55 Inspiring and Top Women Entrepreneurs in India
- Last Updated December 21, 2023
Suraj Shrivastava
Chief Link Building Strategist
Chief Link Building Strategist
In this blog post, we highlight the journey, achievements, and contributions of 55 top women entrepreneurs in India, breaking stereotypes and fostering growth in the Indian startup ecosystem. The women featured represent various industries, including tech, e-commerce, education, finance, and healthcare.
Although the word ‘entrepreneurs’ is gender neutral, Indian society has for the longest time considered business solely a male dominant work structure, until today.
India is still considered a backward, patriarchal country where a woman is respected highly as a homemaker but not as a CEO or a successful woman entrepreneur.
In a country where women are considered weak, emotional, and below men in terms of respect and intelligence, the women here have suffered yet succeeded their way to the top.
The women entrepreneurs we have listed below are the shining stars of the country, proving their worth and caliber the same as men in India, if not more.
While you may have come across the success stories of many, this article is to remind you of them as normal people who climbed the ladder of success, one step at a time.
Reading them would surely inspire you to choose your dreams as your priority and believe them to be possible. If they can, why not you?
Talking about a male dominant country where women are trying to make their mark, Sudha Murty has proven her worth as a wife, business mind, social worker, and also a teacher and an ideal to many in India and all over the world.
Sudha Murty chose a career in electronic engineering, a highly male-dominated field at the time, and proved that there is no difference between the two genders.
As brilliant as she was, she got hired as the first-ever woman electronic engineer by TATA MOTORS. In the world of professions favoring patriarchy, she proved that intelligence is gender-neutral and women are as capable as men.
She was a real social worker who took the initiative to build toilets, libraries, and healthcare, eradication of poverty, and women empowerment.
She supported her husband financially in building INFOSYS, now a million-dollar company. She was also the chairperson of the company proving her caliber in business.
She has also written bestseller novels, teaching life lessons from her own story.
All in all, she has proved to be a woman with immense knowledge, hard work, and the will to change the world for good.
Falguni Nayar, a leading woman entrepreneur in India, is a resident of Mumbai and studied at IIM Ahmedabad after which she worked as a venture investor with Kotak Mahindra Group for 20 years.
In 2005, she was appointed as the MD.
However, at the age of 50, when most people think about retiring, Falugi Nayar decided to leave the Kotak Mahindra Group and start her own business. She researched and observed the market, found a need, and took her chance.
Today, Nykaa has over 1000+ beauty and luxury brands onboard and has witnessed 100% growth for many consecutive years.
The app has over 15 million registered users and a valuation of $14 billion while Falguni’s net worth is $1 billion.
👉 Check out the complete Nykaa case study.
Born and brought up in the city of Jharkhand, Aditi, like every other female in India, had to face the bizarre beliefs of society regarding menses.
Not touching books, cooking and eating separately, sleeping separately, washing her clothes herself, not entering the kitchen, and so on.
India, though a developing country is extremely backward and the society still holds this topic as taboo. Hence, no education whatsoever is provided regarding periods and the working of the female body leading to all kinds of superstitious beliefs.
Experiencing this firsthand, Aditi started Menstrupedia, a comic book that aimed at educating the young girls of society about menstruation.
Being one of a kind idea, the startup escalated within two years Aditi was listed in the Forbes 30 under 30 list for her commendable work for the women of India.
She is now one of the leading women entrepreneurs in India.
Radhika studied MBA from Washington University in advertising and public relations. She also took an executive program at Stanford University. Radhika has worked in marketing for Nordstrom in Seattle.
Radhika was the co-founder of Shopclues along with Sandeep Aggarwal and Sanjay Sethi.
She is the first Indian woman to enter the unicorn club. She has received several awards including the Entrepreneur Award, CEO of the Year, Outlook Business Woman of Worth, and Exemplary Woman Entrepreneur of the Year.
Radhika’s net worth is roughly $1 million making her a successful woman entrepreneur in India.
Vani was born and brought up in Hyderabad. She studied electrical engineering after which she moved to the US to pursue her master’s degree.
She worked with several tech industries for a long span of 12 years like Empros, Control Data Corporation, and Consilium to name a few.
After being an employee for half her life, she decided to start her own business.
She was the founder of two companies, RightWorks and Nth Orbit, which she eventually sold off and came back to India to start Indo-US Venture Partners.
This was in partnership with Vinod Dham, however, after 4 years of being stuck in operations, she decided to take this solo.
She rebranded her venture capitalism firm as Kalaari Capital. Kalaari focused on early-stage investments, ideally for tech companies, and startups that have immense potential but no investors to take them forward.
However bizarre the idea seemed in the beginning, today Kalaari has over 200 assets under it. It has raised a capital of over $750 million.
Vani believed in dream projects when no one else did and made hundreds of people fulfill their dreams through her. She has been awarded by both Forbes and Fortune magazines as “India’s Most Powerful Women in Business”.
The Padma Shri award winner, Vandana, has revolutionized the entire beauty and wellness industry not only in India but all over the world.
Vandana studied food and nutrition, wellness, and beauty in Europe after which the beauty brand VLCC. The brand originated in New Delhi, however, now has a massive national and international presence in over 153 cities and 13 countries.
