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Inc. announced its 7th annual Female Founders list, honoring a bold group of 250 women whose innovations and ideas are shaping the world into a better place.
Founders across all industries bring with them unique stories of success from each stage of the entrepreneurial journey — from startup to going public, being acquired by big buyers, or spending decades at the helm of an organization. After launching in 2018, the Female Founders list is one of Inc.’s most esteemed franchises.
Indian Americans on the 2024 list includes Sadhna Agrawal, Ishviene Arora, Svanika Balasubramanian, Purva Gupta, Sowmiya Narayanan, Leena Joshi, Garima Kapoor, Neha Palmer, Pallavi Pande, Avni Patel Thompson, Charu Raheja, Surbhi Rathore and Navrina Singh.
“The past year, for many, will go down as one of the hardest ever—between a funding freeze and ad-spending pull back,” said Diana Ransom, Inc. Executive Editor. “The female founders on this year’s list are a testament to what triumph over adversity looks like. They should all be proud of this singular accomplishment.”
The Female Founders 250 list was culled from thousands of entries through three rounds of judging – two were internal and one was external -looking specifically at an entrepreneur’s bona fides in the past year. Criteria included quantifiable metrics like revenue, sales, revenue growth, funding, and audience size. Inc. also looked for qualitative metrics like social media momentum and stories of impact.
Ishviene Arora, Vested, Advertising & Marketing, New York finds a place in the list for launching the Finance Studio, a creative online tool for finance companies, and Media Maps, a tool businesses can use to spot industry trends.
Sadhna Agrawal, Astor & Sanders, IT Services, Rockville, Maryland has been lauded for partnering with the Department of Labor and playing a crucial role in securing insurance benefits for the victims of the 2023 Maui wildfires.
Svanika Balasubramanian, rePurpose Global, Environmental Services, Miami, Florida is described as women entrepreneur taking on global plastic pollution and growing revenue by 150% from 2022 to 2023.
Purva Gupta and Sowmiya Narayanan, Lily AI, Software, Mountain View, California feature for expanding its proprietary AI for retailers to better connect with customer shopping preferences while earning industry and workplace awards.
Leena Joshi, CloseFactor, Software, Palo Alto, California for helping customers deliver 3-4X increases in qualified sales pipeline and closed deals with machine learning and generative AI.
Garima Kapoor, MinIO, Software, Redwood City, Californa for
helping companies repatriate their data from public clouds and saving as much as 20-50X of their operating expenses for storing digital data.
Neha Palmer, TeraWatt Infrastructure, Logistics & Transportation, San Francisco, California features in the list for expanding access to electric vehicles through initiatives ranging from establishing a partnership with PepsiCo to building out charging ports across a major U.S. highway.
Pallavi Pande, Dtocs, Consumer Products, Portland, Oregon for bringing sustainability to the home and kitchen goods sector through compostable palm leaf tableware.
Avni Patel Thompson, Milo, Software, Palo Alto, California for designing and building an AI tool that organizes household information, garnering a 15,000 family waitlist
Charu Raheja, TriageLogic, Health Services, Jacksonville, Florida for developing an intelligent medical scripting system that improved the accuracy of urgent message relays by over 30%.
Surbhi Rathore, Symbl.ai, Software, Seattle, Washington for building a language learning AI model that helps Fortune 500 companies create better online customer service.
Navrina Singh, Credo AI, Software, Palo Alto, California for working with more than 2,000 clients to help ensure the outputs of artificial intelligence systems are transparent, trustworthy, and legal.
