The Billion Dollar Brunch in Bangalore was a tremendous success! We were thrilled to launch our signature convening in India with the support of Dell Technologies, DWEN and all our ecosystem partners.
Women, Wealth & Legacy: Fueling Women-Led Innovation & Driving Alpha
Our theme this year is based on what we believe to be a historic opportunity to change the course of investments in women-founded companies. While it has been reported that female founders in India face funding discrimination receiving only 4.5% of total funding, we believe a shift is on the horizon.
The Boston Consulting Group predicts India’s Great Wealth Transfer will be worth $4.6 trillion between 2018 and 2027 — how will these investors maximize the impact of their investment dollars? What is the landscape for female founders, and the funds that invest in them; in India? What else needs to be done?
Some Key Takeaways:
India’s Rise — an Opportunity for Female Founders & Funds That Invest In Them
Despite the attention-grabbing headlines and record levels of venture funding in India, it should be noted that the venture ecosystem is still relatively nascent. While real challenges exist, this presents an opportunity to reframe the narrative for women in the VC ecosystem— something investors around the table were eager to address.
Yet unfortunately, a glaring statistic is the rising gap in funding women-led startups in India at 4.5%
Why? Issues were raised from cultural nuances that informed gender stereotypes, pervasive biases and systemic barriers. With the female labor force participation rate at 37%, and only 17% of enterprises in India led by women, there’s more work to be done to unleash the power of women entrepreneurs in India.
As was duly noted, funding for women-founded and co-founded companies continues to lag: In 2023, India’s women founders faced funding discrimination, with only 163 out of 799 deals going to ventures with female founders. Female-founded ventures raised $300 million out of $6646 million total funding or 4.5%. Yet, a change is underway.
Still, opportunity exists per Traxn, which contradicts 4.5% data point:
Growth in startups by women:
India home to 8,000 women-led tech startups, Delhi-NCR tops list: Tracxn
India has produced more than 8,000 tech-based startups with women founders, which have raised nearly $23 billion till date, a report by data platform Tracxn revealed on Thursday. According to the data, India tech startups have raised an impressive $155 billion in total funding, with women-led startups capturing 14.8 per cent share of the overall tech funding pie.
Of the 8,000 startups, 2,316 have received funding till date. The data showed that nearly 6,000 firms are unfunded, of which 590 companies have a revenue of more than $30,000.
When it comes to talent, India continues to be a great marketplace for talent today and has a triple A advantage: Age, Access and Aspiration:
Age: India is the youngest country in the world;
Access: More than 86.8 per cent youngsters in the age group of 14-18 years in the country are enrolled in educational institutions and more than half of them opt for the humanities stream, according to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER).
Aspiration: India’s silent youth crisis: Two-thirds of India’s unemployed youth are educated — a fraction which has doubled since 2000. One question gnaws at its future: If education can’t get you a job, is it even worth it? And is entrepreneurship the answer to a more prosperous future?
Agency — a Foundational Issue to be Addressed
At the core, investors shared that women in India today still lack agency in decision-making: while a study (Axis Mutual Fund) revealed 72% of women were making investment decisions in their families; this was disputed in reality by attendees. Despite the large sample size of more than 1100 investors participated, the subset could only represent less than 20% of women PAN-india – who invested in mutual fund. Open conversations and education around wealth and influence within a family is still lacking in India across social classes.
The pipeline of women as investors, as GPs and LPs is still lacking where too few are aware of the possibility of the career path in a male-dominated industry. Role models must be created, and concerted efforts are needed to expand opportunities for women to play a more influential role in investments.
The Rise of Family Offices and Surge of Wealth
The number of family offices today has risen to 300; compared to 45 in 2018— and family office capital plays a crucial role as patient capital. Especially in Bangalore where wealth is built on tech and entrepreneurship, there is an openness to invest in innovation— a prime opportunity for a gender lens to be applied.
Could Women Investors Help Address the persistent gender-venture funding gap?
