Women-led XR startups to receive funding from Accenture

By: WE Staff | Friday, 11 February 2022

Accenture, one of the world's top four consulting firms, has announced the creation of a Women Founders' Programme to provide capital, global customer bases, networking, upskilling, education, and mentorship resources to women-led digital businesses in India.

According to the source, the effort would support women with early-stage tech firms in the business-to-business (B2B) sector.

The chair chairperson and managing director at Accenture in India, Rekha M. Menon said, “thrilled to announce the launch of Women Founders Program, enabling women entrepreneurs in India with equal access to funding, expansion of mentorship channels and support networks”.

it said “the programme aims to facilitate women-led firms developing emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), extended reality (XR), big data, internet of things (IoT), cloud computing, Web 3.0, and the rising communications platform known as the Metaverse”.

It further stated that the initiative sought to provide funding for female entrepreneurs as well as a network with global industry leaders by providing crucial mentorship and guiding resources from Accenture's senior leadership as well as tech enterprises throughout its ecosystem.

It further said that qualifying entrepreneurs will receive $60,000 equity-free grants, and that “by providing the fund as an equity free grant, we are enabling women founders to address their most pressing problems without worrying about giving up a stake in their company at an early stage itself”

The announcement comes after The Dublin-based IT company discovered a huge funding gap for women entrepreneurs and other diversity programmes around the country.

Accenture referenced a recent Reserve Bank of India (RBI) report that revealed a large gender diversity gap, stating that women established just 6% of all businesses on the subcontinent and held only 20% of leadership roles in around 70% of all firms in India.

The report also revealed considerable disparities in women-led startup funding, with just 5.8% of investments totaling $1.69 billion USD received between January 2018 and June 2020.

Women-led firms got just 1.43 percent of overall industry financing, or $480 million USD. According to the report, the current COVID-19 epidemic reduced financing for women-led digital businesses by 24%, or $280 million, in the first half of 2020, compared to $369 million USD the previous year.

In a statement, Avinish Sabharwal, Managing Director of Accenture Open Innovation in India, said, “I believe more women should step forward to break barriers toward entrepreneurship in tech. Companies should commit to helping them find their feet, as there’s never been a greater need for tech innovation as we look to rebuild a post-pandemic world”

The worldwide XR community, where multiple corporations have established initiatives to support inclusion in the industry, has witnessed a growth in financing options for women and gender diversity groups.

With support from Verizon Wireless, the Women's Extended Reality Fund (WXR Fund) has launched investments to help female entrepreneurs in comparable industries.

Around 26 firms signed up for the project, which intends to disrupt the XR entertainment, healthcare, education, and retail sectors, and raised $5 million in Series A funding for the group's portfolio.