The Kahani Of: Ahana Banerjee, Founder of Clear
Introducing the first piece of our “The Kahani Of…” series. Kahani means story in Hindi and we want to explore the many diverse and interesting stories of the South Asian diaspora.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Ahana Banerjee, 23-year old British-Indian founder of CLEAR - a mobile app and online community that allows you to track and measure your skincare routine. As a South Asian female founder, Ahana’s story is unique and inspiring and we hope sharing her experience helps anyone reading this on their journey on whatever they are pursuing!
Born in India, Ahana and her family moved to the UK at the age of 1. Her experience growing up was a bit more on the unique side compared to most young people of the Indian diaspora as her parents did not raise her or her brother culturally Indian. They lived in the English town of Chester, where her family lived amongst a predominantly white population. Her and her brother were not taught their parents’ native languages at home nor did they celebrate any Hindu or Indian holidays growing up. With the lack of cultural emphasis of her South Asian background, Ahana formed a very British identity which would later shape the rest of her life experiences.
After 14 years in the UK, Ahana and her family moved back to India due to her father’s job. This proved to be quite the culture shock as they had only visited India a few times, every few years. Ahana looked and was perceived as Indian by the locals but in reality, her mother was telling her not to speak during their shopping trips to the markets as to avoid being taken advantage of while bartering… I know a lot of us have been there!
During her time in India, Ahana went to an American school in Delhi which really gave her some perspective on her Indian heritage - she realized she was in such a privileged position living in India by going to her expat school and then seeing the total opposite extreme when venturing out from place to place. While she was going to school with Americans and forming meaningful friendships, she found herself unable to strongly relate to the local Indians. It was also jarring for her to realize that in her privileged position, she could not speak to the locals in the native language but they could speak to her in English - keeping in mind that those people came from much less opportunity than herself. It definitely was a tougher experience for her and elicited feelings of resentment towards Indian culture after seeing so many of the issues up close - caste system, colorism, treatment of women, corruption and so forth, but still proved to be enriching, as she was able to go to school with kids from all over the world.
Then, just 2 years later, Ahana’s family moved again to Singapore, where she attended an international school. At this school, she was viewed as primarily Indian by her peers, even though she strongly identified more as British. It was not only until she attended university at Imperial College of London that she became more accepting of being both Indian and British.
At the Imperial College of London, Ahana majored in physics, where it dawned on her that physics may not be the path she truly wanted. She did know she wanted to make some kind of impact with her work, since she’s had so many opportunities to succeed and wanted to make the most of it. But the reality is that cademia is unstable and non-linear so people who pursue it truly need to love it. Being introspective, she came to the conclusion that she was not one of those people, as success, including financial stability, was important to her. Since her parents provided her the standard of living they did, she felt should be able to do even more with all the opportunities and advantages she had been given. With that in mind, she prioritized learning more about different career paths and applying to as many kinds of internships as possible. In her 3rd year, she came across an opportunity to work at a startup where she discovered that entrepreneurship was indeed her passion. She didn’t necessarily love the team or idea but it gave her the clarity she was looking for. Her plan was to pursue a career in finance with a steady stream of income that would allow her to fund her own company in about 3 years.
However, everything changed in the summer of 2020, due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Ahana had just 1 year left to finish her degree when all of her extracurricular activities and clubs were canceled. She found herself with a lot more free time to work on some of her side projects that she never considered to be full time options. If nothing ever came about, she would just continue with her career plan in finance. But something did come about! Ahana applied to the YCombinator with just 6 months left of her masters degree - she received $125,000 of funding towards her company, Clear. She thought to herself, “why finish the masters program?” when she received guaranteed funding, which was the goal she had set for years later.
While being accepted into YC was great, that did not mean everything was smooth sailing for Ahana and Clear from there on out. The fundraising process started for Ahana in September of 2021, where she closed at 850K in November. That process was draining. It was the fundraising that made her feel that being a young brown woman was a detrimental thing. She had assumed it was a meritocratic process, which she was confident in as she had the data and finances to back her app. However, she took over 200 meetings, leaving with only 36 investors. That meant Ahana had to earn the trust of 36 different individuals and convince them to give her a significant amount of money. She was young, with no track record of past companies and was competing against seasoned entrepreneurs, so this was a difficult feat that she was incredibly proud of accomplishing.
Fundraising in general for a start up is difficult but why was it even harder for Ahana? Unfortunately, in tech and VC, they are still white, male dominated industries. There are nowhere near enough female investors, let alone young or brown ones. On top of that her product, a skincare app, is primarily a female audience. So her potential investors on the side of the table did not necessarily have enough understanding of it either. The first question most of them asked was “who else is investing in this?”, which sheds light on the issue of lack of diversity within tech startups. If people are not connected, how are they supposed to break through and change the climate? Ahana saw other people with much less progress have an easier time raising money due to this. Once she managed to get her first investor, only then did the process pick up, as she was able to get recommended to other investors through them.
For young South Asian women in positions of power so to speak, there is an unfair and tricky position that is almost unavoidable to be in. You don’t want to scare off business opportunities or investors that can help your company succeed but at the same time, having a platform comes with the responsibility of speaking up and effecting some kind of change. If we don’t speak up when we can, we perpetuate the cycle and subject future founders to the same kind of toxicity and biases. Luckily for Ahana, she was raised in an environment where she was never afraid to speak her mind and is confident to stand her ground so it is nice knowing she is finding success in the tech/vc world as we need people like her to impact bits of change. She has obviously experienced age and gender biases within hiring and business partners, who assume she is not the CEO since she is a young woman…although she has a strong technical background and is also the demographic of her target audience, which makes her more than equipped to run her company… but this has not discouraged her and only fuels her fire.
I think one of the main things I personally took away from speaking with Ahana, is that we all struggle with our identity at some point or another. But nothing you do or don’t do will ever change the fact that you are of South Asian descent. You don’t have to prove to anyone that you are who you are. In fact, you can constantly prove people wrong, like Ahana and use that to help others do the same. In the lens of being a female, brown or not… it’s safe to say that we can truly do whatever we put our minds to. The world is slowly but surely changing, and people like Ahana are part of that change - and there’s no reason you can’t be, too.
If you want to connect with Ahana, here’s where you can:
Follow Ahana on Twitter: ahanabanana
Find Ahana on LinkedIn: ahana-banerjee
Catch her on YouTube: Ahana Banerjee