StrongHer Ventures and WeWork India partners to empower one million women entrepreneurs

By: WE Staff | Tuesday, 22 March 2022

WeWork India, a flexible workspace provider, has announced a partnership with StrongHer Ventures, India's and the world's first woman-focused venture capital firm, to establish 'Arise,' a programme meant to open doors for India's female entrepreneurial ecosystem.

WeWork Labs, WeWork's worldwide incubation and acceleration arm, and StrongHer Ventures will lead the association. Through a combination of competitive counselling, business support, community development, and broader societal impact, the initiative will assist women entrepreneurs.

StrongHer Ventures' significant investment skills and investor network are combined with WeWork Labs' global acceleration platform to form Arise.

Over the next five years, the initiative will engage with 5,000 companies, mentor 1000 entrepreneurs, and invest in over 100 startups.

It will have an impact on over a million women in India, resulting in a five-fold increase in funding for women entrepreneurs, a doubling of women leaders throughout the impacted group of women, and a 50% reduction in the pay gap. Arise intends to boost India's women-led economy by $1.5 billion (GDP).

Arise will provide women entrepreneurs with a variety of benefits, including knowledge sessions, bootcamps, sector experts, engaged mentoring, curated networking events, hiring drives, warm client connect, access to follow-on capital, and up to $1 million in perks, as part of the acceleration programme. Given the combined access, reach, and track record of StrongHer Ventures and WeWork Labs, Arise will provide hands-on portfolio assistance to the women-led ecosystem.

WeWork Labs' Growth Campus programme will also provide access to WeWork spaces at significantly reduced pricing.

The programme will bring together India's entire women-led/focused innovation ecosystem, including founders, talent, corporate leaders, investors, and mentors such as Kiran Mazumdar Shaw (Biocon), Kirthiga Reddy (WeWork), Deepak Parekh (HDFC Bank), Upasana Taku (MobiKwik), Neha Motwani (Fitternity/CureFit), Bhavna Suresh (10Club), Ganesh Natarajan (Ex Zensar), Anisha Patnaik (LexStart) and Avinash Vashistha (Former Chairman & MD, Accenture), among several other leaders.

“The Arise program by StrongHer Ventures and WeWork Labs is leading the way to triple the number of women entrepreneurs who get funded and increase women in leadership positions by 50%. Let’s arise and break the bias,” said Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, executive chairperson, Biocon & Biocon Biologics, commenting on the program. 

“WeWork Labs has always been uniquely capable of delivering ground-up impact because of WeWork India’s extensive physical presence across the country. This allows us to have our eyes on the ground in several micro-ecosystems, and engage with founders on a much deeper level. We are delighted to partner with StrongHer Ventures to leverage this access and reach to address the perennial issue of underrepresentation of women in the startup ecosystem. With StrongHer’s extensive track record and network, the aim of the partnership is to build a solid foundation for women-led and focused businesses in India and offer a combination of capital, acceleration, mentorship, customer and market access to high-potential women-led or women-focused startups going forward,” said Arvind Radhakrishnan, Head of Labs, WeWork India.

"We are engaging women leaders, investors, founders, professionals and corporates to build the most engaged community and ecosystem for women. Arise is uniquely positioned to accelerate growth and value with engaged mentors and sector experts and extensive focus on digital innovation, networking, partnerships, investor relations and business connections. We are proud to change the narrative and are confident of increasing the amount of funding to women entrepreneurs by 5x and impacting the number of women in leadership and entrepreneurial positions. The female economy is here and we are leading the change,” added Ankita Vashistha, founder and managing partner, StrongHer Ventures.