprises.

Singh has professional working experience of close to three decades. Prior to Zenwork, she was associated with capSpire, energy companies Constellation Energy and Williams Energy and others. 

Singh’s venture Zenwork helps businesses automate tax compliance management. The startup operates brands like Tax1099, a cloud-based IRS e-filing and e-deliver platform and Compliancely, an API that helps customers conduct real-time identity checks on individuals and businesses.

Ruchi Deepak | Cofounder, ACKO

Hailing from Jamshedpur, Ruchi Deepak completed her graduation in Delhi. After starting off as a lawyer and working in the investment and financial sector, Deepak founded ACKO with Varun Dua in 2016.

The company, which sells automobile, health, and travel insurance, scaled new heights of success under his leadership. ACKO became a unicorn after raising $255 Mn in its Series D round in 2021.

After ACKO, Deepak also founded fashion brand Jolene in April 2023. 

Ruchi Kalra | Cofounder and CFO, OfBusiness and Oxyzo

Ruchi Kalra founded B2B marketplace unicorn OfBusiness with four more cofounders in 2016. She leads the financial affairs at the company.

OfBusiness recently turned into a public company ahead of its $750Mn-$1 Bn IPO expected next fiscal.

Kalra’s second venture Oxyzo, which is the fintech arm of OfBusiness, has also become a unicorn. It recently raised INR 100 Cr (around $11.5 Mn) in debt from AK Capital.

An IIT Delhi alumnus and Indian School of Business graduate worked for more than a decade in the financial sector before moving into entrepreneurship. Besides building two unicorns, she backed more than 18 startups as an angel. The startups include Captain Fresh, TyrePlex, FableStreet, and Saveo.

Saritha Katikaneni | Cofounder and VP – Marketing, Zenoti

Founder of spa and salon software unicorn Zenoti Software, Saritha Katikaneni, brings more than two decades of experience in marketing and business development.

She started her entrepreneurial journey in 2010 after serving at various leadership positions at companies, including talent management solution platform SumTotal. Zenoti entered the unicorn club in 2020 after raising $160 Mn in a Series D funding round.

The Austin-based entrepreneur has come a long way from working on the basics of marketing in the initial stage of her career to running Zenoti, which serves more than 12,000 business customers in over 50 countries, including global brands such as European Wax Center, Hand & Stone, and Massage Heights.

Sahradayi Modi | Cofounder, Pratilipi

Sahradayi (Shally) Modi helmed Bengaluru-based self-publishing platform Pratilipi with Ranjeet Pratap Singh, Sankaranarayanan Devarajan and Rahul Ranjan. Incorporated in 2015, Pratilipi is an Indian language storytelling platform, which connects readers and writers in 12 languages. 

She also leads and looks after the product and revenue department of the company. The startup is backed by the likes of Tencent, Omidyar Network, WEH Ventures, Times Internet, and Nexus Ventures Partners.

Before founding Pratilipi, Modi was associated with Logistics MNC DHL and Vodafone India. 

Saumya Singh Rathore | Cofounder, WinZO

University of Manchester passout Saumya Singh cofounded online gaming startup WinZo in 2018 along with Paavan Nanda. WinZO is an online skill-based gaming startup that partners with third-party developers to host games on its mobile-based application. It earns revenue through platform fees charged from users for real-money games.

Prior to WinZo, Rathore was associated with hotel chain ZO Rooms, media company Times Network, Times Group and financial services company KPMG. 

Shagufta Anurag | Founder, Livspace

After studying architecture, Shagufta Anurag has built three design-focused startups – Livspace, Space Matrix and Saltmine.

She founded Livspace in 2014 along with Anuj Srivastava and Ramakant Sharma. The company entered the unicorn club in 2022 after raising $180 Mn.

Besides this, Anurag founded Singapore-based interior design startup Space Matrix in 2001 and Carlifornia-based workspace design startup Saltmine.

Smita Deorah | Cofounder and Co-CEO, LEAD School

To create a comprehensive solution suite for the education industry, Smita Deorah set up LEAD School with cofounder Sumeet Mehta in 2012. The edtech startup entered the unicorn club after 10 years of its inception.

With her startup, Deorah’s is working to provide school education at affordable fee structures to students in underserved areas. Deorah also founded Sparsh, a non-profit organisation which runs K-12 schools in rural areas.

With more than 22 years of experience, she has built a curriculum to transform the education system in the country.

