As we mark International Women’s Day, it is an opportunity to reflect on the journeys of women founders in the deep tech ecosystem. This area demands long-term commitment, risk-taking, and patient capital. Yet questions remain about how accessible funding truly is for women entrepreneurs. This feature brings together perspectives from women founders and investors on navigating capital and opportunity in this space.
Here are some numbers to put the article in perspective: as of March 1, there were 9,148 deep-tech start-ups in the country, according to YNOS Venture Engine, a comprehensive platform on the Indian start-up ecosystem. Of these, 3,231 – or nearly 35% – had at least one woman co-founder, and 410 – or just about 4.5% – had only women founders.
As you look at the funding raised by these start-ups, the data gets even more interesting.
Of the ventures that had only women founders, only 20 raised angel funding, whereas 228 of those that had at least one woman founder managed to raise funding from angel investors. (Angel investors are wealthy individuals who invest small amounts in start-ups at a really early stage.)
If you track how many of the start-ups where the founders were all women raised equity funding from venture capitalists, 39 such ventures did so, while that number was 333 where there was at least one woman founder.
On the occasion of International Women’s Day, which falls on March 8, Venture Center decided to talk to a few women scientists or researchers turned entrepreneurs and a few venture capital firms that invest in deep tech or science-based inventive start-ups to get their perspective on the funding landscape for women founders today. For those of you who may not be aware, there is a large number of women-led or women-founded start-ups at the Pune-based tech incubator Venture Center – nearly 28% of the ventures have women founders, and a further 23% are women-led enterprises.
Low Success Rate :
Renuka Diwan, Ph.D., Co-founder and CEO, BioPrime AgriSolutions, which is working to help farmers with sustainable and climate-resilient farming, is quite forthright when she says, “around fundraising specifically, the success rate is often very low for women. When male founders present big ideas, it is usually seen as ambition, drive, and vision, but when women do it, they are met with scepticism and ridicule.” The agriculture space, she points out, is a male-dominated one, and there are very few women founders in this space. “It makes life tough as we get asked questions as to how will you connect and lead a traditionally male dominated sector? All CXO leadership positions are male-dominated, so the question often is, as a female, would you be able to break in,” she adds.
Vishesh Rajaram, Managing Partner, Speciale Invest, an early-stage deep tech-focused venture capital firm, is categorical when he states that, “I don’t think gender plays a role as much as people think it does. I don’t think women founders will find it difficult to raise capital. I believe it is a level playing field.”
Naganand Doraswamy, Managing Partner, Ideaspring Capital, which invests in early-stage science and technology start-ups, says gender does not play a role in his investment decision, but he tells the founders that the expectation is that they spend at least 60 hours a week for a minimum of four years on their ventures. “However, there is enough evidence to say in some cases this is some amount of concern.” He also believes that there is mostly a level-playing field for women founders vis-à-vis male founders. He adds, “I see a lot of women founders these days. However, I expect that any founder has done a proper evaluation of their time commitment, as entrepreneurship is very hard.”
Stereotypical Approach :
According to Renuka, investors do not directly have a gender lens while making their investment decisions. But numbers speak for themselves, don’t they? she queries. The difference is not small. The total funding received by women founders is perhaps 10-20% of the total funding received by male founders. “So, yes, somewhere the lens or bias exists. What is more dangerous is that no one has even acknowledged it. If you don’t accept that there is a problem, how will you fix it?” she says.
According to Vandana Rajadhyaksha, Co-founder, Colossa Ventures, a women-centric venture capital fund, many investors tend to follow familiar patterns, relying on personal experience and staying within their comfort zones. While overt discrimination may be rare, investment decisions are driven by ‘pattern recognition’. Investors may have historically evaluated more male entrepreneurs than female ones, which leads them to assess women founders through the same lens. As Vandana explains, this bias is rarely intentional, but investors consistently do look for similar success attributes.
On the pace of change, Vandana notes that progress is happening, but far too slowly. Women entrepreneurs account for roughly 20% of the pool, yet funding is disproportionate mixed teams (10%) and solo women founders (just 2%). While acceptance is growing and women are learning to position themselves more strategically, deep-rooted cultural conditioning in India means transformation will take time. Accelerating this shift is essential.
