Meri Saheli App (Frontier Markets)

In India, 15.7 million rural women entrepreneurs lack the capacity, access to digital platforms and local support to overcome social patriarchal barriers to elevate and diversify their incomes. Despite having better financial returns (loan repayment rates) than their male counterparts, most promising rural women entrepreneurs struggle to access working capital, lack local community support and fail to mobilize resources to scale operations. 

As a result, their incomes stay low, stagnant and vulnerable to climate and business risks. This is the problem that Frontier Markets is solving using Meri Saheli technology platform that leverages with 20K+ Saheli’s, 210+ market linkages partners and the existing Meri Saheli digital platform. 

Frontier Market has developed a proprietary technology solution called, Meri Saheli Platform that enables rural women entrepreneurs to sell products and services in rural households. Meri Saheli platform provides end-to-end empowerment to rural women from capacity building, community support, and market linkages to income elevation. 

On the platform, rural women entrepreneurs can do capacity-building training across digital literacy, financial literacy, business development and entrepreneurship modules. The platform further enables community support with 20K+ Saheli’s, seasoned women entrepreneurs that ensure handholding to each member in their entrepreneurial journey. The platform also has an e-commerce equivalent module with products and services of 210+ top corporate brands as market linkage partners that rural women can sell in their local communities while collecting powerful data on rural consumer demands and trends. Women generate income from the sale of products and services, and also from the data and insights collected for specific corporate clients. 

From a technology standpoint, the platform has been developed over the last decade,  working closely with rural women and for their custom needs. It has integrated multiple technologies including vernacular modules, AI-assisted workflows, and chatbot automation to facilitate streamlined operations ensuring both efficiency and effectiveness at scale. Meri Saheli platform also has an integrated in-house delivery and inventory management software, providing additional support to rural women entrepreneurs in managing and scaling their operations. 

Details of the tech solution and user journey can be accessed in this Link. 

The target population consists of the 100M rural women in India who are part of self-help groups, qualifying as aspiring rural women entrepreneurs or small women business owners including small shop owners, small-holder farmers and small-scale local sellers. 

Most rural women entrepreneurs and small business owners in India struggle to sustain and scale their business operations due to a mix of interrelated factors including social-patriarchal barriers, limited knowledge and training, lack of digital savviness, lack of support and guidance, lack of capital and others. 

As a result, most of the women struggle to sustain and scale their operations, with stagnating incomes pushing them into a download socio-economic-psychological spiral into a future that is uncertain and vulnerable. This is despite the fact that most small rural women entrepreneurs and business owners in India have been proven to have a better ROI on their business, higher repayment rates (<2% default on loans) and have better business re-investment rates and more productive use of surplus towards education, health and community needs compared to their male counterparts.

Frontier Markets, through its Meri Saheli app solution, addresses their needs holistically. The app enrolls rural women entrepreneurs and small business owners to elevate, diversify, and scale their income. This is achieved through capacity building and training modules, a strong network and hand-holding support by 20K+ saheli’s who are community leaders and entrepreneurs and access to top 210+ corporate brands as market-linkage partners such as Phillips, Unilever, P&G, Samsung and many more.

Frontier Market is led by a dedicated team with 20+ years of average individual experience across technology, micro-finance, financial inclusion and rural market operations. The solutions have evolved from a co-creation journey with rural women entrepreneurs over the last decade with the core team representing their local communities and networks. 

The team lead, Ajaita Shah (Founder & CEO) has spent the last 20+ years in rural India through microfinance, rural distribution, marketing, and gender-inclusive business models, and technology. Ajaita is also UN Advocate for the digital women economy with UNCTAD and is the recipient of the Schwab Award 2024, Forbes 30 Under 30, and Digital Women of the Year and has spoken at global platforms such as the WEF, UN and others on social entrepreneurship, digital inclusion, gender smart investing. Ajaita recently launched a national campaign She Leads Bharat at WEF in Davos, her speech can be found at this link. 

Ajaita is partnered with Amrit and Mehdi in leading the solution on the ground. 

