Hyderabad: The year 2022 saw 21 startups achieving the status of highly desirable 'unicorns' with seven of them co-founded by women. They include Mabel Chacko (Open), Shagufta Anurag (Livespace), Smita Deora (Lead), Srividya Srinivasan (Amagi) and Vilma Matila (Fire). Many women entered the business sector without any background and are excelling in their respective fields.
Let us have a look at some of the women entrepreneurs, who made it big in 2022, as far as startups are concerned. Ruchi Kalra is defying the myth that the financial sector is not suitable for women and has plunged into the Fintech sector. Ruchi, who has years of work experience in the sector, started 'OffBusiness' in 2016 with her husband Ashish Mahapatra.
Also read: Looking back at women who made 2022 a remarkable year for India
The company has achieved the status of unicorn. The girl with a middle-class family background has done her engineering from IIT Delhi, and her MBA from ISB, Hyderabad. She worked for companies like e-ValueServ and McKinsey. Ruchi is also the first Indian woman to run a profitable fintech unicorn. Bengaluru woman Rajoshi Ghosh has a degree in Computational Genomics from Singapore University and Global Innovation Programme from Stanford University.
She launched startups like Avelink, Tech Salon, Find a Kadai and 34 Cross. Rajoshi founded consultation firm 'Hasura' in 2017, which achieved the rare feat of achieving the status of unicorn in February this year. Bollywood actress Katrina Kaif made a foray into business in 2019 . Better known as a movie star, she entered the business sector with 'K Beauty' in 2019.
The startup has turned into a business worth more than Rs 100 crore a year. Kaif achieved the feat without any business experience and got a place in the 'Forbes Self-Made Women-2022 list. Anuj Srivastava hailing from Bengaluru, who did not know how to grow a single plant, is employing thousands of farmers today.
Anuj previously worked in marketing and advertising sector in the US. While living abroad, she was concerned why farmers are incurring losses back home in India there is a huge demand for food items in the market. In 2012, with the help of women farmers in Gurgaon, she started the production of healthy snacks and sauces with 'Win Greens Farms'. The business of the venture, which employs thousands of farmers and women, is worth over Rs 400 crore. Having received many awards, Anuj also appeared in the Forbes list of self-made woman this year.
