Women-led start-ups raised $23 bn in funding so far

As more and more women spearhead entrepreneurship, women-led 8,000 start-ups have raised $23 billion in funding so far, according to the latest report by Tracxn. The report says that of the $155 billion in funding received by the Indian-tech startups so far, women-led startups account for 14.8% of the overall tech funding pie. In the first two months of 2024, women-led startups raised $100 million in funding, close to $103 million raised in the first two months of 2023.

In the past decade, the share of funding raised by women-led startups has risen, accounting for more than 15% of the overall startup funding in the country from 2020 to 2022, as per the report. In 2023, 13% of the overall funding in the domestic tech space came from women-led startups with women-led startups securing $1.1 billion. In 2023, however, the funding into women-tech startups fell by 75% as against $4.5 billion in 2022.

"This downturn in funding was not confined to a specific sector or geography; rather, it occurred across diverse sectors and geographical locations," says the report.

"Due to funding winter and the global macroeconomic scenario, funding witnessed in 2023 in this space contributed to only 13% of the total funding in the region. On a global scale of startups with women founders, 2020 witnessed the highest funding contribution from domestic startups of almost 17%. 2020 witnessed $2.9 billion in funding from Indian Tech startups with women founders, against $17 billion raised by global tech startups with women founders," the report adds.

Notably, around 13.4% of the women-led startups have secured Series A funding and 3% have secured Series C stage funding or beyond. In 2023, the majority of funding was observed in the late-stage startups standing at $732 million. Late-stage funding in 2023, however, witnessed a decline of 86.4%, whereas the seed and early-stage funds declined by 60%.

Meanwhile, 22 acquisitions took place by women-led startups in 2023, witnessing a decline of 40% as against 37 acquisitions in 2022. In the first two months of 2024, 4 acquisitions took place. In 2023, three women-led startups—Honasa Consumer (Mamaearth), Yatra Online and Appetite Food—went public, the highest so far.

Amongst sectors, B2C (business-to-consumer) e-commerce takes the lead with 3,434 companies, followed by Internet first brands with 1,355 companies and SaaS (software-as-a-service) with 1,181.

In terms of regions, Delhi-NCR takes the lead accounting for the maximum number of women-led startups at 237, followed by Bengaluru and Mumbai. Meanwhile, Bengaluru witnessed the highest number of funding in women-led startups at $9.5 billion.