April 1, 2025: India’s Economic Survey 2024-25 revealed that only around 20% of MSMEs in India are owned by women – underscoring the need to create a strong enabling and conducive ecosystem for the nation’s women entrepreneurs alongside government initiatives – focusing on credit access, formalization and skills training. Villgro, a leading social enterprise incubator, has been working actively for several years to boost access to formal credit and innovative financing/credit solutions among women micro-entrepreneurs across our country.
As the new financial year i.e. FY 2025-26 begins, Villgro has announced that the innovative financing solutions powered by Villgro and its partner organizations have, to date, enabled 106 women micro entrepreneurs across India to take business loans. By helping those previously deemed ‘unbankable’ women secure the funding they need to build and sustain their businesses, these efforts are not only empowering women-led enterprises to thrive but also shaping a more inclusive financial ecosystem – one that strengthens livelihoods and drives lasting socioeconomic impact.
Notably, women entrepreneurs consistently demonstrate high loan repayment rates, putting them among the most reliable borrowers in the nation’s financial ecosystem. Despite their strong track record, women entrepreneurs are receiving only 5% of total commercial financing, revealed Villgro Beyond the Numbers study. Various systemic barriers – including risk perception, lack of collateral ownership, and gender norms – continue to restrict their access to funding. This is exactly where Villgro is stepping in, attempting to create a difference by introducing tailored credit solutions, peer-to-peer lending and alternative funding mechanisms for bridging the nation’s gender financing gaps.
“Over the years, we at Villgro noticed that when it comes to so many women micro-entrepreneurs in India – who remain underserved by traditional financial institutions – lack of access to capital acts as a major constraint to their business growth, limiting their ability to scale, adopt new technologies and expand market reach. This is why, through multiple innovative avenues, we have been seeking to increase their access to credit while removing systemic barriers; and the outcomes have made us more than proud. Through Villgro’s support, hundreds of women-led businesses across the country have not only expanded and grown substantially, but also demonstrated strong repayment behaviour, reinforcing the case for greater financial inclusion. The evidence is clear – women entrepreneurs are bankable and reliable borrowers, and supporting them can contribute to a more inclusive and equitable economy,” commented Vibha Sharma, Lead – Impact Finance, Villgro.
Here are a couple of notable initiatives presently being carried out by Villgro, in collaboration with its ecosystem partners, to elevate women-led businesses in India:
Ø Affordable Credit for Solar-Powered Income Generating Opportunities: Villgro partnered with Ashv Finance to make DD Solar’s solar-powered cooling solutions more affordable and accessible to rural women micro-entrepreneurs – the majority of them in the fisheries value chain. Through this partnership, an end-user loan facility backed by a First Loss Default Guarantee (FLDG) was introduced, covering 25% of potential loan losses with support from other partners, which has unlocked over ₹1 crore in credit funding for underserved communities.
The impact observed was significant – 362 loans disbursed and 750 solar refrigeration units sold, with 44% of loans allocated to women – many of whom were first-time borrowers. These women entrepreneurs demonstrated strong repayment behaviour and a non-performing asset rate of just 6%. The innovative cooling storage solutions of DD Solar have helped these women in better procurement planning of the fish, lowering losses and enhancing their revenue, income and livelihoods. Encouraged by the success of this project, Ashv Finance has launched a second loan facility with reduced FLDG requirements, and with WE4F subsidizing 36% of product costs, financing has become even more accessible for women-led businesses.
Ø Peer-to-Peer Lending to Access Livelihood Generating Opportunities: Research indicates that 50% farmers in India are unable to secure loans. In a bid to improve the scenario, Villgro partnered with Rang De, a peer-to-peer lending platform, enabling farmers to adopt distributed renewable energy (DRE) technologies and enabling them to repay loans with the income generated from the usage of these technologies. Rang De’s P2P lending platform directly connects individual lenders with farmers, providing low-interest, easily accessible loans to fund climate-smart DRE technologies that drive agricultural innovation. By simplifying access to credit, this initiative has been encouraging several women farmers to secure loans, enabling them to invest in sustainable livelihood-enhancing technologies that can increase their incomes and productivity.Going ahead, Villgro remains committed to these facilities aimed towards empowering women by giving them access to finance and thereby enabling them to own income generating assets and enhance livelihoods. As Villgro continues to champion financial inclusion, they are also sensitizing and urging India’s policymakers, investors, and financial institutions to begin to recognize the value of investing in women-led businesses – these investments yield strong financial returns and create far-reaching socio-economic benefits for families, communities, and the broader economy.
About Villgro
Villgro is India’s foremost and one of the largest social enterprise incubators that supports invention-based social enterprises in Health, Agribusiness and Climate Action. We help social enterprises achieve sustainable impact at scale – since 2001, we have supported 323 social enterprises that have raised over INR 4,388 million in investments, to create 4922 jobs and impact over 20 million lives. Villgro was awarded the Top Incubator Award by the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (GoI) in 2020.
Website: https://villgro.org/
