The Reserve Bank of India’s Innovation Hub (RBIH) subsidiary on Thursday conducted an event in collaboration with mysaltapp and FICCI Women’s Organization, where it released a white paper titled ‘Take the Steer: Women Entrepreneurs Transforming Central India’.
The White Paper highlighted the relatively low level of funding for women entrepreneurs in tier 2 and tier 3 cities.
“The lack of gender-disaggregated data is a major barrier. This white paper shows that only 3% of tier 2 and 3 women entrepreneurs have access to external funding. ” said Rajesh Bansal, CEO of Innovation Hub.
Speaking at the event, he said, “When women build products, their thinking is tied to what women want. When men build cars, they only think about how they will use the car. , and not necessarily how women use it. We’re passionate about promoting female entrepreneurship and women in fintech at scale… This study examines anecdotal and scattered data. Even if you are a talented woman and want to enter the fintech field, men may be hesitant to fund you.”
The paper also highlights other data on the current state of access to women entrepreneurs in India. For example, only about 20 per cent of MSMEs in India are led by women, and the majority are sole proprietorships. Of these, 5.2 percent of small businesses are led by women, and 2.6 percent of medium-sized businesses are led by women.
The newspaper also notes that women in India will end up taking on the lion’s share of family caregiving responsibilities, with 86% of women relocating for marriage, and tier 2 and 3 cities compared to tier 1 cities. It also highlighted the lack of scalable employment opportunities compared to cities and some second-tier cities.
The event also featured two panel discussions. One was titled “Ride the Train to Central India” hosted by Shinjini Kumar, co-founder of SALT, Deepa Muthukumaraswamy, founder of First Spoon, and Paroma Chatterjee, CEO of Revolut India. Shraddha Jindal, co-director of Jindal, took the stage. SO LIMITED.
The second event, “Discussion on the capital-data gap,” hosted by Shilpa Rao of Innovation Hub, featured Bindu Ananth, co-founder of Dovara Holdings, and Anuradha Ramachandran, partner at TVS Capital Fund. Mr. Geetha Manjunath, co-founder and CEO, took the stage. NIRAMAI Health Analytix
© Indian Express Private Limited
Date first uploaded: April 5, 2024 14:24 IST
