India's Women led Startups Funding Drop by 24%: MAKERS India

By: WE Team | Friday, 30 October 2020

The novel coronavirus has affected the funding for women-founded and co-founded startups in India dropped by 24 percent to $280 million in the first half of 2020 as compared to $369 million last year. The funding has declined across all three stages- early, growth, and late, according to a report released by MAKERS India.

The report titled, “The State of Women in Tech Entrepreneurship in India 2020” has further hinted the many women-led startups have scaled down their operations or pivoted their business models to stay afloat amid the pandemic.

Some women who are owning apparel startups has branched out to manufacturing protective face mask and PPE kits. On the contrary, the startup led by a minimum of one woman founder could secure 71 funding deals in H1 2020, at par with H1 2019 (70 deals) and H1 2018 (70 deals).

The report has been carried out by interviewing around 100 women tech entrepreneurs across sectors and cities in India, independent research, and analysis of data for the period between January 2018 and June 2020.

Furthermore, the research has also highlighted that there has been a phenomenal rise by 11 times in the number of women entrepreneurs in tech in the last decade (2010- 2020). Also, the startups led by women in India currently holds 285 positions.

From 1990 and 2010, the country has just 26 women-led startups. However, 75 startups added a minimum of at least one woman founder by 2014 and raised to 184 by 2019.

The overall funding raised by tech startups led by women founders only remains minuscule just 1.43 percent that makes $480 across 80 deals between the period January 2018 and June 2020. While at the same period, the funding raised by at least one woman founder startup accounted for only 5.77 percent that makes $1.69 billion across 378 deals of the total funding.

But, the women entrepreneurs in tech are exploring unconventional methods and male-dominated sectors such as cleantech, hyperlocal, Saas, Paas, space tech, online games, and sports. These trends are evolved despite the pandemic as the investors are trying their luck in these niche areas.

As the fintech and financial services are sectors that raised the highest amount in funding and saw the most number of deals by women entrepreneurs between January 2018 and June 2020, edtech has been a top gainer in terms of funding in H1 2020.