Goyal’s start-up comment draws mixed reactions from entrepreneurs

Ganesh Mahadevan, Partner, thinksynq consulting said it’s time for Indian start-ups to confront the elephant in the room. “We’ve been operating in a vacuum, without clear answers to fundamental questions: What is the role of start-ups in our ecosystem? Should they be solving the same problems as established players, or tackling new challenges? And what space do they occupy in our economic landscape?” He said it’s time for policy makers to step up and provide clarity.

Goyal had pointed out that many start-ups are focusing on food delivery, whereas, Chinese start-ups are working on EVs, semiconductors and AI.

Former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai wrote in a post on X that deep tech start-ups are small due to lack of capital because funding is less. 

Dr. Partha Chatterjee, Dean of Academics and Professor of Economics, Shiv Nadar University, said that it would be wrong to put the blame squarely on the entrepreneurs in India without acknowledging the structural differences.

 “The share of consumption in GDP in India is greater than that in China. In contrast, India manufactures and exports far less than China. So, it is not surprising that many entrepreneurs are attracted to look at business innovations in the space where they can tap into consumer expenditure directly, like food and grocery delivery.”