Womentum 2026 Powers Women Founders' Growth Beyond Metros

By: WE staff

NSRCEL, the startup incubator of IIM Bangalore, in association with Kotak Mahindra Bank, unveiled Womentum 2026, a national platform aimed at supporting and empowering women-led entrepreneurship, with a focus on founders beyond metropolitan cities.

Held on 26 Feb, in Bengaluru, Womentum 2026 brought together founders, investors, CSR leaders and ecosystem partners to strengthen women-led entrepreneurship in India. The event focused on building long-term support systems rather than short-term interventions.

Anand Sri Ganesh, CEO, NSRCEL, emphasized the importance of enabling women founders from diverse geographies to access innovation networks: “The long tail of entrepreneurship is where the most exciting and diverse innovation happens. We work with founders in towns you can barely plot on a map, and their ideas are no less transformative than those in metros.”

Himanshu Nivsarkar, Sr EVP & Head – CSR & ESG, Kotak Mahindra Bank, highlighted the institution’s long-term commitment to sustainable support: “Programs like this aim to increase the number of women-led enterprises that qualify on merit where providing capital is not a favor, but a strong business decision. The effort is to build businesses to that level.”

Data Indicating Women-founders’ Success

A major highlight of the event was the release of the Women Startup Program (WSP) 3 and 4 Monitoring & Evaluation Report. The data showcased outstanding results with 478 women entrepreneurs achieving incubator success and 68 percent of ventures showing yearly revenue increases and 57 percent of businesses reaching revenue levels between ₹1 lakh and ₹25 lakh and the top 20 percent of enterprises exceeding ₹25 lakh in revenue. The data shows that women-led businesses are successfully establishing their enterprises while increasing their revenue and growth.

Thought Provoking Panel Discussions

The panel on resilience and scaling featured leaders such as Srividhya Srinivasa, Co-founder of Amagi, Madhurima Agarwal, AI transformation leader, Ex Managing Director, Microsoft for Startups India and Samhita R, Founder of Resilience AI. The experts presented their insights about advancing from 0 to 1 and then from 1 to 10 and finally beyond.

The discussion showed that belief in the problem and the right co-founders and clear purpose are necessary for success during initial business stages. Companies must develop their capacity to operate faster while making precise judgments and establishing efficient operational frameworks. They emphasized that while “jugaad” can help founders move forward in the beginning, long-term growth requires structured systems. Culture was described as something that must be lived daily through authenticity, vulnerability and customer-first thinking.

The leaders also spoke about raising funds with clarity; capital should strengthen durability and scale, not just fuel growth without direction. AI was identified as a major shift that founders must understand and adopt thoughtfully to improve productivity and innovation.

The event included discussions about how women translate global SDGs to create local2effect and the identification of upcoming startup trends which will define the next decade and the transition from grant funding to growth capital for MSMEs. The sessions shared a message which stated that corporate partners should work together with incubators and investors and policymakers to create a comprehensive entrepreneurial ecosystem which includes all business sectors.

Empowering Young Female Founders

Founder interactions added strong practical insights to the event. Komal Jaiswal of Greenaffir shared that platforms like Womentum help women founders gain access to mentors, financial knowledge and growth strategies that are often hard to find early on. She mentioned that being part of such a network reduces isolation and helps founders think bigger and build more scalable businesses.

Shweta Runwal of Tickle Your Art said the event created a supportive space where women could openly discuss real challenges. She explained that listening to other founders’ journeys builds confidence and courage. According to her, initiatives like this give emerging women leaders visibility, credibility and the right connections to grow faster.

Womentum 2026 highlighted women founders need strong support, access to funding, and community connections to grow confidently and sustainably.