Ankiti Bose

Bose is from India.[3] She completed her schooling from Cambridge School, Kandivli, Mumbai. She studied mathematics and economics at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai.[4]

Bose started her career working at McKinsey & Company and Sequoia Capital in Bangalore.[5] After a trip to the famous Chatuchak Weekend Market[6] Bose noticed that fashion markets in Southeast Asia had immense room for penetration and growth.[4] The Chatuchak Weekend Market includes over 11,000 independent merchants lacking an online presence.[4] Whilst there was investment in improving access to the internet, Bose recognized that retailers were not trained in financing, scaling-up, website design and procurement neither well equipped to compete with large global players.[5]

In 2015 Bose left her position as an investment analyst at Sequoia Capital to launch her own company, Zilingo.[7] Bose was only twenty three when she founded Zilingo, an e-commerce platform that offers B2B focused services.[8] She moved to Singapore in 2016, where she developed Zilingo software and supply chain solutions.[9] In 2019 Zilingo raised $226 million in Series D fundraising, resulting in a $970 million market value.[10][11] Zilingo works with small and medium size enterprises in Southeast Asia.[10] As of 2019 Zilingo had over seven million active users leveraging the global platform.[5]

The China–United States trade war resulted in United States retailers leaving China, which allowed Zilingo to expand into America.[11] She has worked to source Indian fabrics for Californian factories as well as opening offices on the West Coast and East Coast.[11] At Zilingo Bose started a program to train women in Indonesia to create clothing, recognising that in Indonesia almost 40% of women leave the workforce after they get married.[11][12] Zilingo set up a coaching programme to support leaders across the company.[11]

Bose is involved with programmes to support and mentor women entrepreneurs.[9] She has spoken at the World Economic Forum.[13]