India’s women entrepreneurs from Tier 2, 3 and beyond towns are ambitious, digitally aware, and determined to grow - but they are held back by structural gaps in finance, networks, and visibility. According to the Bharat Women Aspiration Index (BWAI) 2025, released today by Tide, 70% of women business owners want to improve their financial, marketing, and digital skills to scale their ventures.
Yet, 86% rarely or never participate in any business networks, cutting them off from critical peer support. Even though they run their own businesses, 52% still need a male family member to access credit - reflecting deep-seated gatekeeping in credit systems. These findings highlight why India’s Naari Shakti mission is so important - to help women reach their full potential by removing barriers that limit their economic independence.
Tide surveyed over 1,300 new and existing women business owners (aged 18–55 years) across non-metro cities for the second edition of BWAI. The study aims to capture the aspirations and pain points of women entrepreneurs from Tier 2, 3 and beyond towns in India - shedding light on the opportunities and challenges they face.
Key Findings from the BWAI 2025
This year’s report deep dives into the motivations, skill gaps, and socio-economic constraints that shape the entrepreneurial journeys of women in Bharat:
52% operate in digitally native sectors like retail, e-commerce, edtech
12%, or just over 1 in 10, ranked digital skilling as a key priority - signaling a mismatch between industry needs and self-perception.
54% feel financial institutions perceive them as less creditworthy
90% of businesses are driven by Gen Z and Millennial entrepreneurs, with 83% emerging from Tier 2 and beyond - highlighting how more entrepreneurs are emerging from smaller Indian cities.
Gurjodhpal Singh, CEO, Tide India: “The BWAI 2025 findings reflect a deep aspiration among women entrepreneurs in India’s smaller towns - but show that big challenges remain. It’s heartening that many women are more confident in their ability to manage finances and market their businesses. However, barriers like limited access to formal networks, digital tools, and financing - some still routed through male intermediaries - remain widespread.”
The Bharat Women Aspiration Index is a blueprint for action. It calls on ecosystem stakeholders - banks, policymakers, platforms, and NGOs to come together and simplify credit access, create community-rooted mentorship models, build storytelling platforms, and equip women with digital and financial tools that meet them where they are.
Introducing the Udaan Chronicles
As an extension of last year’s TWIBE initiative, Tide has launched a multi-city advocacy roadshow - The Udaan Chronicles. This initiative aims to create meaningful change in the lives of women entrepreneurs across Bharat by addressing grassroots challenges and unlocking their full potential. Through expert-led mentoring sessions, it offers direct support to women who often lack access to formal networks and financial literacy resources. This programme looks to foster peer networks, and aims at sparking a ripple effect of visibility, belief, and Naari Shakti across India’s entrepreneurial landscape.
Tide is committed to supporting 500,000 women-led businesses to start out by the end of 2027, part of a global pledge to support women entrepreneurs. To achieve this, Tide has partnered with WE Hub (India's first and only State led incubator to promote and foster Women Entrepreneurship), North Eastern Handicrafts & Handlooms Development Corporation Limited (NEHHDC) and the Ubuntu Consortium. Tide also hosts Ekatritt - its flagship Women in Business event every year to bring together women entrepreneurs from across India, along with conducting skill training sessions for women business owners.
Read the full report here.
About Tide
Founded in 2015 and launched in 2017, Tide is the leading business management platform in the UK. Tide helps SMEs save time (and money) in the running of their businesses by not only offering business accounts and related banking services, but also a comprehensive set of highly usable and connected administrative solutions from invoicing to accounting. Tide has 650,000 SME members in the UK (11% market share) and 650,000 members in India. Tide launched in Germany in May 2024. Tide has also been recognised with the Great Place to Work certification two consecutive years in a row (2023-24 and 2024-25).
Tide employs more than 2,000 Tideans worldwide. Tide’s long-term ambition is to be the leading business management platform globally.
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