Mohandas Pai counters Piyush Goyal's attack: What has he done to help deep tech startups in India?

Mohandas Pai

Former Infosys CFO Mohandas Pai on Thursday strongly criticised Union Minister Piyush Goyal for his comments on Indian startup ecosystem and their ability to evolve quickly.

Goyal, in a sharp critique of the Indian startup ecosystem, urged startups to re-evaluate their purpose and true value and aim for international prominence.

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the second Startup Mahakumbh, Goyal said, “We need to go global and think big. When we look at deep tech, there are only about 1,000 startups in the ecosystem, and it is a disturbing sign. It is upon the startups to focus either on wealth creation in the short run or rising to the international scale.”

Minister @PiyushGoyal there are very many small deep tech start ups in Chip design , IOT, Robotics, EV charging,BMS in India, growing rapidly but where is the capital? Indian start ups got 160b $ from 2014/24, China 845b$, US 2.3Tr$. Long term investors like endowments , https://t.co/SdLKHMlRuf
Mohandas Pai (@TVMohandasPai) April 3, 2025

Taking to social media, Pai said: Minister Piyush Goyal should not belittle our startups but ask himself what has he done as our Minister to help deep tech start ups grow in India? It is easy to point fingers at them. We have a hostile Finance Minister who harassed start ups on Angel tax for many years, do not allow endowments to invest, insurance cos still do not invest whereas they do globally."

Indian startups came under intense scrutiny as Goyal questioned whether the country was settling for low-paying gig jobs while China raced ahead in deep-tech innovation. "We must learn (from other countries). We must be willing to evolve, we have to be able to learn, we want to aspire to be bigger and better and bolder. And we should not shy of the competition,"  the minister said.

"Under Prime Minister Modi's guidance and leadership, we are not aiming small. We are not looking at agreements with countries who are in a situation which is even worse than what India is. The Modi government is doing trade agreements with big nations such as Australia, the EU, the UK, the US, Peru, Chile, New Zealand, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar. Our ambitions are to compete with the best in the world," Goyal emphasised, galvanising the startup entrepreneurs who have converged at the Startup Maha Kumbh.