At Accenture, we believe in the potential of technology startup founders and entrepreneurs to create change that benefits society. In India, their innovation and creative thinking led to impactful solutions in fintech, edtech, healthtech, enterprise tech and more, and helped boost the economy through job creation and improved life outcomes for many.
However, the gender diversity gap in our tech startup ecosystem continues to hinder overall growth. Our numbers tell a story. In a recent Reserve Bank of India (RBI) survey on the Indian startup sector, only 6% of all Indian start-ups is women-only founded. Also, about 70% of startups in the country have less than 20% women in leadership roles. Why do so few female-led companies start, grow, and thrive in the world’s third-biggest startup hub?
Female-led companies received only 5.8 percent or $1.69 billion of the total startup investments granted to companies between January 2018 and June 2020. Of this, only 1.43 percent or $480 million went to startups with women-only founders. These percentages dropped even lower at the onset of the global crisis. In the first half of 2020, women-founded startups received $280 million in funding—this represented a 24 percent decrease in investments when compared to $369 million in the same period in 2019. For the period April-December of 2021, the money raised by women-led startups accounted for only 2.06 % of the total funds raised.
Several cultural and ecosystem constraints lie behind these numbers. Aspiring women entrepreneurs in India not only lack access to funds, they also experience limited government and industry support. Moreover, they struggle with finding female tech role models and other women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields to look to for ideas, motivation and inspiration.
Turning this around requires improving support for our female techpreneurs. Doing so changes the name of the game in the startup ecosystem for women.
To create a more supportive ecosystem for women tech founders and entrepreneurs, we need to take more steps to break gender constraints and stereotypes. The time to turbocharge their rise is now as we look to build a new and better normal.
All members and stakeholders in the ecosystem, including government and industry bodies as well as investors, have important roles in enabling our female changemakers’ advance. Corporates, in particular, possess the resources and expertise necessary to enhance women entrepreneurs’ access to new markets, networks, mentorship and technology know-how.
Accenture promotes and supports the drive toward greater gender diversity and inclusion—in our company and across our value chain, which includes our tech startup partners. To help accelerate the advancement of women as leaders and founders in the tech ecosystem, Accenture is launching the Women Founders Program, a first-of-its-kind initiative by Accenture in India. Anchored by Accenture Open Innovation, the program aims to help address the diversity gap by providing funding to women-founded Deep Tech & Enterprise SaaS startups.
The program will award early-stage, women-led technology startups with an equity-free grant of USD 60,000. It will also connect the winning female founders to Accenture leaders and experts and ecosystem partners. It aims to help pave their way to greater success through access to tech expertise, global & Indian clientele, mentorship, industry and investor communities and new markets.
Seize the opportunity to be part of the Women Founders Program. Check out our requirements below to know if you qualify.
To be eligible for the program, women entrepreneurs must be:
Your company must be:
Eligible to participate in our program? Fill out our application form on or before March 14, 2022.
Applicants will be shortlisted and selected by leaders from Accenture and the ecosystem on the basis of product differentiation, disruptability quotient, leveraging of deep technologies, commercial viability and founder profile.
View our timelines below.