There is not a single Indian who hasn’t heard of this powerful brand, and the iconic woman behind it. Vandana’s net worth is around $13 million which makes her one of the top women entrepreneurs in India.
Richa Kar, a Padma Shri award winner, started Zivame beating the taboo around lingerie in her conservative family and also all of India!
After pursuing her MBA from the Indian Institute of Management and her bachelor’s in engineering at BITS Pilani, she worked as a corporate attorney in Bangalore. She worked as a retail consultant at SAP and Spencers Retail in Bangalore, where she gained valuable knowledge about sales, marketing, and the retail sector.
While working for SAP Retail, she got a chance to work with Victoria’s Secret, which eventually inspired her to go for Zivame.
After overcoming several challenges about a taboo subject like lingerie in India, she managed to make it a huge success worth $98 million. Her net worth is INR 750 crores approx.
Richa’s is a story of courage, intelligence, and patience which has led Zivame to be India’s favorite today.
You must know Vineeta as a judge and investor at the Shark Tank India Television show.
Well, long story short!
Vineeta and her husband Kaushik Mukherjee co-founded Sugar Cosmetics, India’s most popular beauty cosmetics brand.
Vineeta completed her education in electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and then went on to pursue MBA from IIM Ahmedabad.
She also co-founded a beauty subscription startup named FAB BAG.
Sugar Cosmetics is a luxury brand and has over 2500 outlets in more than 130 cities. This highly successful venture holds a revenue of over 100 crores and Vineeta’s net worth is $8 million. She has been awarded as a “young business leader” by 40 under 40 awards.
Sugar Cosmetics today has revolutionized the entire beauty statement in India and is every girl’s favorite beauty partner.
From scratch, Vineeta has built a statement all over the world to be one of the leading women entrepreneurs in India.
We all know her and love her. However, her journey toward success started way before she entered Bollywood.
From being bullied in school to losing her father to cancer at a very young age, Priyanka remains strong and unshattered through it all.
‘Ambition’ is often negatively associated with women, she says in an interview, and so she goes on to prove how powerful and motivating it can be.
Her first step in business was starting her own production house, Purple Pebble Pictures, which focused on regional movies from the time.
She has her restaurant in NewYork, Sona, and also a sustainable hair care brand named ‘Anamoly’. She recently released her book ‘Unfinished’ describing her transition from Bollywood to Hollywood.
The world will demand you to fit in, choose a box, to stick to your lane. But Priyanka has proven time and again that you can dream to have it all. She believed in her dreams and made them her reality.
Divya completed her graduation in Bangalore. While she was prepping for GREs and taking tuition from Raveendran Byju (now her husband), the teacher realized her potential in teaching and encouraged her to pursue it as her full-time career.
She was only 21 when she started taking Maths, Logical Reasoning, and English. During one of her initial teaching days in 2008, she got an opportunity to tutor a batch of 100 students. In an interview with Fortune India she says, “I had to wear a saree to the class to look mature!”
She co-founded BYJU’S with her husband in 2011 by offering in-person lessons. The online app was launched in 2015, creating 12,000 job opportunities for women from India.
The company escalated during the pandemic, tutoring 70 million students.
Divya highly believes in the women for women notion. There are only a few successful women entrepreneurs, however, they influence the lives of hundreds picking themselves up from scratch and growing into the beautiful minds that they are.
Ghazal, now a successful businesswoman, completed her bachelor’s in Computer Applications from Punjab University and worked as a corporate trainer at NIIT.
She co-founded Mamaearth with her husband in 2016. They already have a 1.5 million loyal customer base. Mamaearth has total funding of $112M at a valuation of $1.2B.
Ghazal has a net worth of roughly $20M. She was also featured in Economic Times’ 40 under 40 lists in 2019.
👉 Check out the complete Mamaearth case study to know how it gets started.
Sheroes is an online platform for women, offering support and employment opportunities.
Sairee completed her M.Phil from JNU and PGDBM from IMT Ghaziabad. She got a chance to work with some top corporations like Heidrick and Battles. Soon she realized the gender bias and decided to create a safe space for the working women of India.
She launched Sheroes to overcome this bias and give women the opportunities they deserve.
She also co-founded Fleximoms, for moms to be able to work according to their personal schedules and not choose their families by leaving their careers behind. She has also been a board member at Paytm Payment Bank.
Sairee has won several awards including Devi Award, Most Powerful Women in Business, Editor’s choice for L’Oreal Femina Women’s Award, and Femina Achiever’s Award to name a few.
She is one of the top women entrepreneurs in India.
Upma, now a successful woman entrepreneur in India, lost both her parents to a tragic accident at the premature age of 12. However, her elder sister and brother-in-law had her back. They took her in and helped her in her education and pursuing her dreams.
She completed her MBA in finance from ICFAI and pursued her career in the corporate sector. With a stable career after 15 years in the corporate, Upma decided to take a leap.
Entrepreneurship had always been her calling, thus she decided to leave the corporate and start Teal & Terra, a beauty industry that focused on ayurveda and natural remedies.
