Founders react to Goyal’s remarks, say consumer start-ups drive innovation

Start-up founders note consumer internet start-ups drive innovation and wealth creation in response to Union Minister Piyush Goyal’s criticism on start-ups’ lack of innovation.

Founders, including those of Zepto, Ashneer Grover and others joined the debate and expressed their opinions on the Minister’s suggestion for developing a deep tech start-up culture in the country.

Zepto co-founder and CEO Aadit Palicha noted that it is easy to criticise consumer internet start-ups, but said that “the start-up ecosystem, the government, and the owners of large pools of Indian capital need to actively support the creation of these local champions, not pull down the teams that are trying hard to get there.”

Zepto’s Palicha said Zepto has created over 1.5 lakh jobs, contributes over ₹1,000 crore in taxes each year and has brought in over $1 billion of foreign direct investments (FDI) into India. “If that isn’t a miracle in Indian innovation, I honestly don’t know what is,” Palicha wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Chinese ecosystem

BharatPe chief Ashneer Grover said the Chinese start-up ecosystem, the second-largest in the world, has evolved over time from what it was earlier.

“China also had food delivery first and then evolved to deep tech. It’s great to aspire for what they’ve done — maybe time for politicians to aspire for 10 per cent+ economic growth rate for 20 years flat before chiding today’s job creators,” Grover wrote on X.

Rajeev Mantri, Founder and Managing Partner at Navam Capital, said consumer tech companies have been instrumental in creating tens of thousands of jobs and generating returns worth thousands of crores for investors. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with investing in consumer tech, marketplaces, gaming or other industries. We cannot and must not apply a nationalistic moral lens to venture investing — people will and must invest where there are returns to be made,” he posted on X.

In his speech at Startup Mahakumbh, Goyal compared Indian start-ups with their Chinese peers, which are working on EVs, semiconductors, robotics and deeptech.

Published on April 4, 2025