Telangana government’s incubator for women entrepreneurs, WE Hub, announced sanctioning of Rs 4.5 crore fund for Startup India Seed Fund Scheme, which will support 13 women-led start-ups. Incidentally, this is the first investment by WE Hub since its inception, and the entire amount will be disbursed in three batches, of which Rs 1.76 crore has been released as the first batch.

With the objective of supporting women entrepreneurs who have financial hurdles, WE Hub applied to be an incubator under the Start-up India Seed Fund Scheme by the Government of India. Subsequently, Rs 5 crore was sanctioned to WE Hub under SISFS. While 106 start-ups from 18 states applied for funds, 13 were screened and selected.

The start-ups are at various stages of progress – from the prototype stage to commercialization stage. The start-ups that received the funding include Arms4AI, Artfills, Sortizy, Laurik, Nurture Fields, Signel Biomedical, Dygnify. The entrepreneurs were sanctioned Rs 50 lakh each. Abby, Bleu Cares, Cleanseats were sanctioned Rs 20 lakh each; ShuShu Babies and Bludot Robotics were sanctioned Rs 15 lakh each, while Future Step has been given Rs 10 lakh.

“Access to finance is the most common challenge that we hear from all the women that we engage with. As a solution, we are creating channels for women entrepreneurs to avail the capital essential at the early growth stage of their enterprises,” shares WE Hub CEO Deepthi Ravula.