It takes a lot to turn your dreams into a reality, especially when you are a woman entrepreneur, struggling to make a name for yourself in a male dominating sector.
The co-founder of Mobikwik, Upasana Taku, went through ups and downs to make a way for herself; yet, she truly emerged as a fierce techno-entrepreneur.
What made her journey challenging were the gender stereotypes she faced as well as the financial difficulties that she managed to overcome thanks to the support of her better half, Bipin Preet Singh.
Born in a family of academics, she graduated in engineering at the National Institute of Technology in Jalandhar. To further strengthen her educational background, Upasana pursued MS in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University, US. Her impeccable educational knowledge eventually led her to HSBC in San Diego. There, Taku performed exceptionally well and gained so much experience. That is why, later on, Upasana joined PayPal as a senior Product manager.
After working for over 4 years aboard, she decided to establish her own business venture to make a contribution to the Indian economy. Taku’s homecoming became the biggest turning point in her career: she came up with a master plan of creating a mobile wallet app, her dream venture Mobikwik, to simplify transactions in India.
With her husband, Bipin, she started the company in a small room in Dwarka with a few employees. Struggling financially, they got their first office by 2013 and then swooped into a whooping investment of 5 million dollars, after which there was no looking back for the duo.
Yet, 2016 proved to be a dream year for Upasana Taku. In fact, that year Mobikwik raised funding of 50 million dollars from Net1, GMO payment gateway, Mediatek, Sequoia Capital, and TreeLine Asia, which was enough for them to make a big name in the circuit. Even the demonetization came as blessing for Mobikwik as the company saw a massive boom of 400% in transactions and became home to more than 45 million users which only helped them to grow in future.
For revolutionising the Fin tech sector with her immense hardwork and incredible skills, Upasana Taku was also featured in the Women to Watch list by Forbes in 2016 and then received Best Woman Entrepreneur Award 2017 by Assocham.
Not only this, in 2018, she was one of the 112 women achievers honoured by the then President of India, Ram Nath Kovind.
Beating the odds against her, Upasana Taku has proved that women can run the world!
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