Today’s world has become an active market place for entrepreneurs. Each day, we come across many start-ups looking for investors and some do get successful. But the question is how many women entrepreneurs can find investors? It has been concluded from the data of the year 2016 that there was about $2 Billion investment into start-ups from which only 3% start-ups were owned by women.
How healthy is the start-up ecosystem for women entrepreneurs
The issue we will discuss today with our readers is that are start-up investors gender-biased? Indian is a country which seems to promote gender equality, but the question is, “are we actually liberating”? I am sure that almost 99% of our readers will give a nod for disagreement.
Start-ups and entrepreneurs are increasing in their numbers day by day, but are the number of investors investing in women startups increasing? When we reached out to some of the established and struggling women entrepreneurs in our country, we were given answers such as, mostly the investors are not confident enough to trust a woman’s idea and invest in their start-up, the startups initiated by women are not considered seriously, and the list of such gender biased reasons by investors can continue to several pages.
Women being used as puppets for start-ups
Apart from the above-mentioned struggles and gender-bias women face in the start-up industry, another thing which seemed very common and was mentioned by many women entrepreneurs was that it is most of the times that women are considered just the face of the start-up and not the back-bone of the same. By this mean that there are many investors in the ecosystem of start-ups which are looking for such business, which have a face of a woman, but the complete business is run and managed by men from the backhand.
In case, if you are wondering what could be the possible reasons behind doing this, then we would like to bring the reason to the notice of our readers. These days our Indian government has launched many business loan schemes and other benefiting plans for start-ups managed by women. However, the actual aim behind this idea was to initiate the participation of women in the business world, but it seems to not sink in with the present scenarios. Potential male entrepreneurs are going to the extent of making women the leading face for their start-up just to wipe off the benefits given by the banks and government.
Are there any start-ups which are managed only by women?
This is another debatable fact about the start-up ecosystem of our country. In India or we can say throughout the world, it is very difficult to come across a start-up which is solely operated by women without having a major contribution or support from a male.
Current start-up ecosystem for women entrepreneurs
Despite having so many loopholes such as gender bias, women being used as the face of start-ups and what now, some of the women entrepreneurs of India have managed to come out of this vicious circle with flying colors.
The team of Inventiva celebrates the success of every women entrepreneur and appreciated all the efforts they have put in to reach this stage in their life.