She started this company with only Rs. 7.5 lakh, pouring in all her savings and loans from family and friends.
Being a single mom, her journey toward success is difficult yet motivating. She overcame all her fears, failures, and struggles, and look where she is today!
Today, Teal & Terra has a revenue of Rs 2.24 crores and has managed to make its mark in a highly competitive niche in the beauty industry.
Kiran is known to be one of the most influential personalities in the field of biotechnology today, and the first-ever self-made female billionaire in India.
Kiran in an interview admits that as a woman entrepreneur in India, she was highly disregarded for her credibility as compared to men. She says that she had to overcome several credibility hurdles to become a trusted, recognized businesswoman.
However, not only in business, she faced a similar bias in her brewing business as well. She pursued her master’s in Malting and Brewing from a university in Melbourne, however, was rejected based on gender bias when she pursued a career as a master brewer.
This did not stop her, only motivated her further. Kiran started her biotech business with a minimal funding of Rs. 10,000, without a definite lab space or professional help.
However, with her optimistic attitude and the goal of putting India on the global map of biopharmaceuticals, she converted Biocon from an enzyme-producing company to a fully developed and credible biopharma company.
“There was this challenge thrown to me by a very large multinational pharmaceutical company that India would never be able to produce a biologic product that can pass muster in the western world. And that fired me up to make sure that I proved them wrong.”
Kiran was recognized as the 65th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine. She was awarded Padma Shri in 1989 and Padma Bhushan in 2005 and is a successful woman entrepreneur in India.
Indra is a science and math graduate and an IIM Calcutta pass-out. She began her career as a product manager at Johnson and Johnson. Having worked with companies like Motorola Inc., ABB, Pepsico, and Boston Consulting Group, Indra is said to be one of the most successful woman entrepreneurs in India.
She was alarmingly passionate about her work as the first female CEO and chairperson at Pepsico until 2019. During her time here, she was also focused on environment and sustainability, water conservation renewable energy resources, and much more to help the company move towards the GO GREEN agenda even before it began.
During her tenure, the sales hiked by 80% proving her credibility and intelligence in the entire industry. Today, she is a member of several boards namely Amazon, ICC, and Philips.
She was awarded by the former president of India, Pranab Mukherjee at the Rashtrapati Bhawan in 2013.
Nooyi ranked #13 on the Forbes list of 100 Most Powerful Women in 2014. Her position on the same list was #2 in 2017 proving that the sky is the limit!
Jyoti’s mother was in the Papad making business since the early seventies. Jyoti learned the skills when she was only 12 years old. After the death of her mother in 1976, Jyoti being the oldest among her four siblings took over different jobs at Lijjat Papad.
Eventually, her mom’s and her dedication led to her becoming the president of the brand in 1999. Jyoti helped build a women-friendly, sustainable model for the company. She supported several women in their times of need, just like when she was supported by Lijjat Papad at her lowest.
Today, Lijjat Papad is not only a papad brand but also sells spices, wheat flour, detergent, and much more.
Lijjat Papad employs over 43,000 people and has an annual turnover of about $100 million.
Jyoti has received several awards including the ‘Vandemataram Rashtriya Seva Award’ for the empowerment of women, and a PHDCCI Brand Equity Award by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.
Faye is an exceptional female entrepreneur that knows her job like none other. Today, digital media is far more common and accessible than print media, thanks to Faye. She knows her news well and presents it with cut-throat honesty.
Her career first began at All India Radio while she was still studying. Acquiring jobs at Times Network and Mirror Now landed her extraordinary credibility and motivation to become an independent news journalist.
However, leaving the hardcore industry and starting your own venture was no less than a nightmare. After leaving Mirror Now, Faye experienced panic and anxiety attacks and was in therapy for almost a year.
However, she being the strong woman that she is, rose from the ashes in 2020 and started posting on her Instagram.
Faye is a woman of high dignity and believes in changing the path of news into something highly democratic and powerful. She is one of the top women entrepreneurs in India.
Shraddha, now a successful businesswoman, has completed her master’s in History and later pursued Design Management from MICA, Ahmedabad. She worked as a journalist at CNBC TV18. She has also been a Brand Advisor at The Times of India.
However, as she came across several inspiring startup stories, she realized she had a flare for writing about these stories.
She took this venture forward by simply writing and posting these stories on her blogging website. Without any marketing strategies or business models, Shradha did this only for the love of it.
Today, YourStory has published about 40,000 heartwarming stories of startup entrepreneurs and has received generous donations and investments from Ratan Tata, Mohandas Pai, etc.
Shradha’s story is a success story that bloomed through dedication, hard work, and embracing your inner femininity. Her story inspires everyone to follow what they love doing, creating without the fear of judgment and believing in your work even when no one else is by your side.
Ritu Kumar is a successful female fashion designer and a top woman entrepreneur in India who started the boutique culture in India.
Born in Amritsar, Ritu was a highly competent and talented young woman. She pursued a scholarship at Briarcliff College of New York.
In the 1960s, Ritu found a group of women in West Bengal who were unemployed yet had the intricate skill of hand blocking.
She thought of building an enterprise to help these women and many more like them. She marketed the beautiful work of these women by installing stalls at several exhibitions and fairs.
