Women Founders Get Just ₹4 for Every ₹100 in Startup Funding: Report
The analysis found that women are 0.6 times as likely to emerge as founders from these influential networks compared with the broader startup ecosystem.
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Women founders in India continue to receive a disproportionately small share of venture funding, with only about ₹4 going to women-led startups for every ₹100 raised across the country’s startup ecosystem, according to a new report by Kalaari Capital’s CXXO initiative.
The report, titled “The ₹4 Problem: Women Founders and the Market Gap Hiding in Plain Sight,” analysed funding patterns among founders emerging from influential startup alumni networks that have historically produced many of India’s venture-backed companies and unicorns.
Based on data from Indian tech startups founded between 2015 and 2025, the report found that women-led startups, defined as companies with at least one woman co-founder, accounted for just 4.4% of the capital raised within these networks.
The ₹100 benchmark represents aggregate funding across startups originating from what the report calls “high-velocity employer cohorts,” founders emerging from well-connected companies and institutions that dominate venture capital flows in India. Within this tightly networked ecosystem, women remain significantly underrepresented.
The analysis found that women are 0.6 times as likely to emerge as founders from these influential networks compared with the broader startup ecosystem.
Rather than framing the disparity purely as a diversity issue, the report argues that the gap represents a structural inefficiency in capital allocation, suggesting that investors may be overlooking a large pool of potential founders.
Separate data from the startup intelligence platform Tracxn also highlights the uneven funding landscape. According to its latest report, women-founded technology startups in India raised around $1.1 billion across 407 funding rounds in 2025, marking a 9% decline from the $1.2 billion raised in 2024.
The slowdown was more pronounced in deal activity. The number of funding rounds fell 29% from 580 in 2024 to 407 in 2025, even as the median deal size increased from $2.4 million to $3.8 million, signalling that investors are writing larger cheques but backing fewer companies.
Tracxn described the period as one of “recovery and disciplined capital,” with investors prioritising startups that demonstrate stronger revenue visibility and sustainable growth.
“India Tech’s women co-founded startup ecosystem entered a disciplined capital phase, where funding levels remained stable while investors concentrated capital in fewer, higher-quality companies,” the report noted.
Early-stage funding rose slightly to $572 million in 2025, up from $528 million a year earlier, though the number of deals declined from 98 to 82. Seed-stage and late-stage funding moderated to $259 million and $283 million, respectively.
Among notable transactions during the year, jewellery brand Giva, co-founded by Nikita Prasad, raised $62 million in a Series C round in June 2025. Speciality coffee chain Blue Tokai Coffee Roasters, co-founded by Namrata Asthana, secured $25 million in funding that same month.
By city, Bengaluru recorded the highest funding for women-led startups in 2025 at $447 million, followed by Gurugram with $115 million and Mumbai with $112 million.
