11 March 2019, India:
Venture Catalysts has partnered with Wopreneur to initiate an incubation programme dedicated to assist women entrepreneurs in their start-up journey.
The incubation programme is of 12 week. It will provide 360-degree support to women entrepreneurs through their entire mentoring & fund seeking journey.
The company said that the initiative was developed to help women entrepreneurs overcome this bottleneck, and provide them comprehensive training during the entire pre and post pitching stage that helps them pitch their ideas effectively to institutional investors.
Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Founder, Venture Catalysts said, “Through our extensive networking events and efforts to reach out to the start-up community, we realized that the numbers of women entrepreneurs across the country were steadily growing. However, these highly talented business women were under-confident of their abilities to raise funds and pitch their ideas to potential investors, due to a lack of exposure to such scenarios.”
Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, added, “We joined hands with Wopreneur, a dedicated women entrepreneurial ecosystem facilitator platform to fill this gap by undertaking a detailed, mentoring focused incubation programme that empowers women entrepreneurs. Further more, the programme is set to conclude with a pitching event wherein the best business ideas and entrepreneurs will be pitching their concepts to the large networking community of VCats.”
Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma further added, “We believe that the programme will be a huge step forward in facilitating the growth of women entrepreneurship in the country and transform them into strong, self-reliant and experienced entrepreneurial figures ready to engage with institutional investors and strike deals that optimize the growth and value prospects of their business along with enriching the women entrepreneur community with lots of opportunities and prospects.”
Neha Chatterjee, Founder, Wopreneur, “It is disappointing to see great business ideas developed by women entrepreneurs be stuck in anonymity due to a paucity of funds or lack of investment opportunities. VCats, being one of the biggest investment incubators in Asia, has strongly backed this movement that will certainly have larger socio-economic ramifications, rather than the immediate huge objective of enabling women entrepreneurs seek the necessary funds to launch their projects through independent negotiations with famous investors.”
Neha Chatterjee, added, “Through our 10 month long research, we realized how crucial a role formal investment can play in bringing these ideas to the forefront of the start-up ecosphere and why training is necessary for the entrepreneurs to defeat this status quo. We hope the participants will be able to generate a lot of funds post the programme through pitching events, and break many glass ceilings in the process.”
(Image –Â Venture Catalysts)