She discovered the embroiderers of Ranihati, now known as Zardosi, a popular embroidery style among women’s clothing. She focused on handmade clothing, especially bridal wear.
In 2002, she launched her brand ‘Label’ in partnership with her son. Her clothes are now celeb favorites and have made several appearances in Bollywood. Today, wearing a Ritu Kumar design is a bridal dream for many!
NIFT has awarded Ritu Kumar the ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ for her constant effort in the revolution of the fashion industry.
WedMeGood is a startup born out of Mehak’s personal struggle to make her dream wedding a reality.
As she went along with her wedding preparations and assembling everything for her Big Day, she started posting her struggles to find the “RIGHT” photographer, venue, makeup artist, and so on, on her blog Peaches and Blushes.
At the time, this was only to fuel her creative side. Mehak is an economics major and worked at American Express as a data modeler. However, her blog started getting unexpected traction and people from all over India started posting similar worries.
Mehak saw a gap and decided to turn this into a business opportunity.
“In a startup, there are a million roadblocks that knock you down. It’s drive and perseverance that makes you get up, dust off your jeans, and drive with full force ahead.” – Mehak Sagar
WedMeGood is now an established venture with a curated list for everything for your Big Day! The platform homes over 80,000+ wedding vendors from all over India. Various wedding services like venues, makeup artists, photographers, décor, wedding cakes, caterers, mehendi, jewelry and so many more are easily accessible here.
The startup has funding of approx. $3.07M at a valuation of $9.68M.
Yasmin is another success story born from self-struggle. When she was 18, she has a crooked posture and decided to hit the gym. She worked extremely hard to be comfortable in her body and improve her strengths.
However, soon she realized that fitness is not just extraneous gym exercises but also embracing your inner beauty, spiritual strength, and happiness.
The start of her career was just a fluke. An unexpected opportunity. One day, when her gym instructor was sick and could not conduct a fitness program, he suggested she take over.
Realizing this to be her dream career option, she pursued getting a group fitness trainer certificate from the American Council of Exercise (ACE). After returning to India, she started Yasmin’s Body Image Studio.
Her first breakthrough was when Katrina Kaif reached out to her to be her personal trainer to achieve her look in ‘Ek Tha Tiger’. She is India’s first Pilates instructor.
Today, Yasmin is a renowned celebrity trainer and trains big names like Alia Bhatt, Deepika Padukone, and an empowering woman entrepreneur in India. She has now expanded her business in the USA and Bangladesh.
Belonging to a Dalit family, Kalpana was the eldest daughter. Her father was a police constable at the time when she was married off to a man in a Mumbai slum at the young age of 12.
Kalpana suffered physical and mental trauma at the hands of her husband and in-laws. Her father, when realized this, took her back to the village of Roperkheda, where they originally lived.
At the age of 16, she moved out and came back to Mumbai to support her family with finances. She started working at a garment factory. In a short time, she opened her tailoring business with government loans and other policies for socially backward classes.
Later, she entered the real estate business which escalated quickly, earning her INR 4 crore.
Kalpana’s most successful venture is the revival of Kamani Tubes, a company dead for over two decades. She is now the chairperson of the company and is highly credited for its success.
Kalpana received the Padma Shri Award for Trade and Industry in 2013. She was a member of the board of directors of Bhartiya Mahila Bank, a bank primarily for women.
Chitra Gurnani Daga, a leading woman entrepreneur, is the CEO and co-founder of Thrillopilia, India’s biggest online platform for everything Travel!
Chitra pursued her MBA in Strategy and Leadership at the Indian School Of Business, Hyderabad. With a loan for both studies and opening a start-up, her financial choices worried her family.
However, Chitra was determined to open her travel company. Thrillophilia provides hands-on information for tours, rentals, food, activities, and so on to make your staycation worthwhile.
Today, the company has over 3 million active users and provides up to 125+ destinations. Chitra’s net worth is 165 crores while Thrillophilia is valued at about $4.9 million.
Suchi pursued Economics at the School of Cambridge and studied master’s in Economics and finance at the London School of Finance.
She worked as a Senior Associate for Corporate Finance at Lehman Brothers Inc. She also worked for Virgin Media and later joined eBay.
After returning to India, she faced struggles with the infrastructure, unreliable internet connections, bank procedures, company filing laws, and so on. Apart from the technicalities, she was away from her husband and her kids, adding to the challenges.
However, She built Limeroad with her partners, Prashant Malik and Ankush Mehra, despite all odds. Today, Limeroad is one of the top shopping apps in India and is loved by its customers.
She received the Coolest Startup of the Year Award, Infocom Woman of the Year, Unicorn Startup of the Year & ET Startup Award. Limeroad has a funding of $51.9M at a valuation of $117.4M.
Hemalatha developed the first electric scooter from scratch.
The idea came to her in 2007, when she attended a conference in Japan where the speakers highlighted the revolution and future of the transport system with the invention of electric mobility.
After much brainstorming and processing, Hemalatha was able to put this idea into action. However, although the product-market fit and the target audience of this product were supposedly the urbanites, she decided to launch this in the rural sectors of India.
