Two Indian American and four Indian women-led startups have made it to the longlist for the Aurora Tech Award 2025, a prestigious recognition that highlights the achievements of female entrepreneurs in the global tech industry.
The Aurora Tech Award 2025 Longlist features the Top 120 Female Founders to Watch, selected from 2,018 applications across 116 countries. These extraordinary women are leading the way in transforming their industries with innovative solutions, according to a media release.
Ashmi Health, founded by Boston-based Piyali Chakraborty is an AI-driven app that helps women manage hormonal health with ease.
READ: Automating healthcare administration: In conversation with Eden’s Naomi Rajput and Evan Smith (January 2, 2025)
A food-tech entrepreneur with a proven track record of commercializing cutting-edge academic research and developing deep-tech solutions in the life sciences field, Chakraborty wants “to make an impact in the Femtech space.”
Renuka Agarwal is co-founder and CEO of UpTrials, which provides AI workforce and operations software for clinical trial teams. Chicago, Illinois-based UpTrials helps clinical research employers hire better faster, and help clinical research professionals discover and find roles that fit their interests and experience.
Agarwal says she founded UpTrials to address the fact that over 50% of clinical trial teams are understaffed. By improving staffing, UpTrials can enable more trials to run more successfully, improving patient access to care.
Among the Indian women-led startups, MAMMA-MIYA, founded by Aashika Abraham, is an AI-powered daily planner app based in Bengaluru, Karnataka. Specifically designed for busy moms, it integrates work commitments, personal priorities, social engagements, activity trackers, period calendars, and self-care reminders into one platform. The app aims to help moms feel more balanced and fulfilled by organizing their daily lives using behavioral science and data.
Dzylo, founded by Anita Tailor in 2022, is an AI-powered B2B SaaS platform from Gurgaon, Haryana, India. Tailored for the interior design and construction industries, it streamlines project management, team collaboration, client communication, and resource tracking into a single, easy-to-use platform, empowering businesses to thrive in a competitive landscape.
Founded by Manishaa Soin, Aica Health is a health-tech startup leveraging AI-powered assistance to manage chronic medical conditions and enable coordinated geriatric care at home.
Founded by Rinju Rajan, Tech4Good Community is featured in the list for developing Flake, an open-source data management platform for non-technical users, enhancing NGO tech capabilities.
“The Aurora Top 120 is a first for us this year, created from a three-month open call that attracted over 2,000 applications from female founders. Through a rigorous selection process, we’ve identified 120 standout women entrepreneurs who are building bold and innovative businesses in emerging markets. These founders are poised to shape the future of their industries and countries, making them the ones to watch in 2025,” said Head of the Aurora Tech Awards, Isabella Ghassemi-Smith.
READ: Oncovana: A new frontier in fertility support for cancer patients (November 2, 2024)
The Aurora Tech Award celebrates the boldest and most ambitious female founders in emerging markets, offering more than just recognition. It provides access to expertise, resources, and transformative opportunities to scale their businesses and shape the future.
Aurora Tech Award is a non-profit initiative of inDrive, a global mobility and urban services platform. In addition to ride-hailing, inDrive provides an expanding list of urban services, including intercity transportation, freight delivery, task assistance and courier delivery. In 2023, inDrive launched New Ventures, a venture and M&A arm. It operates in over 700 cities in 46 countries.