Tuesday
October 20
2020

MIT D-Lab and Upaya Social Ventures Announce Collaboration To Support Women-Led Startups in India

MIT D-Lab announces a collaboration with Upaya Social Ventures, a nonprofit growing small businesses to create jobs for the extreme poor by supporting small and growing businesses in India. This pilot program, known as the Scale-Ups Accelerator 2021, will join the strengths of the MIT D-Lab Scale-Ups Fellowship and the Upaya Social Ventures Accelerator to reduce barriers to investment in women-led enterprises in India.

Through a competitive process, the program will select women entrepreneurs in India to participate in six months of trainings, mentorship, networking, and co-design workshops designed to increase their access to the capital investment needed to scale their businesses. As part of the program, the entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to participate in MIT D-Lab’s Co-Design Sprint with investors to design, prototype, and test gender-smart solutions for applying a gender lens across their investment process and capital allocation. In addition, up to three participating enterprises will have the opportunity to raise USD $50,000 from Upaya.

Photo courtesy of Martin Jernberg

Source: MIT D-Lab (link opens in a new window)

Categories
Investing
Tags
accelerators, gender lens, impact investing, scale, startups, women entrepreneurs