This is why she emphasises that their fund plays a crucial role as a deliberate intervention. Colossa positions itself as a WomenFirst Fund — supporting female founders directly, while also backing gender-agnostic ventures where women are beneficiaries, such as women’s health, employment, climate change, and financial inclusion.
Women founders are more circumspect
"We invest across different sectors, and our job is to find the very best entrepreneurs building in those specific sectors,” says Nruthya Madappa, Partner, 3one4 Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm. “We have a pretty significant split in terms of female-founded or female-led companies in our portfolio in comparison to the average globally and in India. This is because we do a good job in opening up that early funnel. We see about 8,000 deals a year. That large deal flow pipeline has been intentionally built out to make sure that we capture folks who are building even at the edges of industry in tier two and three towns in a particular space,” she adds.
3one4 Capital evaluates factors such as experience in the sector, how founders are building, clarity of vision, and their ability to articulate a specific problem statement. This allows the team to stay focused on high-quality, gender-neutral investing, says Nruthya. Network-based deal flows tend to reinforce biases.
What is her assessment of women founders in their portfolio vis-à-vis male founders in terms of meeting milestones and financial discipline? Nruthya emphasises that every founder is different. What she says they have seen, however, is that women founders tend to be more measured, coming to market when they are fully ready, whereas male founders may be more comfortable taking that leap of faith. Nruthya adds that some women founders tend to be more precise in the claims they make.
A challenge for women founders is that they do not have access to networks that guide how to navigate problems, how to negotiate with various players in the ecosystem, or how to prepare for critical decisions. On the contrary, men have a great network in the founder ecosystem, which they lean upon at critical junctures in company-building. As some of these networks are missing or have not been structured around women more intentionally, women founders tend to enter certain conversations with less structural support behind them, according to her.
Investing in science ventures is unique
Science start-ups are difficult to fund regardless of who you are – they are high risk and capital intensive, with a long gestation period before revenues are in sight, says Parul Ganju, Co-founder and CEO, Ahammune Biosciences, a venture that is working on discovering drugs for vitiligo and other skin ailments. The bar is high by design. “Most of my investors are focused on the science and the execution. If the science is strong and the team is good, that typically guides the deal forward, but only if there is investor appetite for risk. Any occasional bias has been the exception, not the rule,” she says.
However, she adds, the numbers show that women founders are still underfunded, so the gender lens exists at a broader ecosystem level. Personally, she says, she has found most serious investors focused on the science and the opportunity, which is a sign of progress. The growth of women-focused funds is encouraging because it helps balance access to capital while the ecosystem evolves.
According to her, fundraising is ultimately about alignment rather than just access to capital. This is particularly true for deep tech start-ups. Not every investor understands these sectors, and sometimes what appears as hesitation may actually be a lack of sector familiarity rather than gender bias. At the same time, the ecosystem is evolving, as more diverse founders enter these fields, investors are becoming increasingly comfortable evaluating different leadership styles and backgrounds, which helps make conversations more focused on expertise and execution.
Just do it
Renuka has a piece of advice for women founders: despite the numbers and statistics, ignore the data and the perception. “Just get in with an approach that this does not apply to you or govern you. Only when you refuse to be defined by such frameworks, you would be able to break them.” “I am,” she adds, “used to walking into a room full of men, be it for business meetings, funding conversations, retailers’ shops in villages, or farmers’ meetings or fields. I don’t let that bother me. I think it is my unique opportunity to shape the industry’s view and pave the path for women who come after me.”
About the Author :
N. Ramakrishnan
N. Ramakrishnan is an independent journalist with over three decades of experience covering business, industry and India’s evolving start-up ecosystem. He has written extensively on entrepreneurship, innovation and emerging technologies, bringing attention to the people and ideas shaping the country’s innovation landscape.
He is the author of CanDid: Inspiring Human Stories of Resilience, Perseverance & Focus from Sciencepreneurs at Venture Center, a book that captures the journeys of science-based entrepreneurs incubated at Venture Center. In addition to authoring CanDid, Ramakrishnan contributes articles and features that explore the challenges, opportunities and perspectives emerging from India’s deep tech and start-up ecosystem, including the present feature.