Technology can transform the world for good. Women across continents have been breaking stereotypes and pioneering in multiple sectors, financial technology (FinTech) being one of them. With the Indian startup ecosystem making substantial progress, more and more women are jumping onto the entrepreneurial bandwagon and succeeding in their ventures.
Within a short span, India’s FinTech industry, which currently represents a $31Bn market, has witnessed women entrepreneurs rise and shine in the crowd. The 2nd most populated country on the earth is cheering for FinTech women who want to score big. To celebrate the women who have climbed the ladder with their hard work, talent, and intelligence, we have listed 5 Indian women who have changed the face of the FinTech realm.
Upasana Taku
Upasana Taku is the co-founder of Mobikwik and founder of Zaakpay. A B.Tech graduate from the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Jalandhar, Upasana pursued her Masters in Management Science from Stanford University. Upasana founded Mobikwik in 2009 to streamline payments in India.
Her solid background in payments proved beneficial for this venture, having earlier served as senior product manager for PayPal in the Silicon Valley and HSBC in San Diego, California.
Over time, Mobikwik evolved from being just an online payment firm. Initially, they began offering small loans to their registered users. At present, they have expanded their portfolio to include investment solutions, insurance policies, and even mutual funds.
Mobikwik serves over 120 million registered users and 3 million merchants on its platform. Recently, it made headlines as it filed for an IPO and might aim to become a unicorn.
Sucharita Mukherjee
Sucharita, who is enthusiastic about access to financial services for everyone, co-founded Kaleidofin in 2017 in Chennai. The neobank designs and personalizes financial solutions for underserved customers prioritizing the end goal rather than only the financial product.
Kaleidofin collaborates with a massive network of mutual fund investors (MFI), corporates, and cooperative banks to make their services accessible and user-centric to the target category. The Chennai-based neobank serves over 1 million active transacting customers pan-India.
Sucharita co-founded the IFMR group and most recently became the company’s group chief executive officer (CEO). Earlier, she worked in structured finance and credit derivatives at Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley in London. In 2016, the Economic Times included her in one of India’s “top 40 under forty” business leaders. In 2017, she landed on the list of India’s top 20 FinTech progress makers.
Hardika Shah
Hardika Shah founded Kinara Capital, an Indian FinTech company that provides loans to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) for asset purchase without in return for any collateral. She also serves as the CEO of the company. The company has disbursed over 56,000 loans across more than 90 rural, peri-urban, and urban regions.
Before launching Kinara Capital, Hardika dedicated 2 decades serving as a strategic consultant at Accenture. An MBA-grad from Columbia Business School and Haas School of Business, she holds a BA in Computer Science from Knox College in Illinois.
Sayali Karanjkar
Sayali Karanjkar, along with Prashanth Ranganathan, founded Paysense in 2016. The Mumbai-based FinTech company has developed patented models that leverage data points to figure out creditworthiness, no matter the customer’s gender, qualification, social status, or work background.
Sayali’s tech bent of mind comes from her 14-year career in organizational and strategic consultative roles in prominent companies – AT&T, Sun Microsystems, and AT Kearney – in the US and Singapore.
A Kellogg MBA, Sayali completed her Bachelors in Computer Science from the National University of Singapore. Furthermore, Sayali co-founded Outsy, a local event curating firm.
Meghna Suryakumar
Meghna Suryakumar had her own international law practice in India and New York. Crediwatch, a tech-forward company, is the brainchild of Meghna and her husband, Sandeep Anandampillai.
Meghna is passionate about solving complicated problems by leveraging cutting-edge technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and natural language processing (NLP), to offer a real-time “Trust Score” on the unbanked MSME, an unexplored billion-dollar potential.
Meghna graduated from Columbia Law School and holds a Certificate of Entrepreneurship from Stanford Business School.
