Top 5 Female-Founded Startups in India

January 4, 20193 Minutes Read

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Female-founded start-ups are on the rise in India. With their determination, perseverance, and passion, women have come a long way in our country and are now set to change the startup landscape of India. In the world of business, which was majorly a man-driven industry, our women are growing by leaps and bounds. Not only are they making their mark in fashion, food/beverages and lifestyle industries, they are also penetrating into the technology and other sectors and doing great for themselves. As per statistics, of the total number of companies that got seed funding in India, more than 15% are founded by women. This might not sound like a great number, but it is an increase from what it was earlier.

Let’s take a look at some of the very significant female-founded startups in India and their founders:

1.ShopClues-Radhika Ghai Aggarwal

ShopClues is an online marketplace selling everything from technology and fashion to footwear and jewelry. It was established in July 2011 and is based in Gurgaon, India. Radhika Aggarwal is one of the three co-founders on ShopClues and is India's first woman to enter the Unicorn Club. She holds an MBA from the Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to entering into the entrepreneurial venture, Radhika worked in the marketing department of companies like Nordstrom in Seattle and strategic planning at Goldman Sachs. Prior to ShopClues, she had started a company called FashionClues, which was a content portal for NRI women.

2. MobiKwik- Upasana Taku

MobiKwik was founded in 2009 and is a company that provides a mobile phone-based payment system and digital wallet. Upasana Taku and her husband, Bipin Preet Singh are the founding members of this company. The husband-wife duo saw a great opportunity to improve mobile recharge options and this drove them to begin this venture. Before MobiKwik, Upasana had founded another payment gateway called Zaakpay. After completing her MS in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University, she worked at PayPal in San Jose, California as a product manager, before returning to India in 2008.

3. Freshmenu- Rashmi Daga

FreshMenu is a full-stack online kitchen that serves global cuisine right at your doorstep. Its menu keeps changing on a daily basis unlike ordinary restaurants and has offerings spread across mains, salads, appetisers and desserts. Freshmenu was founded by Rashmi Daga in 2014 out of Bangalore. It now has its branches in Mumbai, Gurugram and Delhi with 26 operational kitchens. Rashmi Daga is an IIM-A alumnus and has previous work experience in many companies including Bluestone.com, Olacabs, TutorVista, LifeScan and more.

4. Infibeam- Neeru Sharma

Infibeam is an internet and e-commerce conglomerate involved in digital payments, online retailing, e-commerce software and internet services. The company was founded in 2007 and has offices in Ahmedabad, Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. Neeru Sharma is the co-founder of this company and she heads the corporate and business development sector. Prior to venturing into this company, Neeru was working at Alcatel India as product manager, leading R&D projects in the intelligent network services domain for major telecom partners in India, Australia and France. She holds an MBA degree from Carnegie Mellon University.

5.LimeRoad- Suchi Mukherjee

LimeRoad is India's first boutique fashion marketplace for women. LimeRoad was founded by Suchi Mukherjee in 2012 when she realized that there was no way to discover lifestyle and accessories for women online easily. She has previously worked in eBay UK and was also the Director and a member of Executive Management Team at Skype.

The Glow & Lovely Careers (formerly known as Fair & Lovely Career Foundation) strives to encourage women from all sectors of society to go far in life with their education and career choices. We believe that good education can mould a woman's personality and change her outlook towards the world. In order to enable women to have a great career, the Glow & Lovely Careers provides free online coursesand expert career guidance on their portal. It also provides online practice tests for various exams, psychometric tests, free online resume builder tool and much more so that women get the right guidance on education and career.

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October 29, 20202 Minutes Read

Exploring Glow & Lovely Careers' Interest Test Helped Pragya Rai Make an Informed Choice for a Future in Civil Services

When you are a young woman and looking to make your mark in society, coming to a decision about how to do it can be especially confusing. You might get a lot of suggestions from a lot of people and it can mean even more chaos. Sometimes your friends can suggest things that you might like in the first instance, but once you explore that option, you realize, it isn't as suitable for you as it might have seemed. If you can relate to that sense of confusion and stress about your future as a contributing woman in society, you should take inspiration from the story of B.Com student Pragya Rai.

