Ten years ago, an Ashden Award played an important role in strengthening the credibility of Frontier Markets as it began to scale in India.

“Since then, Frontier Markets has evolved from a clean energy distribution model into a tech-enabled platform where rural women entrepreneurs are driving access to energy, financial services, and essential products in their communities,” says its founder, Ajaita Shah.

On International Women’s Day 2025, Ajaita Shah was invited to take over the social media platform of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, bringing national attention to the power of rural women entrepreneurs. Now it has won the 2026 Ashden Award for Outstanding Achievement.

From its formation in 2011 to sell solar lamps, Frontier Markets has scaled into a fast-growing, tech-enabled social commerce platform, built for rural India, by rural women.

It operates across Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Andhra Pradesh, with a network of over 40,000 digitally enabled women entrepreneurs. Through this network, the company has already delivered products and services worth over $100 million (₹800 crore) to 4.3 million households across 5,000 villages.

The platform connects companies directly to rural demand through a trusted network of women known as sahelis, who use Frontier Markets’ digital infrastructure, including the Meri Saheli app, to run their businesses, managing sales, accessing training, and enabling services such as credit and insurance.

For millions of rural households, this network has become the gateway to essential goods and services – many for the first time. Whether it is access to clean energy, better farming inputs, or financial products, Frontier Markets is bringing solutions directly to the doorstep.

At the same time, the platform is unlocking economic agency for women at scale. Sahelis are earning incomes, building businesses, and influencing household spending – creating a ripple effect across local economies. Many are growing into “super-sahelis,” leading and scaling networks of other entrepreneurs.

_{Meri Saheli Tech is a Go-To-Platform enabling end to end marketplace operations right from data collection, marketing, lead generation to order fulfillment – all with real time tracking}

The impact is compounding: stronger incomes, better access, and more resilient rural communities, powered by women-led commerce.

Its flagship initiative, She Leads Bharat, is designed to take this model nationwide, building a public-private platform to scale women-led rural commerce across India. The ambition is clear: to enable 1 million women entrepreneurs to impact 100 million households across 25,000 villages over the next five years.

Frontier Markets is strengthening its technology backbone through partnerships with global leaders such as Microsoft, SAP, and Saint-Gobain. In partnership with Microsoft, Frontier Markets is embedding AI capabilities into the Meri Saheli app to support rural women entrepreneurs in real time, enabling them to learn, manage sales, resolve service issues, and grow their businesses in local languages such as Hindi and Telugu.

Cover image: Ashden Awards

Sources:

Ashden Award website.

Frontier Markets website.