New Delhi: Startups in the country need to focus on areas where India can take a lead on a global stage. They should not shy away from competition and strive for long-term sustainability, said Union Minister of Commerce & Industry Piyush Goyal, during the inauguration of the second edition of Startup Mahakumbh, being organised from April 3-5 at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi.
“Today, Indian startups are turning unemployed youth into cheap labour so that the rich can get their meals without moving out of their house. And against that, Chinese startups are working on developing electric mobility battery technologies, and with that dominating the electric mobility ecosystem,” he said.
Referring to startups focused on selling fancy food items or instant grocery deliveries, Goyal noted that while these may be seen as entrepreneurship or business, they do not necessarily qualify as startups.
“Wealth creation in the short run may happen with some of these conveniences but business is about positioning India at the international scale,” he said.
We are proud of India’s progress in the startup ecosystem, but we must aspire to be the best in the world. Our country’s youth are the architects of a new India; you must think big and go global, he added.
The minister emphasised that other countries are heavily investing in self-reliance, focusing on sectors such as semiconductor chips, robotics, machine learning, 3D manufacturing, next-gen factories, and AI models to compete globally and capture markets.
“We talk about a startup bridge, but I can’t take them to grocery stores and say– this is India’s offering for startups,” he said.
He further mentioned that we need to be ambitious and go beyond the boundaries of our own thinking. In this regard, the government is playing its part by signing agreements with bigger countries like Australia, the EU, the UK, the US, as well as Peru and Chile.
Need to create domestic capital pool
With only 1000 startups in the deep tech sector, the minister dubbed it as a ‘disturbing’ fact, as this sector holds the potential to drive India’s future growth.
Goyal called on unicorns and industry bodies to contribute to a domestic fund aimed at creating a pool of capital within India’s startup ecosystem. The goal is to help young entrepreneurs retain ownership of their startups in the long run.
“I really feel very sad when I come to know that a bright startup idea is sold to a foreign company for the first Rs 25 lakh or Rs 50 lakh,” he said. “I wish there were more Indian investors, rather than the foreign companies acquiring our startups.”