Pragya Rai hails from the city of Varanasi. As a college student, she decided to play it safe and seek a course that would enable her to have multiple options when it came to career opportunities. "I thought the whole reason to take B.Com was to see what interested me in college. Taking a generic course would allow me to understand what options I had for my future career and figure out what it is exactly that I might be good at."

In her conversation with friends, she realized there was a lot of different information about career opportunities. It was confusing and sometimes she realized that there was a lot of unintentional misinformation too. She had felt that it was a repeat of the same experience she had had in high school as well. Pragya says, "When I was in high school I was very confused if the things I wanted to do would be right for me. It is very difficult to get career counseling or, say, good guidance, for free in my city."

Luckily for Pragya, she decided to take the search for help online. She looked for free online career counseling options and even free career tests online. Eventually, she stumbled on to the Glow & Lovely Careers (formerly known as Fair & Lovely Career Foundation) career test online.

"The test was free, quick and easy to take.", says Pragya.

Even while she was struggling with coming to a firm decision about her future career, Pragya knew that she wanted to make a difference. Her determination might not have had a concrete direction, but she had a gut instinct about her ambitions. Her free online career guidance test results showed her the right course of action. "The results reassured me that civil services would be the right career for me. It gave me the much-needed confidence to pursue my dream." With the clarity that was previously missing, Pragya is now busy in college, completing her B.Com course on one hand and preparing wholeheartedly for a career in civil services on the other.

Pragya's story shows us the power of curiosity. As a young woman in the world, it is important to explore. It helps you better understand what you actually want to do. It also helps you explore opportunities that you might be unaware of. In Pragya's instance, she took a chance and searched for career guidance online and it led her to discover Glow and Lovely Careers' (formerly known as Fair and Lovely Career Foundation) interest-based test and psychometric test for career planning. So, if you are someone who is also in need of career guidance, take this opportunity and head to the Glow and Lovely Careers website for more information to decide on your long-term career choices.

August 12, 20193 Minutes Read

Best Preparation Strategy for SSC CHSL Exam, 2018

The Staff Selection Commission conducts the Combined Higher Secondary Level (CHSL) exam every year for recruitment to various departments of the Government of India. The exam is conducted for recruitment to posts like Postal Assistants/Sorting Assistants(PA/SA), Data Entry Operator (DEO), Lower Divisional Clerk (LDC), Court Clerk, etc. The SSC CHSL 2018 Tier-I exam is scheduled to be conducted between 1st July- 26th July 2019, and Tier-II exam is to be conducted on 29th September 2019. In order to crack any SSC online test, it is important to practice as many SSC mock tests as possible. The Glow & Lovely Careers (formerly known as Fair & Lovely Career Foundation) provides online mock tests for the SSC CHSL exam that you can take for free.

The SSC CHSL exam is a very popular exam in India having lakhs of applicants every year as the minimum educational eligibility for this exam is passing class 12. With proper dedication and hard work, any aspirant can clear this exam. The SSC CHSL exam is conducted in a 3-tier procedure. While the first one is online the latter two are offline exams.

Tier -- I Objective Multiple Choice

Tier -- II Descriptive Paper in English/Hindi

Tier -- III Skill Test/Computer Proficiency Test

As part of designing a preparation strategy for this exam, the first thing to know is the exam syllabus:

July 14, 20212 Minutes Read

Kiran Mazumdar Shaw - Investors Refused to Invest in Her Coz She Was a Girl. Now Biocon Has Its Own Medicines for Covid

Life is not what happens to us. It is what we make out of it. Destiny may carve a path for us. But we decide the end goal. The results are always in our hands. Similar was the case with Kiran Mazumdar Shaw.

Today she is one of India's most successful women entrepreneurs. There are so many women empowerment and success stories that we hear today. And yet, Kiran's story is very different...

Kiran Mazumdar came from a well-off family. Her father was the head brew master at a brewery.

A brew master is someone who is responsible for the many duties related to making beer, including selecting the ingredients, creating unique beer recipes, preparing beer mixtures, and overseeing the fermenting process.

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