Accenture, one of the world's top four consulting organisations, has announced the launch of a Women Founders' Programme to support women-led digital enterprises in India with funding, global client bases, networking, upskilling, education, and mentorship resources.

According to the source, the initiative would help women who run early-stage tech companies in the B2B sector.

Rekha M. Menon, chairman and managing director of Accenture in India, stated, “thrilled to announce the launch of Women Founders Program, enabling women entrepreneurs in India with equal access to funding, expansion of mentorship channels and support networks”.

it stated, “the programme aims to facilitate women-led firms developing emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), extended reality (XR), big data, internet of things (IoT), cloud computing, Web 3.0, and the rising communications platform known as the Metaverse”.

The project further said that it aimed to provide finance for female entrepreneurs as well as a network with global industry leaders by providing critical mentorship and guiding resources from Accenture's senior leadership as well as tech firms throughout its ecosystem.

Qualifying entrepreneurs will receive $60,000 equity-free grants, according to the announcement, and "by providing the fund as an equity-free grant, we are enabling women founders to address their most pressing problems without having to worry about giving up a stake in their company at an early stage itself."

The statement follows the discovery by the Dublin-based IT firm of a significant funding shortfall for women entrepreneurs and other diversity programmes across the country.

Accenture cited a recent Reserve Bank of India (RBI) research that highlighted a significant gender diversity gap, noting that women founded just 6% of all businesses on the subcontinent and held only 20% of leadership roles in around 70% of all organisations.

The survey also highlighted significant discrepancies in women-led startup funding, with just 5.8% of $1.69 billion in investments made between January 2018 and June 2020.

Women-led companies received just $480 million in funding, or 1.43 percent of total industry funding. The current COVID-19 pandemic, according to the research, cut funding for women-led digital enterprises by 24%, or $280 million, in the first half of 2020, compared to $369 million the previous year.

Managing Director of Accenture Open Innovation in India, Avinish Sabharwal, said in a statement, “I believe more women should step forward to break barriers toward entrepreneurship in tech. Companies should commit to helping them find their feet, as there’s never been a greater need for tech innovation as we look to rebuild a post-pandemic world”.

There has been an increase in financing alternatives for women and gender diversity organisations in the global XR community, as many firms have formed efforts to encourage inclusion in the sector.

The Women's Extended Reality Fund (WXR Fund) has commenced investing with Verizon Wireless to assist female entrepreneurs in similar sectors.

Around 26 companies joined up for the project, which aims to disrupt the XR entertainment, healthcare, education, and retail sectors, and the group's portfolio received $5 million in Series A investment.