Zepto CEO defends Indian startups, claiming to offer 1.5 million jobs in Piyush Goyal’s Jab, “it’s easy to criticize.”
Zepto co-founder Aadit Palicha claims that consumer internet startups in India are crucial to innovation. While highlighting recent criticism of Indian startups, he pointed to Zepto’s growth and contributions, urging support for local companies to promote technological advancement.
“It’s easy to criticize consumer internet startups in India, especially when you compare them to the deep technological excellence built in the US/China,” Aadit Palicha wrote with X’s social media platform X.
Zepto’s example
He further gave an example and said: “The reality is: There are nearly 1.5 million real people making money on Zepto today – a company that doesn’t exist 3.5 years ago. ₹More than 10 billion in taxes are paid to the government every year, and more than $1 billion in foreign direct investment is brought into the country, with hundreds of millions of investments being used to organize India’s back-end supply chains (especially for fresh fruits and vegetables). If this is not a miracle in Indian innovation, I honestly don’t know what it is. ”
Piyush Goyal’s “Reality Check” poke
Zepto co-founder’s statement came after Union Minister Piyush Goyal criticized Indian startups and questioned whether Indian people would work for low-paying performances as China moves towards deep technological innovation.
“Indian startups need to have a realistic check on their work. We must focus on industries that really add value to the economy. We should not shy away from competition, but strive for innovation and long-term sustainability,” said the Alliance Minister at startup Mahakumbh 2025 startup Mahakumbh.
Goyal further added: “We need to globalize and think.
Concerns about innovation in technology leadership
Palicha issued an alarm about why India is not competing towards AI technology models.
“Why doesn’t India have its own large-scale basic AI model? This is because we haven’t built a great internet company yet. Most technology-led innovations in the past 20 years have come from consumer internet companies. Who scaled cloud computing? Amazon (originally a consumer internet company). Who are the big players in AI today?
Why are consumer Internet companies important?
Palicha also points to the reasons why consumer internet companies promote innovation in a country. He stressed the need for government support and capital to promote startups in India.
“Consumer Internet companies drive this innovation because they have the best data, talent and capital to put into it. We need to build a great local champion on the internet and if we want to get a great technological revolution, that will create hundreds of millions of dollars of FCF in the first place,” Palicha said.
He added: “The entrepreneurial ecosystem, government and owners of large amounts of Indian capital need to actively support the creation of these local champions, rather than pulling off the teams that are working to achieve their goals.”
Mohandas Pai criticizes Piyush Goyal
In addition to Aadit Palicha, Piyush Goyal’s statement also received a response from Mohandas Pai, a former board member of Tech Major Infosys. He asked Goyal to “not belittle our startups” and said what the minister did for “growing deep tech startups in India”.
PAI claims Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman “has harassed angel tax startups for many years” and does not allow “donate investments, insurance COS (companies) still do not invest, while they invest globally”.
He also accused the Reserve Bank of India of remittance and alternative investment fund policies.
“@RBI regularly harasses overseas investors’ remittances and AIFs, which is bad for them, cos fe rules. Pai wrote on X.
