Rupa Ganatra Popat surely knows how to follow her passion. After being an investment banker for eight years, she left her plush job to start her own adventure as an entrepreneur, because according to her, “I always knew I’d regret it if I didn’t give it a shot.” She has come a long way since then and is now a passionate advocate of funding start-ups led by women to help them achieve their dreams. She is the founder and managing partner of Araya Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in companies shaping the future of education, health, finance, climate, commerce and work and which has 65% of its investment portfolio in companies with at least one female founder, 65% in first-time founders and 50% of its companies with at least one ethnic minority founder. The journey, of course, was not an easy one. She told Asian Voice, “As a technology start-up founder in 2013, it was extremely challenging to raise funds for my business at the time. There is no doubt it has improved especially from my own experience a decade ago but given the current statistics that less than 3% of venture funding still goes to female entrepreneurs, we still have a long way to go.”
What makes Popat stand out from other angel investors?
What makes Popat stand out from other angel investors is her empathy and her own experience as a successful entrepreneur. She struggled in a world where angel investors themselves indulge in bad practices like taking too much equity, imposing complicated terms, or putting their interests ahead of the company’s, and where women are especially singled out (a 2019 study by Dr Dana Kanze showed that women are asked more negative, prevention-orientated questions that focus on the challenges, risks, or potential losses their business could face), today she invests at quite an early stage in the businesses where potential returns are high, but often when there isn’t revenue yet, leading to an unreliable financial model and being perfectly aware that most start-ups fail. But she considers it an immense privilege to be a co-traveller in the journeys of those shaping our future and whilst financial returns are key, stresses additional values like providing network, advice, or expertise to the entrepreneurs she backs.
So who are the people with whom she prefers to go on investment journeys?
“I look for mission-driven founders, who have deep industry knowledge and understanding of the market that they operate in and are looking to build a company that has an impact beyond only focusing on financial gain, those who know exactly what they are doing, maybe because they have experienced it themselves, those who can adapt and evolve, founders who are focused on the execution. A business idea can only take you so far – the rest is in the execution. Diversity in the founding team is paramount, not only as it drives better returns but also because it drives more innovation and therefore better outcomes for the customers,” she said.
Diversity
Speaking about diversity, Popat talked about companies built and run by passionate female entrepreneurs who often have first-hand knowledge of the issues their companies are solving. Her investment portfolio is, unsurprisingly, diverse and of which many companies are levelling the playing field for women - one of her investments is Juno, which exists to educate women on building financial freedom and to close the financial literacy gender gap. Another is Code First Girls, which has already educated 80,000 women in the U.K. in coding and placed them into technical job roles with the government, the UK’s biggest banks and other large institutions. Then there is Indē Wild, founded by Diipa Büller-Khosla, a beauty and wellness company which embraces Ayurveda to create solutions to combat the underrepresentation of South Asian women by focusing on launching products for different skin types, tones, textures, and concerns that are deeply rooted within this community.
The common threads that bind all women together
But while supporting diversity in looking, thinking, and doing, Popat stressed the common threads that bind all women together as well. She is very concerned about the gender wealth gap, and the lack of financial literacy that lies at the root of it and which is structurally enforced worldwide. Her suggestions to counter this were: “Give financial literacy training at school and make this compulsory in school curriculums. This is something my husband Rupeen Popat is very passionate about and is spearheading as an initiative in the UK. Financial institutions also have an opportunity to educate their female customers and work has begun here. There are also many courses and programmes today that enable young women to learn financial literacy – for example, Your Juno and Girls That Invest. These courses enable women to become part of a community and build a network as they learn how to invest in asset classes such as shares and property. In the UK, currently, less than 15% of angel investors are women. That’s one of many reasons I have recently launched an angel investment education course to encourage more women to become angel investors. The Halo course is designed for senior female executives, senior women working in scale-ups and entrepreneurs to learn how to get started with investing in start-ups. Several financial institutions have already signed up to have their executives join our 2023 courses. Details can be found at www.Araya.ventures/halo.”
Only 14% of angel investors in the UK are women
Finally, being one of the only 14% of angel investors in the UK who are women (no points for guessing that the rest are mostly white men from Oxbridge or Ivy League institutions), her advice for the women wanting to do things differently was expectedly meticulous. “Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t achieve whatever you want to. Dream big and then break those dreams down into small steps and start putting them into action. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want and deserve, whether that’s a salary increase or a promotion. Get as much experience as possible across a variety of industries before settling on anything. The future is changing and is no longer about one career for life so ensure you are always learning and developing yourself and your skills throughout your lifetime. Ignore technology, coding, and artificial intelligence at your own peril. Don’t be afraid of failure. The best version of you is not the one who lives through easy times but is the one that comes into being after great challenges.”