Her vision received appreciation and validation from the great, Ratan Tata.
Today, the company has sold over 20,000 vehicles.
Neha Behani, an empowering woman entrepreneur, is the co-founder of Moojic, a one-of-a-kind radio service for retail stores.
She pursued her MBA in Marketing from the Asian Institute of Management. She and Kumaran Mahendran co-founded this company together. Both founders quit their jobs to pursue their entrepreneurial dream.
The company has bagged huge investments from Google MD Rajan Anandan. Starting with the small number of 20 outlets in the country, Moojic today has over 20,000 outlets and is valued at $2.4 million with a funding of $278K.
Josh Talks is an initiative to help people from tier 2 and tier 3 cities get access to better role models, and helpful resources to eventually start their own journies with confidence.
Supriya studied at Sri Venkateswara College. She co-founded Josh Talks with Shobhit Banga. Their vision was to help people from rural and semi-urban cities help find proper guidance, jobs, and English proficiency.
The app is available in 10 regional languages to make it suitable for people from all parts of the country. It has over one million installations and over 100K paid users on Josh Skill. It also provides career and job guidance to over 500 thousand people every month on Josh Kosh.
Supriya is featured in Asia 30 under 30 and has received the ‘SheThePeople Digital Women Award’ in 2017 for Best Content Creation. She is a leading woman entrepreneur in the country. Josh Talks has received funding of $4.99M at a valuation of $20.2M.
Anisha completed her MA and MBA from American University in Washington DC. Her first job was as a Strategic Alliance Manager for a US company.
Anisha is the founder of She Capital and a successful businesswoman. It is based on providing funds to ventures built by women or for women that have a high growth potential.
They help the next generational women-led ventures to reach their highest potential with their guidance and investments.
Anisha has been recognized as 50 Most Influential Women under the Business category in Asia in 2018 and One of The Top 100 Global Diversity Leaders in 2019.
Pranshu and her husband Nishant originally started their entrepreneurship journey by launching Culter Alley, a foreign language learning application.
In 2014, they rebranded their forte and launched Hello English, an app that teaches English and is active in over 150 countries. The app has more than 50 million users and 3 million active users on a monthly average.
Hello English has helped millions of people in upskilling their English language, gaining more confidence In spoken English and eventually in their careers as well.
Pranshu has been featured in Forbes India’s 30 under 30 lists and is one of the leading women entrepreneurs in India.
Niharika pursued Economics and Management at the London School of Economics. After returning to India, she took a training program in performance management at the Delhi Cabinet Secretariat.
However, she did not think of owning a business until after she got married. Originally, she wanted to launch a baby products line. However, that didn’t work out well.
Later, she launched Sugarbox, a gift subscription service aimed at women.
The subscription goodies are centered around the theme of fashion, food, beauty, and lifestyle. The starting price is Rs 1,499 for one month and goes up to Rs 14,388 for an annual plan.
Basudha graduated with a degree from Delhi University and has worked in the IT sector.
Basudha co-founded ExpressEarth Digital Services with Himanshu Narula.
ExpressEarth is a travel agency that takes care of everything from flight booking, food, activities, hotels, and even insurance.
The company has won the ‘Most Innovative Travel Management Company’ by India Travel Award North among many other prestigious awards.
Khushboo, one of the top women entrepreneurs of India has pursued a degree in Business Management along with an MBA, among other degrees.
She is the founder and COO of Impact Guru, a crowdfunding platform that aims to provide free medical care, personal causes, and NGOs.
Until now, Impact Guru has raised over $200 million from its various crowdfunding platforms and global platforms. They have over 10 lakh donors in their program from 165+ countries. Their average donation count is $1.50 per minute.
These donations have helped hundreds of people in India by providing proper medical assistance for critical illnesses.
In their COVID-19-related fundraisers, Impact Guru raised over Rs 15 crore and supported elderly individuals affected by the disease, healthcare workers by providing personal funds, and animals affected due to the pandemic.
The startup has total funding of $15.1M at a valuation of $50.8M.
Malini was formerly a Radio Jockey on Mumbai’s Radio One (India) and Channel V’s Digital Content Head.
She is the head and the creative director of her company, MissMalini Entertainment, which features a blog related to Fashion, Lifestyle, Bollywood, Gossip, and trending news.
The blog has a separate page for Big Boss and Koffee with Karan featuring several articles related to these big shows receiving high traffic.
Today, MissMalini Entertainment reaches over 40 million people every month.
Malini, a leading woman entrepreneur in India has been awarded Female Entrepreneur of the year in 2020 and her net worth is $1.5 million.
Naiyya has a degree in Law from National Law School, Bangalore (LLB, HONS) and is a Harvard Business School Graduate. She was formerly Management Consultant at McKinsey & Co.
Her vision with BabyChakra was to make pregnancy and parenting easier by providing tech products for the same.
BabyChakra has been recognized by various tech powerhouses such as Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. Not only national but also international publications namely Healthline Inc. has recognized BabyChakra to be the best in its niche.
BabyChakra’s website provides advice from medical professionals, an option to talk with some renowned doctors and read articles about pregnancy and parenting. One can directly shop for their technology products and have them delivered to home as well.
