SLB:U Empowers 100,000 Indian Women Entrepreneurs

By: WE staff | Tuesday, 7 October 2025

• She Leads Bharat:Udyam (SLB:U) assisted 100,000 women entrepreneurs in India
• It is operated by Mastercard Strive, Frontier Markets, and Airtel Payments Bank
• The project began in 2023 and aims to assist rural women entrepreneurs

She Leads Bharat:Udyam (SLB:U), a Mastercard Strive partnership with the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and deployed by Frontier Markets and Airtel Payments Bank, hit a milestone by empowering 100,000 women entrepreneurs in India.

Launched in 2023 with the aim of developing rural entrepreneurship and making available critical products and services such as financial instruments, consumer commodities, and agriculture inputs.

Launched initially in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, SLB:U has expanded to five states, Andhra Pradesh included. Women entrepreneurs diversified their revenues through Frontier Markets' Meri Saheli platform.

Micro and small businesses in the program saw their income triple in six months. Those deployed for more than a year were generating an average of ₹1,300 each month on platform sales, with platform sales overall growing almost 25 times on account of increased product categories.

Gautam Aggarwal, Mastercard's President for South Asia, highlighted that empowering entrepreneurs is a key growth driver for India. He noted that the initiative he referred to illustrates how vision and action can enable women to lead community development, and economic resilience.

Subhashini Chandran, Sr. Vice President, Asia Pacific, at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, noted that equipping women with the tools, networks and capital, does not only enable the growth of women’s businesses, but also builds local economies and communities, particularly for underserved communities.

Ajaita Shah, CEO and Founder, Frontier Markets, elaborated on reaching 100,000 women across five states, evidence of multisector collaboration.

Through the help of Mastercard and Frontier Markets' rural presence, the program is establishing a sustainable ecosystem that increases income, formal credit access, and market integration for women entrepreneurs.

The program is also shifting to a self-sustaining model, curtailing dependence on philanthropic support and facilitating access to working capital through returnable grants and bank lending. SLB:U has the target of empowering one million women entrepreneurs by 2030 and helping to achieve economic growth and resilience in rural India.