HerSaga in association with Jaarvis Accelerator hosted the HerPitch event to encourage women-led startups. Startups with at least one woman co-founder were eligible. Based on the applications, 10 startups were shortlisted and 7 pitched at the event. The live pitch was held on 3rd June.
Ithaka Tales, Hope Collective and RF Creators were declared as the top 3 winners. Here is a look at these inspiring women and their startup stories.
Rachna Pande and Nupur Agarwal: Co-Founders, Ithaka Tales
Rachna is an engineer who completed her education from IIT Delhi and MIT Cambridge and Nupur is an engineer from IIT Kanpur and MBA from Stern School of Business, New York University. While Rachna had 8+ years of experience in consulting, predictive analytics and modeling and Nupur has 9 years of experience in successfully launching customer facing software products across industries varying from PC security and optimization, healthcare to E-Commerce before starting Ithaka Tales. Rachna has a particular interest in the intersection of technology and society and how to design products that can change behaviors.
Nupur is passionate about using technology to bring efficiencies and access to information that creates a level playing field. Both the women have been involved with startups before and loved it. The entire process of adventure and starting from the bottom made them take the plunge. Ithaka Tales believes in everyday stories, local memories and personal experiences. Ithaka Tales help travelers to have an authentic experience of the place they are visiting without a guide.
Devakshi Nayar: Founder, Hope Collective
Devakshi has done her Masters in Sustainable Development to augment her understanding of the development sector. Having worked with numerous NGOS and international organizations, Devakshi realized the importance of fundraising for such organizations.
She decided to help these organizations to increase their visibility and create a market for their products. Hope Collective was then started to introduce a for-profit model for changing the way the development sector raises funds. While, she was hesitant in the beginning to take the entrepreneurial plunge, she was greatly supported by her mentors in her previous job in Public Health Research. Initially, she began without any co-founders. It was during the set up of the website that she met Joe Sebastian and Shiva Dhawan who are both now the founding members of Hope Collective.
Hope Collective is not only an e-commerce marketplace for products made by the beneficiaries or the merchandise of NGOs and Social Enterprises, but also sells offline and through corporate orders. They are heavily focused on working with unconventional and quality conscious partners. They promote ‘Conscious Consumption’ amongst customers and teach these organizations how to make their products more attractive and market ready. They want to eradicate the pre-conceived notions of customers about the quality, life or uniqueness of products with a cause and make them realize that these products are as good as any other products.
Jenny Charan: Founder, RF Creators
Jenny is the sole founder of the RF Creators. She is a graduate and post-graduate in the field of Electrical and Electronics Engineering with a specialization in RF and Microwave Engineering. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Jenny worked with the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. She was responsible for understanding the project requirements and design and develop customized RF antenna on various frequencies. While working there, she realized that the RF technology is outsourced to countries like China, Japan and Taiwan and there are no resources available in India for this technology. This leads to an increase in the cost of production of a simple product. In May 2016, Jenny decided to bring and create such service in India with a boost from the ‘Make in India’ scheme and started the RF Creators Pvt Ltd. They provide customized Radio Frequency (RF) antennas for products on wide range of frequencies.
Jenny faced various challenges while starting her venture in the form of identifying the right fabricator in India and establishing tie-up with the fabricators to provide low cost solution. Arranging the best materials and components for the best performance of the products was a problem too.