In July 2021, BabyChakra merged with MyGlamm to strengthen its core and vision of providing beauty and personal care products.
Naiyya joined MyGlamm as a co-founder and a member of the board and was then recognized as one of the most empowering women entrepreneurs in India.
Today, MyGlamm has a funding of $135 million at a valuation of $1.2 billion.
Ruchi, a successful businesswoman, has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and 15 years of experience in the field. However, entrepreneurship was always in the back of her mind.
When she found a gap in the market between customers looking for the perfect venue, catering, and price for their ‘Big Day’ and the vendors trying to sell their products and services for the same, she decided to build an online platform that makes the process as smooth as butter.
Venuelook is an online platform that connects customers looking for wedding-related products and services to the vendors providing them without the hassle of looking at several venues, price negotiations, and visiting several markets to find your right fit.
Venuelook has about 20,000+ venue listings on the website and hosts more than 10,000 events every month.
The company has a funding of $148K at a valuation of $1.2M.
Sugandha is an electronics and communication engineer and has worked with bigshot companies like Infosys, Oracle, and Google Maps.
Sugandha is a leading woman entrepreneur in India and the founder and CEO of Docttocare with her key role being end-user acquisition, product positioning, and building partnerships with hospitals and doctors.
Docttocare is an online platform bridging the gap between customers and healthcare providers. It provides information about doctors, clinics, medications, hospitals, diagnostic centers, and more.
The company has a funding of $517K.
The Moms Co is another venture started with a need for self. When Malika returned to India and couldn’t find any safe products for her daughters, she decided to fill the gap and started her company, providing natural and safe products for new moms.
Malika completed her graduation in engineering from Savitribai Phule Pune University & did her MBA from Welingkar Institute of Management, Mumbai.
The Mom Co provides a wide range of products like face care, body care, pregnancy-safe products, baby care, hair care, and so on. Their products are natural and environment-friendly.
Today, The Mom Co serves over 1 million moms. The Moms Co. was acquired by The Good Glamm Group at $67M in 2021.
The company has won Business World 40 Under 40 the Times She UnLTD. Entrepreneur Award among many others.
Shubra, one of the leading women entrepreneurs, has completed her bachelor’s in B.Com and Master’s in Public Relations and Advertising after which she interned with the production house Nirvana Films.
Shubhra co-founded Chumbak Design along with Vivek Prabhakar when they realized that when other countries have many valuable souvenirs, India lacks here.
Chumbak is a fashion and lifestyle brand that offers products like bags, accessories, dining and kitchen, lifestyle, furniture, and many more products on their website.
Now, Chumbak products are also available at offline stores in India and are loved by its customers. It is one of the biggest and most successful startups in Bangalore.
Ashwini has a bachelor’s degree in Commerce (Taxation) and a master’s degree in Commerce (Finance).
Ashwini is the founder and CEO of Mad Street Den and Vue.ai, two artificial intelligence tools and of the most successful women entrepreneurs in India.
Mad Street Den was started in 2013 along with her husband Anand Chandrasekaran. Mad Street Den is an artificial Intelligence tool that detects facial expressions on camera. This was a revolutionary startup program as it successfully taught machines to detect facial expressions through sight, just like humans.
Vue.ai promises intelligent retail automation and is the leading AI platform in the retail industry.
MSD has raised over $35 million & Vue.ai has raised $27.5M.
Smita is the co-founder and CEO of Rang De, a platform that bridges the gap between business owners and investors.
Rang De’s official website states that 86% of India’s eligible population does not have access to formal credit. Its main objective is to provide funds to farmers, artisans, startup owners, and entrepreneurs. Investors get returns on their investments over time, making this a win-win for everyone.
The company was self-funded with an investment of six thousand pounds. Eventually, investors started flooding the platform with huge investments making the platform eligible for providing 12 million dollars to more than 2,000 entrepreneurs and business owners.
The total funding of the company is $96.2K at a valuation of $4.08 million.
One of the top women entrepreneurs in India, Sneha, is the co-founder of ZoloStays, an online platform that provides accommodation along with food availability.
Sneha is a gold medalist at the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode and has pursued engineering along with an MBA from Bangalore. She has more than 10 years of experience in leading global companies like Deloitte and Oracle as a Strategy & Operations Consultant.
ZoloStays is available in various cities in India namely Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad, Delhi, and many more. It has more than 50,000 customers. They provide a high standard of living and better sanitation facilities in over 350+ properties to choose from.
The company has a total funding of $111M at a valuation of $179M.
Sakshi is the co-founder of Posist, a unified platform that provides hotel management solutions.
This is yet another startup born out of self-need and the curiosity to achieve bigger things in life. Sakshi started Posist after investing in a restaurant that though turned out profitable, gave a hard time in managing aspects like vendors, thefts, security, payments, employees, and so on.
When she was looking for a solution, she found a gap in the market and took it upon herself to develop a POS application to solve all restaurant-related managerial needs.
Today, Posist is used in over 11 countries and has 6000+ companies.
It has raised its funding to $517K and has a valuation of $1.89M.
