NEW DELHI - In India, where over half of the population are under the age of 25, Ms Falguni Nayar made a rare decision to give up her career as an investment banker to build a beauty start-up a few months shy of turning 50 in 2012.

Almost 10 years on, Ms Nayar is now a billionaire worth over US$7 billlion (S$9.6 billion), following the public listing of her beauty brand Nykaa, the country's first woman-led unicorn, on Nov 10.

This puts her on Forbes' list of India's 100 richest people, which also includes five other women.

Her journey, in a country where women's participation in the workforce has been falling, has triggered much debate on how this will impact the entrepreneurial space or encourage other women. This is even as Ms Nayar, now 59, dislikes being labelled a woman entrepreneur.

"I think there is definitely learning that age is no bar. I hate being counted as a women entrepreneur... one has to break all stereotypes, including gender stereotypes," she said in an interview with news channel NDTV.

The former head of Kotak Mahindra Bank's investment banking arm, Ms Nayar started Nykaa, then an online business, with no experience in technology, beauty or even retail. It was also a time when people were wary of buying make-up and other beauty products online amid fears of getting counterfeit products.

She had said in past interviews that for the first two years, the business survived on family savings.

The company, which now includes physical stores, grew during the pandemic amid exclusive deals with global brands and collaboration with popular Indian actress Katrina Kaif.

Ms Nayar, whose husband Sanjay Nayar is an investment banker, is seen to have benefited from her banking experience when planning the Nykaa initial public offering (IPO).

Its shares made a strong debut on the first day, ending at 2,207 rupees, a 96 per cent jump from its IPO price of 1,125 rupees.

"The only stereotype to some extent that has been broken is her age of starting up... In the entrepreneurial space, the idea is also more important than the gender of the person starting it," said Mr Arvind Singhal, chairman of Technopak Advisors.

"I would love to see where Nykaa is after three to five years. The beauty space will attract far more competition than pre-IPO."

Before the Nykaa IPO, India had five female billionaires, led by Ms Savitri Jindal, 71, from steel and power conglomerate Jindal Group, who is valued at US$18 billion.

In India, women's participation in the workforce has dropped from 26 per cent in 2005 to 20.3 per cent in 2019, according to World Bank estimates. This was due to factors including a lack of quality jobs or self-employment opportunities, low wages, safety issues and lack of facilities like creches.

Reversing this trend is seen as important for the country to harness the current demographic dividend as women make up a large portion of it. Some 48.04 per cent of the population are women, with 65 per cent of the entire population under the age of 35.

India is also home to a fifth of the world's youth, with the median age at 28, in comparison to 38 in the United States.

There are 13.5 million to 15.7 million women-owned enterprises, representing 20 per cent of all enterprises in India, according to a joint report by Google and Bain & Company, a Boston-based consulting firm, in 2019.

The report noted that while this is a healthy number, there were enterprises reported as women-owned but were not controlled or run by women. It said women face challenges in building a business, such as problems in raising capital and not being taken seriously.

Dr Kalpana Sankar, managing trustee of Hand in Hand India, hopes Nykaa's success will encourage other entrepreneurs.

"It has never been easy for women entrepreneurs (or women for that matter) to break societal stereotypes. Women have to break the glass ceiling, manage human resources, negotiate and learn new skills, all while creating wealth for shareholders," she said.

Dr Sona Mitra, principal economist at non-profit Initiative for What Works to Advance Women and Girls in the Economy, noted that "most entrepreneurships (by women) are taken up as a secondary activity to supplement household incomes and they are mostly necessity-driven rather than aspiration-driven".

"These stories (like Nykaa) are inspiring for those who are trying to make survival out of small businesses," she said.

The Indian media has been reporting the success of Ms Nayar.

"Becoming an entrepreneur when you are close to 50 isn't easy. It's harder in a `business - online retailing of beauty, personal care and fashion products - where the target consumers are Generation Z and millennials," said an editorial in The Indian Express.

For those already in the entrepreneurial field, the Nykaa story has provided encouragement.

"Specifically after Nykaa, there is a strong perception that women can be wealth creators and not just diligent workers in an organisation," said Ms Yashodhara Bajoria, a young entrepreneur who co-founded CAxpert, a start-up that records data such as sales and expenses for businesses.