“Women entrepreneurs don’t get as much funding from investors as men”

Australia's largest event for start-ups, innovators and entrepreneurs, 'The Spark Festival', which starts this week will see several Indian and Indian-origin participants this year including 'The Virangana Project'. This initiative, which is an Australian-Indian collaboration, seeks to build bridges between Indian women entrepreneurs and Australian investors.

Source: The Virangana Project

The Virangana Project is a "not-for-profit initiative set up to bridge the gap between Australian and Indian women's start-up communities."

Their mission is to identify start-ups in India that are either founded or run by strong, confident women and bring them to Australia.

In Australia, these women entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to pitch their business to a select group of bankers, angel investors, other entrepreneurs, and venture capital firms.

Source: The Virangana Project

"We are getting the women (finalists) entrepreneurs to Australia and our main aim is to present their projects in front of Australian investors and venture capitalists as part of the Spark festival. Our basic criteria for selecting the start-ups was that at least 33% of the business should be women based. Even if there were other partners, 33% of that partnership had to be by women. Women from any industry could have applied as long as the business was from India and we received applications from lots of industries," Sukham Saini, the Creative Director and Chair of The Virangana Project Advisory Board, told SBS Hindi.

Sukham Saini tells us that the idea for 'The Virangana Project' came from Daniel Fah (Director and Chairman) and Tony McAuslan (Director of Communication).

"It was their idea and initiative as they have already worked in the area of investors and venture capitalists. They felt that the kind of opportunities one has in India today, they wanted to bring them in front of Australian Venture Capitalists."