Swati, a successful woman entrepreneur in India, is the co-founder of CashKaro, India’s largest cashback and coupon-providing site in India.
She pursued honors in Economics and Maths from the London School of Economics in 2005.
Swati and her husband Rohan founded Pouring Pounds in 2011, a cashback company in the UK. As the company escalated and provided huge net profits, they decided to apply the same strategy in India and started CashKaro in 2013.
CashKaro is India’s largest cashback site and provides cashback and coupons on more than 2000 e-commerce platforms including bigshot brands like ShopClues, Myntra, Amazon, Flipkart, and many more.
CashKaro has raised $17.5M until now and a valuation of $53.9M.
Swati was listed in the 40 under 40 Fortune India list.
Pooja pursued a degree in hospitality from Cesar Ritz College in Switzerland and did a diploma in patisserie from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris.
She is the founder of Le15 patisserie, a chain of stores providing Parisian-style culinary experiences in India.
When she returned to India, she opened her first store in Mumbai in 2010.
Le15 Patisserie provides specials, books, candles, gifts, merchandise, and more to its customers.
Pooja, an empowering woman entrepreneur, was listed in the ‘30 under 30 lists’ of Forbes India in 2014 and the ‘30 under 30 lists Asia’ by Forbes. She has also written 6 books.
Kanika has pursued her graduation in Economics and a diploma in visual communications and design from Mumbai. Later, she flew to London to pursue MBA.
Kanika is the co-founder of JetSetGo, a private jet and helicopter company. The company is based in Delhi and manages and operates planes for commercial purposes, sells parts, and provides services to them.
The startup is now building air taxis with intra-city connectivity in India.
JetSetGo’s revenue in 2016 was Rs 70 million. However, in 2017 the revenue shot up to Rs 500 million with a 600% progress.
Kanika has been awarded the ‘Women Transforming India, National Entrepreneurship Award’.
JetSetGo has a funding of $2.84 million at a valuation of $10.4 million.
Kanika, a leading woman entrepreneur in India, bought about a revolution by creating this startup and proved wildly that a woman can achieve all.
Shahnaz, a successful businesswoman in India, is the founder and the chairperson of the Shahnaz Husain Group, a beauty and skincare brand aiming at taking the Indian Ayurveda Global and establishing its presence and superiority all around the world.
Based on the principle of ‘natural and ayurvedic’ products, the products and cures provided by her are a blend of fruit, herb and flowers, essential oils, and more.
Her innovations have stormed both national and international markets and she is a success story globally.
Her journey is almost 4 decades long and full of struggles. Yet, Shahnaz is courageous and one of a kind.
She was awarded Padma Shri Award by the government in 2006 and has won ‘World’s Greatest Woman Entreprenuew’ by Success Magazine.
Sheila, a successful woman entrepreneur from Kerala, is the founder of V star, an innerwear brand.
It has been further classified into two different brands, Vanessa and Valero for women and men.
The company runs several charitable programs to employ women. The brand is popular in India and the Middle East employing over 200 people in their organization.
The venture supports rural women from Kerala by providing them with the necessary material to manufacture women’s innerwear for the company.
In old times when innerwear was a taboo to discuss in India, Sheila not only started a company but also spread its importance in rural areas of Kerala and provided the necessary employment to the women there.
She is truly revolutionary and inspiring to women all over the world.
Sabina is the co-founder of Yatra Online, a leading online company that provides travel services in India, the UK, and the US.
They offer flight deals, bus bookings, hotel stays, and holiday packages.
Sabina, an empowering woman entrepreneur in India, graduated from the University of Delhi with a degree in BA. She started her career as a Supervisor at Japan Airlines in 1991. She also worked as the Chief Operating Officer of Corporate Hotels before starting Yatra.
Sabina has won the Women in Leadership Excellence Award, Women Leader in Travel and Tourism, Women of the Decade, and many other awards.
Today, Yatra’s total funding is $87.5 million at a valuation of $218 million.
Sanna, one of the top entrepreneurs in India, is the founder and CEO of the company The Wedding Brigade, a venture focused on providing all the necessities for organizing a Big Fat Indian Wedding.
Sana was always of an entrepreneurial mind, for when she was studying at Brwon, she co-founded a restaurant discounting company for students.
The company became a huge success on campus and was declared the largest student-run enterprise on campus.
Sana visited India to attend a wedding when she came across all the unnecessary hassle involved in wedding planning due to a lack of on-hand service providers. Hence, she decided to bring a solution to the multi-million-dollar wedding business in India.
Until today, Wedding Brigade has raised a total funding of $3.97M at a valuation of $6.02M.
Shivani is one of the most successful businesswomen in India. She graduated from Hindu College and pursued her MBA at FMA.
She co-founded FabAlley and Indya with Tanvi Malik, who worked at Titan as a brand and product manager for high-end watches before starting this venture.
The company is a fashion brand that designs its products in-house. They provide various categories of items of clothing such as partywear, winter wear, co ords, dresses, and more.
It is said to be the 360-degree solution for all fashion emergencies in the life of today’s woman.
Upasana pursued her engineering at the National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar in Industrial Engineering.
She later completed her MS in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University, US.
