Meet 10 trailblazing, inspiring Indian women entrepreneurs

They know doing that nightshift at a warehouse may be next to impossible. They know what the social expectations are. They know the kids will be waiting at home. Being a woman and running a startup in India can’t be easy.

But they still love what they do.

Yes, many of them work in spaces associated with women, like lingerie, menstrual hygiene, and jewelry. But many also work in typically male domains like industrial supplies, bike taxis, and car rentals.

Being a female entrepreneur is not very different from being a male entrepreneur. That’s what 10 women told us boldly when we asked.

Here’s what they said about their journey:

Neha Kant, Clovia

 

Neha is out to redefine the Indian lingerie market and passionately believes that innerwear need not be drab or boring. Meet the woman who founded online lingerie shopping brand Clovia, which claims to get over 1.5 million monthly visitors.

But it couldn’t have been easy to do so, for someone who was the daughter of an engineer and was pretty much surrounded by engineers all the time. Neha refused to be one though. She studied management and started her career at an ad agency. Clovia came about in 2012.

Today she wants to reset the whole process of finding and buying innerwear, especially in India’s US$3 billion market. If the 250,000 monthly shipments are anything to go by, she is getting there fast.

See: India lingerie estore Clovia bags funding to take its bras and panties global

Sairee Chahal, Sheroes

See: Sheroes helps Indian women get back into the workforce

Sakshi Vij, Myles

Divya Kalia, Bikxie

See: Meet the women whose motorcycle taxis are taking an Indian city by storm

Ankita Jain, GoPaisa

See: Indian cashback sites, tighten your seatbelts! Here comes a Singapore startup.

Swati Gupta, IndustryBuying

See: 4 startups scaling up in India

Aditi Awasthy, Embibe

See: How Embibe aims to score higher with 100Marks in its bag

Radhika Aggarwal, ShopClues

See: Meet Radhika Aggarwal, the first woman in India’s unicorn club.

Saroja Yeramilli, Melorra

See: She won a $5m check from a VC with just a shiny new idea. Here’s how

Suhani Mohan, Saral Designs

See: India’s taboo over menstruating women has to end. Period