Top 10 Women Entrepreneurs In India

"There is no limit to what we, as women, can accomplish."
-Michelle Obama

Entrepreneurship has always been considered as a man’s job, but long gone is that era where women were only restricted to play the role of a home-maker and rear children. Today’s women have not only broken these stereotypes but have also taken a step into the men’s world, who are doing an excellent job for themselves and are reaching greater heights. Here are 10 rising and successful women entrepreneurs in India who have accomplished to make their start-ups as successful companies:

• NYKAA:

Falguni Nayar

Shopping can get very tiring, and especially shopping for make-up. We girls are so particular about the exact lipstick shade, the nail polish colours, the make-up brands that we want and sometimes we end up not finding it in the stores we go, your go to solution is Nykaa. Nykaa is an online beauty platform for all the women out there, Falguni Nayar is the Founder and CEO of the company. Falguni is an IIM Graduate and has 25 years of work experience in the financing arena for different companies. She started NYKAA in the year 2012 and within no time the e-commerce beauty app had become very popular and created a lot of hype amongst the women, the brand already had partnership with famous brands like L’oreal, Uniliver, P&G etc. Today, the brand has made a name for itself such that it is preferred by most girls, women and now even has a men’s store. The app has made shopping much easier for women and now all the products are just a click away. Nykaa has become offline as well, for those people who prefer buying it in stores.

• Zivame:

Richa Kar

Zivame is an online lingerie store which caters to the variety of lingerie options open to women. Richa Kar is the founder and CEO of Zivame and it was launched in the year 2011. We all are hesitant to buy lingerie in stores because of judgy looks given to us by the salesperson and sometimes we aren’t able to convey what exactly we need, which is where Zivame comes into the picture. The main idea was to save women from the embarrassment and unwanted attention from the opposite sex. Zivame has made lingerie shopping so much easier, with the un-numerable varieties that they have to offer in the products as well as in different sizes. Zivame is one of a unique company in its domain and manages to dominate lingerie shopping than any other company. Today, Zivame offers more than 5,000 styles, 50 brands, and 100 sizes. So, the next time lingerie shopping? Just Zivame!

• Yatra.com:

Sabina Chopra

Most of us here love travelling, and anyone who loves travelling will be very familiar with Yatra.com. Yatra was co-founded by Sabina Chopra and two other members- Dhruv Shingri and Manish Amin in 2006. Yatra is an online travel agency and search engine which provides travelling services to people.Yatra.com offers a variety of packages with all charges covered and has a user-friendly interface. Sabina being the co-founder of the company has quite some experience in the travel domain, before Yatra.com Sabina had worked in companies like, eBookers which is Europe’s leading travel company and has also worked in the BPO sector in Japan Airlines. Sabina knew quite a lot about the protocols and how the online travel companies’ function, which is why Yatra.com was introduced in India because the online service for travelling still hadn’t developed by then. Sabina was honoured in the second annual Women Leaders in India Awards, 2010 and was declared the winner in the Travel & Tourism group. Today, Yatra is one of the leading travel companies in India and has many loyal customers.

• Chumbak:

Shubra Chadda

We all travel and meet new people at new places and tend to buy something from there as a souvenir back home. Indian souvenirs had become boring with the usual monuments and handicrafts and that is when Chumbak was born. Chumbak was founded by Shubra Chadda and Vivek Prabhakar, because they wanted to bring in a modern and quirky touch to the India souvenirs. Chumbak was started as a souvenir store but now has become a whole new brand and a successful company owing it to its products. The main objective of Chumbak was to bring out another side or meaning to India’s craft and products, the funky and eye-catching crafts have made chumbak what it is today, Chumbak has become a very popular brand especially amongst the young Indians and can be seen in almost all the shopping malls across India. Today this quirky brand has over 120 retail stores all across the country and Shubra Chadda is one of the most innovative women entrepreneurs in India. The next time you something funky and cool, you know where it is from.

• Freshmenu:

Rashmi Daga 

We all are a big fan when it comes to food and FreshMenu has managed to become a household name today. Rashmi Daga is the Founder and CEO of FreshMenu and it was started in the year 2014. She is an IIM Graduate in MBA, and has worked in companies like IBM India, Johnson and Johnson, Ola and BlueStone. Today, we all have a variety of restaurant apps delivering food to our houses but a few years back the number of restaurants delivering food were very limited which is when Rashmi thought about coming up something new and FreshMenu happened. FreshMenu is an online kitchen serving people cuisines from around the world. It was first started in Bangalore and then went on to Delhi and Mumbai. FreshMenu has many satellite kitchens every 5 kilometres within the city to cater to the cravings of people. FreshMenu was first started as an independent delivering app but today we can also see it on other delivering app platforms like Zomato and Swiggy. The company approximately makes an annual revenue of $17.6 million dollars.

