The unicorn club has never made a distinction on the basis of its leader’s gender. However, along all these years, unicorn companies have been primarily led by men. This can be attributed to a variety of reasons. For example, biases and stereotypes against women. Though many a middle and lower management positions in startups are being headed by women, let’s take a look at some women who are heading unicorn companies and are at the helm of its affairs.
1. Ghazal Alagh
The owner of skin and body care brand Mamaearth, Ghazal co-founded the company with her husband Varun Alagh. Ghazal is known to test every product on herself, to check for any side effects. Her company, now valued at $1.2 billion, was the first company to enter the unicorn club this year.
She has recently become a popular face due to her appearance as a shark on entrepreneurship-based show, Shark Tank.
2. Garima Sawhney
Garima is the co-founder of Pristyn Care, a healthcare startup providing minimally invasive surgical treatments. A reputed gynecologist and obstetrician herself, she is known as Dr Yes and her startup ensures that a patient’s medical journey is stress-free and they are attended with lot of care.
Pristyn Care is funded by investors like Tiger global And Sequoia. It entered the unicorn club in 2021 and is now valued at $1.4 billion.
3. Upasana Taku
Initially established as a mobile wallet, Mobikwik is now a buy-now-pay-later platform co-found by Upasana Taku and her husband Bipin Preet Singh. Taku, is a Stanford return, who has worked with PayPal and HSBC. Her startup was running well and was doing well for more than a decade, only to be given tough competition by Paytm.
Mobikwik entered the unicorn club after a few of its employees exercised employee stock option plans (ESOPs). However, it called of its IPO listing keeping in mind Paytm’s IPO failure.
4. Smita Deorah
An educational and social entrepreneur who is committed towards changing the educational sector in India. A CA by profession, Smita runs EdTech startup LEAD, a platform that enhances learning using tools like and international curriculum and smart classrooms.
LEAD became the third unicorn in 2022 at a valuation of $1.1 billion.
5. Falguni Nayar
Arguably the most successful woman startup founder, Falguni Nayar started her venture Nykaa at 49. After a decade, her start-up’s IPO made her the richest self-made woman billionaire in India. Raising less equity capital than most other ecommerce companies, she took Nykaa public last year to a valuation of over $10 billion, after her IPO was oversubscribed 82.5 times.
She owns 50% of Nykaa.
6. Divya Gokulnath
Indian entrepreneur and educator, she co-found Byju’s, an EdTech company with her husband Byju Raveendran. Byju’s became a unicorn in March 2018 and was valued at $ 1 billion. However, it also attained a decacorn status in June 2020.
7. Rajoshi Ghosh
The latest unicorn club entrant Hasura was co-founded by Rajoshi Ghosh. Hasura makes web app development faster. It is a GraphQL developer platform that has secured $100 million in a round led by Greenoaks with participation from existing investors Nexus Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Vertex Ventures.
While Rajoshi is an alumnus of National university of Singapore, she co-founded a product development company 34 Cross that gave the idea for Hasura. It is one the few start-ups to have achieved the unicorn status at Series C stage of funding itself
