Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal's remarks at the Startup Mahakumbh 2025 in New Delhi have triggered widespread responses from entrepreneurs across the country. Speaking about India's startup culture compared to China, Goyal challenged whether India should rest with its current trajectory and asked, "Should we aim to be, or are we going to be content with being delivery boys and girls?"

Goyal lamented what he believes is a narrow focus in India's startup ecosystem, specifically on food ordering and hyperlocal logistics. He added, "What are India's startups of today? We are also concentrating on food delivery apps, making unemployed youths cheap labor just so the rich can have meals without having to leave their home." Although he recognized the steps taken, he further stated, "We are very proud of what India has done, but are we the best in the world as yet? Not yet."

His comments provoked a flood of replies from founders and stakeholders of startups, with many disagreeing with his description of consumer internet companies. Aadit Palicha, CEO and co-founder of Zepto, was one of the first to react. In a lengthy post on X (formerly Twitter), he stood up for the work done by startups such as Zepto, which was established just over three years ago. It is simple to knock consumer internet startups in India, particularly when one is comparing them with the technical depth excellence being incubated in the US and China. The fact of the matter is this: there are virtually 150,000 genuine human beings making livelihoods at Zepto today a firm that didn't even exist 3.5 years ago," Palicha wrote.

He pointed to the greater economic contribution of such firms, observing, "More than 1,000 crores of tax revenues to the government per year, more than a billion dollars in foreign direct investment introduced into the country, and hundreds of crores spent putting India's backend supply chains together, especially for fresh produce like fruits and vegetables. If this is not a miracle of Indian innovation, I don't know what it is."

Palicha also discussed Goyal's broader question regarding India's exclusion from the international AI race. "Why doesn't India have its own large-scale foundational AI model? It's because we still haven't built great internet companies," he explained, pointing to international behemoths such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Alibabaall of which began as consumer-facing platforms before eventually becoming masters of cutting-edge technology, including artificial intelligence.

"Consumer internet companies are fueling this innovation because they have the greatest data, talent, and capital to fund it," he further added.

Palicha also emphasized the requirement for wider support from the ecosystem. "The startup ecosystem, the government, and the owners of large pools of Indian capital need to actively enable the creation of these local champions, and not sabotage the teams working to make that happen," he stated.

While acknowledging that Zepto is not yet a “great internet company,” he reaffirmed his commitment to building one. “I’m dedicating the next few decades of my life to creating dynamism in the Indian economy,” Palicha concluded his post with a call to action: “India has the talent, India has the capital, but it needs execution.”