Top 10 Women Investors to Watch Out For in 2024-25: Three of India’s top women investors, Aarti Gupta, Vani Kola, Archana Jahagirdar joined us at our Billion Dollar Brunch sharing their insights. Additionally, storied Silicon Valley firms Lightspeed and General Catalyst (GC) emphasized how India remains a key market in the global landscape, with GC recently acquiring Venture Highway and committing $1 billion to invest in India.
With the great wealth transfer estimated to exceed $4.2trillion, engaging women investors is key to solving the gender venture funding gap.
Men, especially returns-first investors, can be our allies, too, given the long-standing data on women outperforming per dollar invested. A framework BTB calls “The Five Bs” for identifying potential male investors for women-founded startups:
The “Five Bs” framework (Brother, Buddy, Buyer, ex-Boss, Banker) provides a model for women to engage male allies who can support their ventures by leveraging their connections and networks. This collaborative approach is key to breaking down the gender-venture funding gap and ensuring women-led businesses can thrive. Encouraging partnerships across gender lines is essential in transforming the investment landscape for women founders.
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Some moments from the event:
In Partnership with Dell Technologies & Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network
About The Organizers
Dell Women’s Entrepreneur’s Network — join the network that helps you advance your business. For more than a decade, the Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network (DWEN) has brought women entrepreneurs together from around the world to help them connect with each other, scale their businesses, and ultimately succeed. The DWEN community welcomes all levels of entrepreneurs, from start-ups to scale-ups. Joining DWEN will give you access to women entrepreneurs from around the world and valuable resources to grow your business – including the latest technology, access to funding resources, and best practices from a global network of members.
Beyond The Billion— is the world’s first and largest consortium of venture funds pledged to invest over $1Bn into women-founded companies. Beyond the Billion’s (BTB) first pledge campaign was launched as The Billion Dollar Fund for Women in October 2018 with an audacious goal of catalyzing $1 billion into the hands of women founders globally, addressing the gender venture investment gap where women were receiving only 2.2% of all venture capital funding. In under 2 years, $638 million of the first billion pledged was deployed by our partner funds into close to 800 women-founded companies, of which 11 have been recognized as unicorns— from Canva to EverlyWell. To continue to build on this momentum, we launched Beyond The Billion, to catalyze capital deployed to and with these venture funds, ensuring their continued capacity to invest by bridging LPs and GPs, building a community of institutional investors, sovereign funds, IFIs, DFIs, family offices, wealth managers and high net worth individuals; driving the agenda collectively.
In Partnership with Dell Technologies & Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network
About The Organizers
Dell Women’s Entrepreneur’s Network — join the network that helps you advance your business. For more than a decade, the Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network (DWEN) has brought women entrepreneurs together from around the world to help them connect with each other, scale their businesses, and ultimately succeed. The DWEN community welcomes all levels of entrepreneurs, from start-ups to scale-ups. Joining DWEN will give you access to women entrepreneurs from around the world and valuable resources to grow your business – including the latest technology, access to funding resources, and best practices from a global network of members.
Beyond The Billion— is the world’s first and largest consortium of venture funds pledged to invest over $1Bn into women-founded companies. Beyond the Billion’s (BTB) first pledge campaign was launched as The Billion Dollar Fund for Women in October 2018 with an audacious goal of catalyzing $1 billion into the hands of women founders globally, addressing the gender venture investment gap where women were receiving only 2.2% of all venture capital funding. In under 2 years, $638 million of the first billion pledged was deployed by our partner funds into close to 800 women-founded companies, of which 11 have been recognized as unicorns— from Canva to EverlyWell. To continue to build on this momentum, we launched Beyond The Billion, to catalyze capital deployed to and with these venture funds, ensuring their continued capacity to invest by bridging LPs and GPs, building a community of institutional investors, sovereign funds, IFIs, DFIs, family offices, wealth managers and high net worth individuals; driving the agenda collectively.
