by Suman Gupta
Bengaluru, May 2nd 2024: Merely 3% of women entrepreneurs in tier 2 and 3 cities in India, out of 300 surveyed, had access to external funding such as bank loans or equity investments, to start or expand their businesses, according to a whitepaper by the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH) in collaboration with SALT-mysaltapp, released during an event hosted by FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO).
The whitepaper titled ‘At the Helm: Women Entrepreneurs Transforming Middle India’, was aimed at understanding the complex socio-economic dynamics affecting women’s entrepreneurship in Middle India, defined as tier 2 and 3 cities. The study was conducted with the participation of 300 women across 30 cities to shed light on the ‘invisible’ women entrepreneurs of rapidly growing Middle India.
Apart from the vast gap in financing for these women-led ventures, the whitepaper found a severe information gap due to the lack of gender-disaggregated data.
“The lack of gender-disaggregated data presents a significant barrier to improving women’s access to financial services. This whitepaper shows that only 3% of women entrepreneurs, from a sample size of 300, have access to external funding. We hope this research serves as a base for financial institutions to identify problem statements and craft gender-intentional financial products, enabling frictionless finance for a billion Indians,” said Rajesh Bansal, CEO, RBIH, during the event.
The event brought together entrepreneurs, policymakers, financial institutions and mentorship platforms for a panel discussion on the subject of financing and data gaps in women’s entrepreneurship in India. The panellists included Paroma Chatterjee, CEO, Revolut India, Anuradha Ramachandran, Managing Partner, TVS Capital Funds, Bindu Ananth, Chair and Co-founder and Managing Trustee, Dvara Holdings, Geetha Manjunath, Founder, CEO and CTO, NIRAMAI Health Analytix, Shraddha Jindal, Joint Managing Director, Jindal Saw Limited and Deepa Muthukumarswamy, Founder, First Spoon and was moderated by Shinjini Kumar, Co-founder, SALT-mysaltapp and Shilpa Rao, Gender and Finance Lead, RBIH.
The discussions and the whitepaper highlighted the need to make the financial system responsive to care gaps, or pauses in women’s careers due to caregiving responsibilities, late success, and low asset ownership.
