Gender-based perception continues to haunt not just India but the entire world, and women are required to put in double the efforts when it comes to convincing investors of a business idea, feels MobiKwik co-founder Upasana Taku.
Recalling an incident from her earlier days at MobiKwik, she said, “I was managing finance and I still remember how an investor at an early stage asked if they could speak with a male founder from the team. However, after breaking the ice, they were comfortable, and it didn’t stay a concern,” said Taku in an interview for DealStreetAsia’s inaugural report – Female Founders in India 2021 – on the gender funding gap in India.
Taku further expressed that it is very much a man’s world globally and, in some sectors, the male domination is even more. “If the effort required for a male founder to succeed is 1.5x, then the effort required for a woman founder is 4x because she has to put in 2x at work and also 2x at home. And since it is so hard, most women tend to give up at different stages of their career.”
However, a majority of the startups are realizing the need to have women co-founders for their multidimensional personalities and well-rounded point of view. Inclusion of women in the boardrooms and senior positions is seeing traction and this is indeed good news, she said.
Taku, along with co-founder Bipin Preet Singh, founded MobiKwik with an aim to build a digital ecosystem for payments in India.
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