Access to special women's fund can help struggling shepreneurs in India to scale up business

In a panel to discuss ‘Promoting Women Entrepreneurship: Empowering the Economy’, which was attended by Rajan Anandan, MD of Sequoia Capital, Anita George, executive VP of CDPQ India, Nivrutti Rai, India Head of Intel Corporation, fashion designer Ritu Kumar, and moderated by Pamaja Ruparel, co-founder and President of Indian Angel Network, issues concerning women entrepreneurship were discussed.

Ruparel opened the forum citing various reports that draw a sorry picture on the representation of women in the business world.

Asked on their thoughts about what they think results in such poor representation:


George said, "Our global experience shows that most countries have seen emergence of women solopresnuers and they often feel the lack of a network and a dedicated pool of capital to help them tide over funding issues. We at the CDPQ have a special fund called 25cube of $250 million which is only for women centric businesses. Hence an incubator or accelerator model will surely help catalyse women entrepreneurship in India".

Kumar said, "I would not be able to talk about the formal sector but from my experience from so many decades, I have realised that the entrepreneurs and women in the rural India, who have inherited unique crafts and culture of India often find it difficult to scale up as there is lack of funding and market reach. Besides, I have been in different fora trying to highlight the need to promote local manufacturers and be protectionist and ban cheaper Chinese products that affect these small craftsmen".

Anandan said, "In my so many years of experience, we have seen that not enough women come to raise funds. Out of the total 36 unicorns that India has created, only two are by women co-founders. And of all the companies that are valued at $500 million, only 5% have women founders. Women founders often struggle with the same issues as male founders go through. They need help regarding team building, funding and getting the right product market fit. We have an ongoing program that is targeted towards women entrepreneurs called ‘Spark’."

Rai said, "I feel we should not rely only on the government to create infrastructure to provide the 833 million rural population who have no access to the world market. We as privileged private citizens should also take it upon ourselves to help them with skilling and provide tech platforms for them to scale up their business".