Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairperson, In 1978, when I founded Biocon, I was India’s first qualified woman brew-master, yet no one was willing to offer me a job. Being a young woman, I had to be assertive to prove my worth at every point. I had no financial backing or business experience, and no banks were willing to give me loans without a collateral or my father’s guarantee, which I did not want. I was, as a 25-year-old, trying to pioneer a new sector, biotechnology, which no banker was familiar with. I was considered a huge investment risk. I was often advised to take on board my father as a business partner to facilitate the process. However, even though raising debt was extremely difficult, my perseverance brought me an angel investor who gave me the required funds to scale up my business against an equity stake in the company. Fortunately, today the startup ecosystem is well supported by venture capital firms.