Venture capitalist Rajan Anandan on April 8 pushed back against criticism that 10-minute delivery services are merely about convenience, calling such operations a remarkable feat of innovation given India’s urban challenges.
"To deliver something in 10 minutes in India, in the most traffic-dense cities on planet Earth, is really hard. Anybody who says that that is not an innovation, please go try it. Try to build the infrastructure," said Anandan, Managing Director at Peak XV Partners and Surge, at the News18 Rising Bharat Summit 2025 in New Delhi.
His remarks come days after Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, speaking on April 3, drew comparisons between Indian and Chinese startups, saying Indian firms lag in innovation. Goyal specifically criticized food delivery platforms, accusing them of “turning unemployed youth into cheap labour so (the) rich can get their meals without moving out of the house.”
Anandan countered this narrative by emphasizing that innovation in India is not confined to high-end technology but also includes practical solutions to complex real-world challenges. “We should acknowledge extraordinary India-made innovation happening in every sector,” he said.
The conversation also touched on India’s limited footprint in the deep-tech space—a concern raised by Goyal, who noted that only around 1,000 deep-tech startups exist in the country. He stressed the need to look beyond e-commerce and consumer services to foster more core technology ventures.
Responding to a question on whether Indian investors are overly focused on returns instead of nurturing deep-tech startups, Anandan said, “That is false. We invest from idea through IPO, at a stage when we invest, most times there's not even a line of code written, let alone like revenue, product. I think that is absolutely not correct.”
Contrary to the ongoing discussion, he said India has an extraordinary and vibrant startup ecosystem when compared to larger and advanced economies. He drew parallels to the US, where investors hesitate to invest if it is not an artificial intelligence (AI) company.
Similarly, China invests heavily in deep tech.
On April 7, India’s apex public policy think tank NITI Aayog’s Frontier Tech Hub (FTH) set up a high-powered expert group to draft a 10-year roadmap for deepen India’s research and development (R&D) capabilities.
The decision follows a discussion paper, which highlighted India’s lagging R&D investment, at 0.7 percent of GDP, compared to China’s 2.68 percent.
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