Amrit (CXO at Frontier Markets) has 18 years of experience in rural analytics and consumer insights. Prior to joining Frontier Markets, Amrit spent a decade working with large scale marketing agencies. His expertise ranges from communication strategy, user acquisition, stakeholder engagement, business analytics, and trend analysis to brand development and more. In his duties at Frontier Markets, Amrit manages the tech and data center and direct-to-consumer marketing and communications.

Mehdi (COO at Frontier Markets) has over 24 years of experience across Telecom, FMCG and Retail industries with expertise in Sales Distribution, Business Development, Planning, Procurement & New Product Launches. His sharp planning abilities to devise strategies for augmenting business, streamline distribution, and promote products have achieved increased revenues, profitability, and overall business success. Mehdi's seasoned business acumen comes from his experience working with leading organizations in diverse sectors such as the Rajasthan State Cooperative, Parrys Confectionary Ltd., Dairy Den, Suamaria Group (Tanzania) & Tata Teleservices Ltd.

Since its inception, Frontier Markets (“FM”) has created a strong network of 20K+ trained rural women entrepreneurs who used the Meri Saheli platform for the sale of products and services to 400K+ rural households, generating US$14M in total revenue and earning US$2.5M in income.  Additionally, FM has trained 350K+ rural women in certification programs related to non-farm and farm livelihoods training. FM has also saved over 2.9M carbon tons of GHG emissions via clean energy and climate-friendly solutions. The next 3-year goal for Frontier Markets is to replicate and innovate on its demonstrated model and elevate incomes of 100K+ Sahelis (rural women entrepreneurs), transforming the lives of these women and their families forever.

In the last decade, Frontier Markets has led strong demonstrations on the socio-economic empowerment for rural women in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh in India. Given the fact that most rural women entrepreneurs and small business owners face similar challenges and have similar drivers of empowerment across India and in other developing countries such as Africa, LATAM and other South Asian countries, Frontier Markets is looking for strategic advisory, new partners and monetary support to scale its operations and expand its technology stack to elevate incomes of more rural women. Frontier Markets in partnership with the Frontier Innovations Foundation (US 501c3) and Mastercard Foundation recently launched She Leads Bharat to elevate the incomes of 100K+ rural women in India and is currently in conversation with other global partners for She Leads the World to expand to other emerging and developing regions. This is where the MIT Solve platform, team, network and support will help us in accelerating our efforts. 

The Meri Saheli app is innovative in its ability to bring technology, local community members and market players together to create a positive outcome for rural women entrepreneurs in a sustainable manner. The solution has been developed working closely with rural women entrepreneurs and design thinking to go beyond a simple education or capacity building platform but enabling women to own, manage and scale business operations by having access to products and services of top 210 corporates to cater to the rural household demand. The community support is also integrated in the app design to allow senior rural women entrepreneurs to provide the 

Frontier Markets over the last 11+ years has demonstrated its theory of change to elevate the incomes of rural women entrepreneurs with its proprietary Meri Saheli Platform, network of 20K+ Saheli network and 210+ corporate market linkages partners. 

The core outcome of income elevation results from a highly curated digital journey that every rural women entrepreneur undergoes in the on the Meri Saheli app and tech ecosystem. Key components or activities with respective outputs include enrolment of enthusiastic rural women entrepreneurs, capacity building across financial and digital literacy, community engagement and formation of social groups with senior rural women entrepreneur leaders, onboarding onto the Meri Saheli App to set up and manage commercial operations and continuous business support through a network of Saheli’s helping across sales, marketing, finances and personal issues. This leads to their capacity building, socio-psychological readiness and financial independence through income generation, that in the medium to longer run lead to better utilisation of surplus towards productive usage such as increased expenditure towards education, health, hygiene and family care, while also positively boosting rural economy with thriving strong network for supporting rural women.

 With a thriving network of 20K+ Saheli Network that has driven sale of 50M+ solutions in rural markets since inception is a testimony and demonstration of Frontier Market’s theory of change. This is further validated by global partners (such as SAP, MasterCard, Airtel, Data.org etc.) and and institutions including state governments of India that are entrusting Frontier Markets in reaching the next level of scale. Additionally,  Frontier Markets has been funded by global foundations such as Acumen, Rise, MasterCard Foundation, Doen Foundation, Kairos Family Foundation, Beyond Capital Ventures and others. Frontier Marketrs has undergone multiple kinds of third party verification and validation with its donors and partners in the past in various forms, guiding its design, strategy and approach to outcome generation.

