GetVantage, an alternative-financing fintech platform, announced the launch of its Rise-Up Fund, dedicated to supporting women entrepreneurs businesses with inclusive capital. This non-dilutive fund with an initial corpus of Rs100 crore and aims to deploy the capital in the next 12 months to help over 400 women-led businesses scale up.
GetVantage will disburse the funds through its own NBFC GetGrowth Capital, along with Varanium’s Debt Fund partnership, among other NBFCs and AIFs.
“Despite running successful businesses, women entrepreneurs everywhere remain chronically underrepresented and underserved by the incumbent venture finance infrastructure. The Rise-Up fund by GetVantage expands our commitment to empowering women entrepreneurs in India,” said Karun Arya, chief growth officer, GetVantage. “Encubay, with their extensive network of female founders, are a strategic long-term partner with whom we share a common mission to provide more women in business with fair, inclusive, and unbiased access to non-dilutive funding to realize their scaling ambitions.”
Since its inception in 2019, GetVantage has been committed to eradicating friction and bias from fundraising. Over the last three years, the GetVantage platform helped hundreds of women founders with on-demand access to fair and reliable financing.
Today, over 40% of the businesses across over 20 sectors in the GetVantage portfolio of more than 800 businesses are led by inspiring women entrepreneurs including Capsul by Bhavisha and Meenakshi, Open Secret by Ahana Gautam, Samosa Singh by Nidhi Singh, Hyugalife by Avni Shah, Ziniosa by Ashri Jaiswal, MyMuse by Anushka Gupta, EatBetter by Mridula Kanoria, The Ayurveda Co by Shreedha Singh, Noto by Ashni Shah, The Indus Valley by Madhumitha Udaykumar, Sweet Karam Coffee by Nalini Parthiban and many more
According to analysis and data by the World Economic Forum and International Finance Corporation (IFC), women-led businesses in India faced an unmet credit gap of more than $11.4 billion, and these same women founders received only 5.2% of the outstanding credit granted to enterprises by Indian public sector banks.
A report released this week by Encubay, found that of 799 funding deals worth $6.6 billion over the last nine months, ventures with female founders raised only 4.5% of the total funding.
“Of 799 funding deals amounting to $6.6 billion in the past nine months, ventures led by female founders secured only 4.5% of the total funding. With an increasing number of women venturing into entrepreneurship and many seeking funding for their initiatives, the present moment presents a pivotal opportunity for collective action. Collaborating with GetVantage, we are enthusiastic to help lead the effort to dismantle barriers and level the playing field for women entrepreneurs across India,” Deeksha Ahuja, Founder, Encubay said,
Women-founded businesses comprise only 18% of the Indian startup ecosystem. Despite that, India has 17 unicorns with women-led businesses in the country, with a valuation of $30 billion with another 20 in-making.
GetVantage previously partnered with exclusive women’s community Leap Club in 2023 to drive greater engagement amongst women entrepreneurs across India. The partnership brought women founders, investors, and enablers together via community outreach helping forge strong connections, conversations, and growth.
