Online career destination for women SHEROES bags Rs 5 cr from Quintillion, 500 Startups & others SHEROES.in partners actively with the start-up eco-system to enhance entrepreneurial connect for women.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
A career destination for women professionals SHEROES.in has announced to raise Rs 5 crore in an angel round from Raghav Bahl and Ritu Kapur led Quintillion Media (publishers of TheQuint.com), 500 Startups and a group of individuals, including Paytm's Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma; Google India's Managing Director Rajan Anandan; Flipkart's Co-founder Binny Bansal; Flipkart's Chief People Officer Mekin Maheshwari; Freshdesk's Founder Girish Mathrubhootham; Oracle's Senior Director – Product Management, and an angel Investor Indus Khaitan; and Capillary Tech's Co-founder Krishna Mehra. The venture plans to use this round of funding to improve the quality of its product and scale its community.
SHEROES.in helps women find opportunities like work from home, part time jobs, corporate roles, start-up options and other entrepreneurial options like franchising and affiliates. Founded in January 2014 by Sairee Chahal, SHEROES.in also assists women seek mentorship, and career resources along with other career advice. Commenting on the latest development, Chahal said, "It was important to bring in the right kind of investors, as we build a high impact and high growth organization. Our investors truly believe in the purpose and vision of SHEROES.in, and we are delighted to have their support."
Creating a Unique Opportunity
Being a bootstrapped start-up so far, it works with companies to power their workforce needs – including diversity and help them build women-centric channels. With over 6,000 companies and half a million women professionals on their platform, SHEROES has already processed over a million service requests for its community members.
"Chahal and her team have created a unique opportunity for Indian women, empowering them access to careers, while allowing them to work from where they're most productive. SHEROES is a rare enterprise opening up corporate and other employers to a very active work force. We are delighted to be with Chahal, as she innovates on building a never-before business model in India," said Ritu Kapur, Co-founder, Quintillion Media, who will soon join the board of SHEROES's parent firm Applied Life Private Limited.
Promoting Entrepreneurial Connect for Women
Being a gateway for women to find out the finest opportunities, resources and conversations, SHEROES.in partners actively with the start-up eco-system to enhance entrepreneurial connect for women. Its community has access to high growth career resources, mentorship and support. "I have known Chahal for a few years now and have always been impressed by her passion to help Indian women find flexible work opportunities. When I found out Chahal had finally decided to raise money for SHEROES.in, I reached out to her and asked how I could help. All of us at 500 Startups are very excited to work with her and the SHEROES.in team in their mission to empower Indian women find great, flexible opportunities and to help Indian businesses find highly qualified talent from all over India," said Pankaj Jain, Partner, 500 Startups.
Market Scenario
Though SHEROES.in focuses on creating its space in a very niche area, there are many other online recruitment start-ups, who have been doing great and had secured investment various investors. Belong, a big data start-up for talent sourcing, had recently raised $5 million in its Series A round of funding in June, 2015. Similarly, Venturesity raised $250K in angel funding in May 2015 and an online hiring platform Hiree announced to raise $3 million from IDG Ventures in February 2015.
