Telangana govt’s WE Hub incubator partners with UK’s fintech platform Tide to support women-led SMEs

Skill, Labour and Talent for MSMEs: Telangana government’s incubator for women entrepreneurs WE Hub on Wednesday said it has partnered with the United Kingdom-based SME-focused financial technology platform Tide for a year to help women entrepreneurs in India start and grow their businesses.

The incubator said the collaboration will elevate Tide’s India chapter of their ‘Women in Business’ initiative aimed at digitally transforming businesses in tier-II and tier-III regions and helping women entrepreneurs overcome administrative challenges in establishing and scaling their businesses.

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The joint venture will focus on counselling and educating women owners about regulations and compliances, accounting and financial planning, filing tax returns, loan application support, and marketing and sales. It will also facilitate peer training and networking among them, the statement said.

According to Tide, the programme will not only help women in Telangana but also those across India in accessing the former’s financial administration and advisory services to facilitate their inclusion in the formal economy.

Importantly, according to the Ministry of MSME’s Annual Report 2021, only 20 per cent of MSMEs in India are led by women entrepreneurs. Moreover, MSMEs led by women face a credit gap of $158 billion with 90 per cent relying on informal sources of financing, lowering their growth rate, the statement added.

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Deepthi Ravula, chief executive officer of WE Hub said access to funding and specially working capital has always been a key challenge for many women led startups and SMEs. 

“Many studies have shown that financial institutions have low confidence in growth prospects of women founders and startups. Another common challenge that women entrepreneurs face is with respect to access to mentors. Enabling access to credit is a fundamental intervention to overcome this challenge for entrepreneurs to start and scale in their entrepreneurial journey,” said Ravula.

Kumar Shekhar, vice president (member operations) of Tide India said the company intends to upskill businesswomen with the required technical and financial know-how and provide a credible platform to fulfill their business goals. Earlier this year, Tide had committed to incubate 5 lakh women-led small businesses in India by the end of 2027.