BENGALURU : Women-led tech start-ups have managed to secure only $1.1 billion funding in 2023, a 75% decline compared to $4.5 billion in 2022. This significant drop in funding was not confined to a specific sector, as it occurred across diverse sectors and geographical locations, according to Tracxn data.
It says the first two months of this year have witnessed $100 million in funding, close to $103 million raised in the same period last year. Interestingly, 2021 was the highest funded year as these start-ups raised $6.5 billion, as they experienced a surge of over 100% funding across various stages.
However, post-2021, overall funding across stages declined, except for early-stage start-ups, which saw a 97% increase in 2022, reaching $1.5 billion compared to the previous year.
With over 2,300 start-ups, the Delhi-NCR region takes the lead in terms of the number of women-led start-ups formed till now, followed by Bengaluru and Mumbai with 1,795 and 1,497 start-ups, respectively. The report adds that the peak occurrence of women-led Unicorns was observed in 2021, with over 65% of these start-up unicorns led by women emerging in the years 2021 and 2022.
“In 2023, 13% of the overall funding in the India tech space came from women-led start-ups as they secured $1.1 billion. There are 2,300 funded women-led start-ups of which 13.4% have progressed to the Series A stage and 3% have gone on to the Series C stage or beyond. Among the founded companies, 2,316 have successfully secured funding. Also, this space has around 6,000 unfunded companies, out of which 590 companies have a revenue of more than $30,000,” the report added.
Another report by PrivateCircle Research points out that 57 out of 112 unicorns have zero women on their board. It found 14 unicorns with more than one woman director on their board. While Zomato has four women directors, start-ups such as Incred, Policybazaar and Paisabazaar have three women directors.
As far as top sectors in women-led start-ups are concerned, according to the Tracxn report, B2C ecommerce takes the lead with 3434 companies, followed by Internet First Brands with 1355 companies and SaaS with 1181. Thriving sectors also include fashion tech, marketplaces, and B2C fashion ecommerce.