Outraged by rape and inequality, Indian women seek justice through entrepreneurship

BANGALORE — In India, women are frequently mistreated, rape is so prevalent that tourists are scared to go, and female victims fear reporting violent crimes.

That’s the country’s reputation, at least — particularly since the horrific December 2012 gang rape that took the life of a young woman.

But now, thousands of Indian women are fighting back, eager to show the rest of the world that, despite the real problems they face in India, they’re not just victims.

They’re embracing women’s empowerment — through business.

In cafes, garages and shared workspaces across Bangalore, home to India’s lucrative tech industry, they’re launching startups and growing businesses.

They’re the IT-girls of Bangalore.

Atta Galatta coffee shop is a typical scene for these pioneers. Offering frothy caffeinated drinks to its trendy clientele, the place would not look out of place in Seattle or Palo Alto. Rows of books line the walls, sofas are adorned with cushions and several tables are occupied by young women, hunched over their laptops. Despite the comfy surroundings, they mean business.

There is chat flying around about domain names, app building and investor pitches over fat-free lattes.

At one table sits 30-year-old entrepreneur Malini Gowrishankar, busy making calls while scanning her screen.

“This is my office, I come here every day,” says smiley Gowrishankar, who runs F5 escapes, an online travel business for women.

“It’s a convenient place to work and there is a creative buzz here which I like,” she adds.

As a travel site for women in India, F5 faces an uphill battle, owing to the Dehli gang rape, which revealed the systematic abuse of women in the country.

But for many women, like Gowrishankar, the brutal incident gave her the push she needed to start her business.

“I wanted to help women to understand it is safe to travel without your family. There is no tradition for solo women travelers in India and I wanted to change that, create a business which helps women feel safe whilst they are experiencing new things,” she says.

Gowrishankar’s F5 currently offers both customized and group tours to female travelers, a business idea she says is unique in India.

“Women make great entrepreneurs because we may have a better understanding of our own market segment and we have the tenacity to run the business long-term. My business is low on overheads and high on innovation,” she says.

Bangalore’s position as India’s start-up capital is undeniable. According to the World Startup Report, 41 percent of India’s startups are now based in Bangalore. Over 10,000 of them emerged from Bangalore last year alone. About one-third are run by women — the number has doubled in recent years, thanks to the shift in attitudes.

“Being an entrepreneur is now cool,” says Niti Shree, who runs Headstart Networking events for the city’s startups.

“In the past, Indian parents wanted their daughters to get married and have kids but now more and more are accepting that women want to take charge of their lives. Each event we do, we get more women coming. So much so that we will soon run women-only events,” she said.

Bangalore’s key startup hubs are located in the regions of Koramangala and Indiranagar, where thousands of innovative small businesses are emerging, powered by the enormous opportunities of a country with over 1.2 billion people and a brand-hungry middle class.

India is a nascent market for many products and services that have been around in the West for years.

That was a discovery made by the founder of another Bangalore startup, the specialist bra fitting service Buttercups.in.

“I worked in the lingerie industry for years and measured over 3,000 women over the years and realized there were no properly sized bras available for women to buy in India,” says 37-year-old founder of Buttercups.in, Arpita Ganesh.

Her idea was ready, and there was a demand for it. She even created an app that helps women to find out their correct size, which became massively popular. But starting up her business was tough.

Convincing male investors that women need better fitting bras was often awkward. India is a conservative country where women don’t even shake hands with male colleagues. “I’ve met many investors, most of whom are men, who were genuinely interested in my business but they were simply too embarrassed to talk about it directly to me,” she says.

But Bangalore’s women are resourceful and Ganesh, a determined entrepreneur, decided to get around India’s crowd funding ban by offering her customers a chance to pre-order the products online. She raised nearly $7,000, which in India is serious money.

Finding funding for a startup is difficult for women because traditionally bank loans have been borderline impossible for women, thanks to archaic rules that often require a husband’s or father’s assets as a loan guarantee or land as a collateral.

According to a recent study by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, less than 30 percent of the financing needed for women-run businesses came through the traditional route of banks, cooperatives, micro lenders and financial institutions.

In comparison, male entrepreneurs get over 70 percent of their financing from official lenders.

The IFC report estimates that the total financial requirement for women entrepreneurs was $158 billion in 2012 but they only had access to around $42 billion from official lenders.

Apart from the institutions’ strict financial rules for women, investors are wary of female-run startups because the phenomena is new in India.

“A lot of female entrepreneurs have to rely on the F&F — family and friends — route of funding. Most investors are very focused on quick growth and mass products, not long-term profitability. And they can be wary of women entrepreneurs,” Ganesh notes.

Despite the challenges, the buzz and determination among the young women are tangible, and support is growing fast.

Bangalore has a wide variety of informal meetings such as Open Coffee Club and HeadStart, which help female entrepreneurs with training opportunities, pitching for investors and introductions. The city is also home for several accelerator programs run by large companies such as Microsoft and Google, and it has startup service organizations such as TiE.

With a wide network of angel investors, fast internet across the city and plenty of cheap programming talent, Bangalore is now becoming a serious rival to San Fransisco Bay Area.

And for India’s tech businesswomen, Bangalore is where it’s at.

“The city is a brilliant place to be an entrepreneur today. So many women entrepreneurs are putting themselves out there, making a go at it and breaking traditional boundaries,” Ganesh said.