'It's easy to criticise...': Zepto CEO defends India's internet startups after Goyal’s 'fancy ice creams' jibe 

Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal’s sharp remarks at Startup Mahakumbh on April 3 have triggered a pointed response from startup leaders, reigniting the debate on India’s innovation priorities.

Goyal urged entrepreneurs to reassess their value propositions, suggesting that too many startups were focused on food delivery and instant logistics with little long-term economic impact. He said many startups end up turning unemployed youth into cheap labour rather than pushing boundaries in sectors like semiconductors, robotics, EVs, and battery technology—areas where, he noted, Chinese startups are advancing.

His swipe at “fancy ice creams” and instant grocery apps didn’t go unnoticed. In a strongly worded post on X, Zepto co-founder Aadit Palicha defended the role of consumer internet companies in driving innovation and employment.

“It is easy to criticise consumer internet startups in India, especially when you compare them to the deep technical excellence being built in US/China,” Palicha wrote.

He laid out Zepto’s economic contributions in numbers: “There are almost 1.5 lakh real people who are earning a livelihood on Zepto today — a company that did not exist 3.5 years ago. ₹1,000+ crores of tax contribution to the government per year, over a billion dollars of FDI brought into the country, and hundreds of crores invested in organising India's backend supply chains (especially for fresh fruits and vegetables). If that isn't a miracle in Indian innovation, I honestly don't know what is.”

Former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai also hit out at Goyal, saying the minister should not "belittle our startups" and asking what the Commerce Ministry had done to promote deep-tech ventures. “India has many deep-tech startups but no capital to grow fast,” Pai said, calling on the government to offer support and warning that the Ministry’s startup division “seems to have given up.”

Palicha, meanwhile, explained why India still lacks a homegrown foundational AI model, “It's because we still haven't built great internet companies... Consumer internet companies drive this innovation because they have the best data, talent, and capital to put behind it.”

He called on the ecosystem, government, and capital owners to back local internet champions rather than tearing them down. “We need to build great local champions in internet... if we ever want to get a piece of great technology revolutions,” he said, pledging to reinvest profits into long-term innovation.