International Women's Day recognizes the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women worldwide on March 8th of every year. The day is marked to build momentum toward gender parity and inclusive economies that benefit everyone. 

To celebrate this occasion, we thought we'd talk about some of the amazing women in the Indian SaaS industry. 

Here are five such successful women entrepreneurs who are trailblazing the path for us in the Indian SaaS industry: 

Madhavi Shanker, Spacebasic 

In 2016, Madhavi Shankar set out to solve housing and maintenance problems for university students. Along with Co-founder Indu Navar, the team built SpaceBasic: an AI-enabled SaaS platform that automates everyday tasks and communication within universities and student housing communities. 

The platform saw massive growth within the first year of its launch and currently has over 200,000 active users. 

Madhavi was named one of the top 60 women transforming India in 2019 and Forbes 30 under 30 Asia in 2020. 

Kausambi Manjita, Mason (previously Kubric)

Indian School of Business graduate Kausambi Manjita saw the opportunity of engaging customers with practical design and built Kubric: an AI-enabled SaaS platform to help designers improve their efficiency and engage customers on digital platforms. 

Kubric enabled designers to create, edit, find Gifs, videos and memes. The team has now rebranded as Mason: a no-code, headless CMS for eCommerce storefronts. With Mason, product and brand makers can auto-pilot product launches, sales & discounts, inventory updates, customer reviews, and more.

Her prior experience in product management at Myntra and Paytm equipped her to understand the space better. 

Kausmabi was among the top 10 Women Entrepreneur Quest (WEQ) award winners in 2017.

Deena Jacob, Open 

CFO and co-founder of Open, Deena Jacob, always knew building startups was her calling. After becoming a Chartered Accountant, she worked at various companies, including Deloitte, until she joined app aggregator Tapzo as their Chief Financial Officer. 

Deena finally launched Open, a neo-banking platform, in 2017, along with co-founders Anish Achuthan, Mabel Chacko, and Ajeesh Achuthan, 

Open a neo banking platform for SMEs and startups. The SaaS offers a business account that lets small business owners collect payments, auto-reconcile them, and make payouts. 

Vidya Sanathanam, Fitbots

Over 15 years of experience in HR led Vidya Sanathanam to solve the billion-dollar cost faced by companies due to disengaged employees. 

After months of research and with the help of her co-founder Kashi, Vidya launched Fitbots: a SaaS platform that helps with employee engagement and productivity. 

From writing OKRs to aligning teams to weekly check-ins, Fitbot is a comprehensive HRTech. The platform also offers training with their 'OKR Coach' feature and an OKR certification program. 

Ankita Garg, Enthrall Labs 

After completing her MBA in Software Enterprise Management from IIM Bangalore, Ankita Garg saw that technology could help small and medium businesses (SMEs) establish customer loyalty and retain customers. 

In 2017, she and her co-founder, Amitabh Mehta, founded Enthrall Labs to help small businesses achieve this goal. 

HyPerk, a SaaS product developed by the B2B startup, helps offline businesses like restaurants, salons, and bookstores reach customers. 

Businesses receive a unique QR code that they can share with their customers. This enables them to become members and access the store's catalogue, pre-orders, welcome offers, manage subscriptions, and much more.