• LimeRoad:

Suchi Mukherjee

Suchi Mukherjee is the Founder and CEO of LimeRoad.com. Suchi is a master graduate in Economics and Finance from the London School of Economics. Suchi has worked for Lehman Brothers Inc and Virgin Media on the front. She wanted to create something of her own which would create an impact on the society and this is when the idea of creating a platform dominantly for women struck her and she came up with LimeRoad. LimeRoad is a platform used by women to share and buy clothes and accessories, they keep up with the latest fashion and trends, share their personal experiences and most importantly buy clothes. The main aim of Suchi was to create a platform for selling products at an affordable price. LimeRoad is unique in its own way and is loved by most women across the country.

• Shop Clues:

Radhika Ghai Aggarwal

Radhika Aggarwal is the co-founder of shop clues which is also known as the “India’s Online Bazaar”. Radhika Aggarwal has been the most successful women entrepreneur in the recent years and she also refers to herself as an “accidental entrepreneur”. She believes in “making her today better than her yesterday, by taking small steps towards it”. She started her career with Fashion Clues and then became a co-founder of Shop Clues, having an experience of 16 years in various industries like E-commerce, Advertising, Lifestyle, PR and Fashion. Radhika is a great entrepreneur who also believes in women empowerment, she urges women to fight for their rights and demand an equal pay as well. She recently joined the Unicorn Club. Shop Clues has recently launched an AD Zone, which helps sellers in getting visibility and as a platform for business amongst them. She believes that “Hard work is an outcome of passion. If you’re passionate, you will work towards achieving results and success will follow.”

• Mobikwik:

Upasana Taku

Upasana Taku co-founded Mobikwik with her husband Bipin Preet Singh. Upasana holds a MS in Management and Science Engineering from Stanford University, US. She started her job in HSBC and then later on shifted to PayPal and learnt more about payment gateway. Upasana wanted to go back to India and do something there, hence she shifted back in 2009 and was on the lookout to start a business in India. At that time, India didn’t have a cashless society and all the payments were carried out in the form of cash, this idea initiated in the forming of Mobikwik. Mobikwik is payment gateway app which first started off as a recharge platform and then took shape into a mobile wallet. The concept of mobile wallet was new to the country and mobikwik was the first of its kind. Today mobikwik is used by millions of people to use, collect and transfer money. She has always believed in one thing, that is ‘Kick up a storm or die trying’

• Social Samosa:

Ankita Gaba

Ankita Gaba is a social media strategist, consultant, lecturer and most importantly a successful entrepreneur. She worked as a social media strategist and also a co-founder in SuperChooha. They collaborated with famous companies and brands like Idea Cellular, Ponds, Mahindra, Colors and Zapak. She is currently the co-founder of Social Samosa. Social Samosa is basically an inventory that consists of thoughts, ideas, case studies and the social media functionalities. Today, Social media has no limits and is reaching greater heights with the passing days, The main aim of Social Samosa is to have things that are usually put up or scattered on various social parts of social media to be combined and put into one platform that is free and easily accessible to all. Ankita Gaba has been listed in the Global Top 100 Social Media Agencies and Consultants 2012-13, and also in 50 Indian Women to Follow on Twitter.

• Menstrupedia:

Aditi Gupta

Menstrupedia was founded by Aditi Gupta and her husband Tuhin patel. Aditi hails from a small town in Jharkhand namely Gharwa. Aditi created a Hindi comic book with her husband, illustrating and educating girls about menstruation. Menstruation is still considered as a taboo in many parts of Rural India where girls are asked to follow certain restrictions when they are on their period like no entry to the kitchen, the temple or even the house; where they aren’t allowed to cook, or even come in contact with men, and have no clue as to why they are being shut-out by their own family. This behaviour had a direct impact on the girl’s mind and health. Aditi Gupta was also born in a conservative middle-class family, and even she was subject to all this. The unawareness of menstruation and the taboos surrounding it in Rural areas is the main reason behind the creation of Menstrupedia.com. The main objective behind this was to educate girls about the process of menstruation, the importance of menstrual hygiene and tips to remain healthy during menstruation. Aditi has taken a huge step forward with menstrupedia and has even managed to bring in changes not only in India but throughout the world.