Srividhya Srinivasan | Cofounder, Amagi

Engineer-turned-entrepreneur Srividhya Srinivasan founded the B2B SaaS company in 2008 along with cofounders Baskar Subramanian and Srinivasan KA. The company offers a full stack cloud suite for clients to create, distribute, and monetise content globally.

After working as an engineer at global giant Texas Instruments, Srinivasan made her entrepreneurial debut with wireless audio solution company Impulsesoft in 1999. It was later acquired by US-based semiconductor giant SiRF in 2006.

Srinivasan’s Amagi turned a unicorn in 2022. Her expertise in the technology and media sector pushed Amagi to scale new highs and disrupt media and advertising space in India.

Swati Bhargava | Cofounder, CashKaro

Swati Bhargava cofounded coupons and cashback app CashKaro in 2013 with her husband Rohan Bhargava.

CashKaro offers coupons, price comparisons, and deals to consumers, allowing them to earn cashbacks and rewards for shopping online across ecommerce platforms, including Nykaa, Amazon, Flipkart, Tata1MG and Myntra.

A graduate from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Swati has also held roles at Goldman Sachs. 

Prior to CashKaro, she cofounded Pouring Pounds, a B2B cashback platform, in 2011. She is also a part of H2, a tech leadership network that supports startup ecosystems across the world. Swati runs a podcast show called TheBadPodcast. 

Upasana Taku | Cofounder and CFO, MobiKwik

With more than two decades of experience in the financial sector, Upasana Taku built fintech startup MobiKwik with Bipin Preet Singh in 2009. The company turned a unicorn in 2021 and made its public market debut recently. 

Taku studied management science and engineering as a part of her graduation and post-graduation. In 2018, she was also awarded by the President of India for being the first woman to lead a payments startup.

Vidya Nataraj | Cofounder and Investor, BlueStone

Cofounder of the IPO-bound jewellery omnichannel brand BlueStone, Vidya Nataraj founded the startup in 2011 along with Gaurav Singh Kushwaha. Apart from being a founder, she is also an investor at the soonicorn.

Under her leadership, BlueStone is estimated to cross the $1 bn valuation mark in the near future. Prior to this, Nataraj worked as the senior consultant at PwC.

Two years after launching BlueStone, Nataraj also founded premium custom menswear brand Tailormade. Like BlueStone, Nataraj is also an investor at the men’s apparel brand.

Vilma Mattila | Cofounder, 5ire

Adding another feather to her entrepreneurial hat, Vilma Mattila cofounded blockchain startup 5ire along with Indian-origin entrepreneurs Pratik Gauri and Prateek Dwivedi in 2021. The startup turned a unicorn within one year of its inception after raising $100 Mn in a Series A funding round. 

Mattila is a serial entrepreneur with over a decade of experience. She founded multiple ventures, including UK-based Node Kapital, gaming assets management Platform GGtoro, and VC firm Un1ty Ventures.

The Dubai-based entrepreneur also has a vast investment portfolio that includes fintech platform Random, digital network platform Nodle and blockchain application platform Qtum Foundation.

Vineeta Singh | Cofounder and CEO, SUGAR Cosmetics 

Widely renowned as a shark for TV show, Shark Tank India, Vineeta Singh cofounded beauty and personal care brand SUGAR Cosmetics along with her husband Kaushik Mukherjee in 2012. 

SUGAR started as a D2C brand with an online platform but then transformed into an omnichannel platform with presence in over 45,000 retail stores across India.

Singh can be seen in the ongoing fourth season of the Indian business reality series show where she has invested in Indian startups. She has participated in multiple fundraisers as an angel investor and some of her bets include Padcare Labs, JhaJi Store, Snitch, and Josh Talks. 

Singh was a student at two prestigious institutes – Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad. 

Vrushali Prasade | Co-CTO and Cofounder, Pixis

Riding on the wave of artificial intelligence (AI), Vrushali Prasade cofounded AI-powered martech startup Pixis with Shubham Mishra and Harikrishna Valiyath. Incorporated in 2017, Pixis positions itself as a codeless AI infrastructure provider for the marketing sector. 

Pixis offers a full-stack AO-powered product suite that helps enterprises enhance different aspects of marketing and augment their decision-making. The startup’s codeless infrastructure, boasting of more than 200 proprietary AI models, offers plug-and-play AI products, ranging from campaign optimisation to creative asset generation. 

Prior to Pixis, Prasade cofounded gaming design startup Absentia Virtual Reality in 2016. She is a 2012-16 batch graduate from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (BITS).