Frontier Markets aims to create 100M rural women entrepreneurs using digital technology, local community network and market linkages with elevated income opportunities in partnership with the Government of India and all major institutions working on women welfare and empowerment. A few indicators that are being used to measure impact are as under:

1.     Rural women entrepreneurs mapped

2.     Rural women entrepreneurs enrolled

3.     Rural women entrepreneurs trained

4.     Rural women entrepreneurs income elevated

5.     Average income (absolute and relative % change) of rural women entrepreneurs

6.     Total GMV of business done by rural women entrepreneurs

7.     Increase in market access %

8.     And a few others

The core technology underlying the Meri Saheli App is a digital smart phone app that leverages SMS technology, WhatsApp Chatbot technology and automations, vernacular modules, voice assisted features and custom apps to enable strong outcomes for rural women entrepreneurs in a highly curated, locally contextual and effective manner. The individual technology components and their integrations have undergone multiple iterations over the last 11 years in a scientific and evidence-based manner to ensure ease of use by women entrepreneurs in rural India.

As on March 31, 2024,  

Full time employees : 131

Contractual employees : 22

13+ years 

Frontier Markets prioritizes diversity and inclusion through inclusive hiring practices, with 95% of teams hailing from rural India, emphasizing opportunities for women. The company provides diversity training covering unconscious bias, cultural sensitivity, and fosters an inclusive work environment. Inclusive policies include flexible work arrangements and anti-discrimination measures. Employee Groups offer a platform for connecting based on shared characteristics, addressing specific issues within the organization. Regular reviews and refinements of strategies ensure adaptability, and partnerships with external organizations reinforce Frontier Markets' commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Frontier Markets work with key customers and beneficiaries that are part of the100M rural women in India who are part of self-help groups, qualifying as aspiring rural women entrepreneurs or small women business owners including small shop owners, small-holder farmers and small-scale local sellers who can access a smart phone.  Most rural women entrepreneurs and small business owners in India struggle to sustain and scale their business operations due to a mix of interrelated factors including social-patriarchal barriers, limited knowledge and training, lack of digital savviness, lack of support and guidance, lack of capital and others. 

This is where the Meri Saheli platform comes in to provide end-to-end empowerment to rural women from capacity building, community support, and market linkages to income elevation. On the platform, rural women entrepreneurs can do capacity-building training across digital literacy, financial literacy, business development and entrepreneurship modules. The platform further enables community support with 20K+ Saheli’s, seasoned women entrepreneurs that ensure handholding to each member in their entrepreneurial journey. The platform also has an e-commerce equivalent module with products and services of 210+ top corporate brands as market linkage partners that rural women can sell in their local communities while collecting powerful data on rural consumer demands and trends. Women generate income from the sale of products and services, and also from the data and insights collected for specific corporate clients. 

Frontier Markets has demonstrated that with access to technology, market linkages and community support, rural women elevate their incomes, contributing positively towards the betterment of her family and local community. Since inception, Frontier Markets has received funds through various sources including Debt, Equity and Grant from prominent institutional investors and philanthropic donors including Acumen, Rise, MasterCard, Doen Foundation, Kairos Family Foundation, Beyond Capital Ventures and others, which is a testimony of the trust and credibility they have garnered.

In addition, the operations of Meri Saheli app are financially sustainability with two primary sources of revenue. First, revenue from the sale of products and services to rural customers. The trained rural women entrepreneurs sell products and services using Frontier Markets’s Meri Saheli platform to rural households. Since its inception, a network of 20K+ rural women entrepreneurs have enabled access to over 50M products and services from 210+ top brands to rural households across 5K+ villages in India. Second, revenue from the data and insights on rural consumer demand. Rural India which comprises of 80% of India’s population has rich and vast data and insights, which is a very valuable commodity for large corporates who are willing to pay handsomely to guide their GTM strategy, improve rural distribution, enable innovation and new product development for rural customers and conduct pilot studies. Frontier Markets currently work with top corporates as partners to access rural data and insights. These two revenue streams will ensure the sustainability of operations and cost of technology.