Upasana started Mobikwik with Bipin. It is an online, mobile-friendly payment service provider and digital wallet.
Today, Mobikwik has 2.4 million active users and the company’s total funding is $181.2M at a valuation of $1B.
Upasana has received the Best Woman Entrepreneur Award in 2017. She is truly phenomenal and among the top inspiring women entrepreneurs in India.
While working as a marketing executive at BBC Entertainment India, Suchita discovered her love for exploring new cafes, restaurants, shopping centers, and anything and everything that spoke to her heart in Delhi.
This made her pursue the idea of LBB – Little Black Book, an online platform to explore local recommendations for food, shopping centers, eateries, and more in about 8 cities in India.
Today, LBB has over 4.5 million active users on a monthly average. Between 2015 and 2017, LBB’s user base swelled from 100,000 to over 1.5 million. “Our ad revenue has been growing between 50 percent and 80 percent year-on-year for the past three-four years,” says Salwan.
Suchita Salwan is one of the top women entrepreneurs in India working on a market need that is always growing. Her business idea is unique yet connects with her audience at a personal level giving them a chance to explore places to their fullest and spend their vacation days in bliss.
Ankita Sheth, one of the leading women entrepreneurs in India, is the co-founder of Vista Rooms along with two other male co-founders Pranav Maheshwari and Amit Damani, with the vision of providing luxury stay experiences. Vista Rooms or StayVista aims at providing luxurious villas for groups on vacations.
Today, the company employs over 300 people. It has over 500 curated listings to choose from. Their homes for your staycations are highly luxurious, aiming at providing an experience of a lifetime.
StayVista has been recognized by CondeNast Traveller in 2021 as the ‘Favourite Villa Rental Platform in India’. It has also won the MakeMyTrip Award by CondeNast Traveller in 2021 as the ‘Favourite Villa Rental Platform in India’.
Ankita has also won the Game Changer In Business award at HerZindagi’s WomenPreneur Awards among many others.
Aditi is the founder and CEO of V Resorts, an organization that aims at providing ‘real’ holiday experiences in India. It focuses on building sustainable and authentic resorts, hotels, and B&Bs and is known to deliver an authentic Indian holiday experience to each of its customers.
Currently, V Resorts offers over 80+ places to choose from across 16 states in India. V Resorts also helps the locals get employment opportunities through their venture, showcasing local handicrafts and cuisines. They also source each of their ingredients through the local vegetable markets, providing an increase in the sales of vendors while also offering an authentic Indian meal to their customers.
Aditi is the top women entrepreneur in India and has achieved Fortune 100 Most Powerful Women Asia 2017. She has won the Smart CEO Startup 50 & Safari India Best Professional in Hospitality.
Along with writing her own book, Aditi has written for YouStory, Times of India, and other big platforms to spread her knowledge and tell people about the enormously successful journey she’s had.
Talking about the top women entrepreneurs in India, one can not forget Neha Motwani, the founder, and CEO of Fitternity, a fitness platform and India’s largest so to say, to make bookings related to the fitness services provided.
Fitternity is yet another idea that has bloomed out of personal need and has helped people all over India. Her aim with the brand was to make fitness easily available to people from all walks of life and create an engaging community of fitness enthusiasts.
Today, Fitternity allows users to find, book, and buy over 30,000 fitness-related products and services across metro cities like Pune, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Delhi. One can easily browse all available fitness centers in the area, read product descriptions, list amenities in respective training centers, and more.
The users can also book a trial session to analyze if the service suits their requirements before signing up.
Thus, Fitternity is a unique platform that focuses on fitness and as the founder herself says, ‘Fitness becomes a priority goal for everyone!’ is their whole and sole motto.
Some of the top women entrepreneurs in India are Falguni Nayar, Kalpana Saroj, Vineeta Singh, Shahnaz Husain, Ghazal Alagh, and Vineeta Singh
Women entrepreneurs in India face challenges of gender bias, patriarchy, financial instability, and indifference from their families.
Women entrepreneurs in India can over these challenges by being headstrong, hardworking, believing in their dreams and goals, and fighting for their rights in the workplace.
Industries like wedding management, event management, beauty and cosmetics, ayurveda, and fashion. However, no matter which industry, today’s Indian women are successful and leading role models everywhere.
There are more than 15 million businesses owned by women which in turn provide employment to more than 25 million females in India. To say the least, women are the backbone of the Indian economy.
Thus, the women listed above are the epitome of success. These successful businesswomen inspire many others and prove that women in India can big it BIG by combining their specific knowledge and skillset with hard work and a vision for the future.
From these 55 stories, we can understand that being a woman entrepreneur comes with its own struggles, hardships, and sacrifices. However, cut-throat competition, a long-lasting vision and the curiosity to better the market with your product or service are what will make you the next success story on the internet.
A large part of India’s economy is generated from its successful women entrepreneurs and it is only a matter of time until even more women step into the game of business and we hear hundreds of other success stories.
Suraj Shrivastava at ForgeFusion shares simple, effective ways to grow your business using SEO, content marketing, and AI, learned from helping over 50 companies. When he's not working, he loves teaching others or watching documentaries.
