It’s time to put our hands up for India’s female entrepreneurs
All of India?s 14 unicorns are headed by men.
- More than six years after India got its first internet unicorn, a female entrepreneur is set to break into the big boys' club.
- On March 31, online beauty products retailer Nykaa said it had raised Rs100 crore ($14 million) from private equity firm TPG Growth at a valuation of over $700 million.
- Founded in 2012 by Falguni Nayar, a former investment banker at Kotak Investment Banking, Nykaa's valuation has more than doubled in the past six months.
- Nayar's achievement comes just a couple of months after Mumbai native Ankiti Bose's fashion e-commerce firm, Zilingo, received $226 million in funding at a valuation of $970 million.
- While the number of startups, entrepreneurs, and investors have increased in the past few years, a mere 14% of the businesses in the country are run by woman entrepreneurs, according to the sixth economic census of India.