Tinder pledged $1 Million in free ad inventory for women led startups: Meet the Recipients

The idea of this campaign was simple - to bring in entries from women entrepreneurs across the country that could use support scaling their startups. Tinder pledged up to $ 1 million in free in-app advertising to women founders. And now we have the top ten recipients! The businesses that will get in-app inventory are spread across different industries, and Economic Times discussed the unique businesses, the ideology and inspiration behind their company and their journey as female founders.
In the first of this series, we profile the first two start-ups. The first being, Bucket List -an organisation helping children in the low and middle-income communities to develop strong psycho-social skills, founded by Rida Ali and Zyla - a medical-AI driven 24X7 Personal Diabetes Clinic.

The Journey of Bucket List


An NGO that embarked on its journey in 2016, Rida Ali’s inspiration behind Bucket List was her own unusual school set up, and educational experience in a small village in UP. Bucket List began with 4 street kids. “The idea came around because of some off-hand but continuous interactions with a group of street children. As the conversations increased, I came to realise the intense lack of psycho-social skills in them. The clear indications were aggression, minimal problem solving and conflict management capacity, in addition to near absence of empathy and emotion management,” Rida says while shedding light on her story.

Almost two years after completely focusing on street kids, they expanded their attention to children from low and middle-income communities in late 2017. After pursuing a Master’s in Social Work, Rida started the company with the aspiration that each child (aka bucketeer) should be able to dream, hope and achieve, irrespective of social strata.

Being A Female Founder

Talking about the challenges of starting a business as a woman, Rida says, “Bucket List was meant to start its journey from Fatehpur, my home town. Till the age of 23, I had never stepped out of my home alone. This was when I was already living away from home for studies. However, I had to shift my base to Delhi as it was more difficult for me to function and run an organisation alone as a girl in a small town. Currently operating from Delhi, we are primarily based in the slum areas of Jasola, Okhla, Sarita Vihar, Madanpur Khadar, Nizamuddin and the district of Fatehpur in Uttar Pradesh. We are also in the initial stages of expanding our work in the state of Haryana.”

Tinder’s in-app advertising is designed to help Rida with more visibility and contribute to reaching these big dreams. Most of the children associated with Bucket List do not have access to an electronic device, making online classes extremely difficult. “Majority of the slum dwellers are migratory labourers who have come to towns in search of livelihood, and with the reverse migration, we might end up losing touch with a lot of children whom we had mainstreamed in the formal education system with the help of RTE Act in the last couple of years,” she adds.

However, Tinder’s in-app ads can help Rida connect with exactly the crowd that can help her. Talking about how this collaboration can aid her relatively new business, she says, “We are a young organization, being run by and for young people. Tinder’s audience is exactly the kind of people we are hoping to influence as they are going to be the real changemakers in the years to come. And of course, we totally wouldn’t mind making volunteering a ‘first date’ Gen Z trend.”

Meet Khushboo Aggarwal of Zyla


Khushboo Aggarwal is a Pharmacist-MBA by training who has been in the corporate world as a healthcare consultant for many years. Her work with some of the leading companies in our country led her to the realisation that there is a lot of scope to improve the value-based care available in India. Zyla was started with this core intention to finally pay adequate attention to patient care. Zyla has built India’s first “24X7 Personal Diabetes Clinic”, a Medical-AI driven diabetes management app for patients.

The Inspiration behind Zyla

Talking about this achievement and the inspiration behind it, Khushboo said, “In India today, healthcare is largely an out-of-pocket expense for patients – a diabetes patient spends close to Rs 15,000-30,000 per year on his health and still ends up with untimely complications. There is no entity helping a diabetes patient on an everyday basis in a customized way. Because of lack of this support, symptoms and health problems go unnoticed, patients are not monitored well and end up with poor outcomes and further complications. Zyla has developed a simple Whatsapp-like app where personalized real-time care is provided by the chatbot along with a leading medical team based on every patient's unique health data map. We have already served 1 Lakh+ diabetes patients in India, who have improved their sugar levels by more than 16% and improved cholesterol levels significantly.”

Being a Female Founder

Talking about the love and support that her family and co-workers have showered her with, Khushboo said, “I am blessed with an amazing family that has supported me throughout the entrepreneurial journey. On the team front, I am proud to say that we majorly have women in the team, given the huge talent pool available in India. We have an outstanding set of investors - Kae Capital and Secocha Ventures - who have never made me feel that I am any less as a Female Founder. I truly believe that if you are headstrong and committed to a cause, gender does not matter.”

Tinder’s ad-spots can help her reach out to a younger audience, much like her, Khushboo believes. Talking about being a recipient she says, “We were elated and very excited to explore this new opportunity with Tinder marketing! The inspiration behind starting Zyla is my own family’s health. I am very excited about the prospects of reaching out to millions of young folks who are worried about their parents’ health every night, to give them a platform that takes care of their parents like their own, so that they can be at peace. We are confident this campaign will do very well.”

Tinder has helped out more women entrepreneurs like Rida and Khushboo and in the coming weeks, we will be profiling all recipients. Watch this space for more.