“Ek ek sawal de do. Give me a question each.”
Like any other mega gathering, some snafus couldn’t be avoided — a few star speakers canceling at the last minute, the occasional washroom queues testing one’s patience, or the supply of samosas falling short of demand
“Ek ek sawal de do. Give me a question each.”
At one of Lutyens Delhi’s most exclusive clubs a few nights back, a celebrity founder — the kind who is easily recognised at airports and mobbed with selfie requests — was imploring a motley group of startup junta and journalists around him.
He was to hold a conversation with another celebrity the next morning and hadn’t yet been able to close in on a set of questions. But he genuinely wanted to make the session engrossing for the audience. Perhaps it was the same sincerity that helped him mint a unicorn.
As scores of founders, investors, bankers, lobbyists, and chatterati descended on the national capital for the annual Startup Mahakumbh, everyone made their best efforts to play their roles with elan — be it dishing out opinions and anecdotes on the stage, posing for photos, hustling for a deal off the stage, glossing over sales numbers, making bombastic claims about artificial intelligence (AI), or incessantly collecting address cards that would likely end up in the hotel room’s dustbin.
The annual startup meet-up saw 3,000 exhibitors and a record 2.3 lakh visitors in its second edition. Like any other mega gathering, some snafus couldn’t be avoided — a few star speakers canceling at the last minute, the occasional washroom queues testing one’s patience, or the supply of samosas falling short of demand.
All this was the usual fare.
But the truth is we are living in unusual times. AI is threatening to upend the economic order, a renegade US president is bent upon retreating from globalisation, an endless war is raging in Europe and one of our belligerent neighbours is making a play to assume the role of a hegemonic power.
Of course, the discussion had to reflect these realities — and paint a picture of hope.
While the chief economic advisor termed India’s consumption led economy a blessing, he also advocated for a balance between the country’s need to create jobs and the disruption that may be caused by AI, a technology which has been on his radar for quite some time.
Meanwhile, the DRDO chief’s projection of self-reliance in defence production gave the audience some comfort amid heightened geopolitical tensions. He talked about the potential for defence startups to work in fields of sensors and anti-drone technologies.
In a departure from the typical reticence, senior bureaucrats made passionate cases for their points of view. At one of the panel discussions, a difference of opinions was clearly visible between two bureaucrats about the approach the government should take to support the funding needs of a growing startup ecosystem.
When Manmeet Kaur Nanda of the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities pitched for a VC fund within the government, she was immediately advised by the additional secretary of DPIIT Arti Bhatnagar to let the VCs “do their job”.
A divided house
Yet, Union Minister Piyush Goyal ruffled feathers on the very first day of the event when he chided founders and investors for not focusing enough on deeptech. Questioning the focus of Indian startups on “dukaandari” and “cheap labour”, Goyal had asked them to get into high-end technologies, similar to China.
His admonishment of startups did not go down well in the ecosystem. From social media to Bharat Mandapam’s VIP lounge, it became the talk of the town. While some called it disappointing, others were more blunt.
The controversy brought to the fore the issues startups in high-end and hardware-intensive technologies face – weak infrastructure, lack of understanding on part of VCs, scarce funding and delayed approvals from government.
“VCs don’t see quick returns from startups like ours,” said the co-founder of a drone startup at the event.
But not all investors always think about the money. On the sidelines, a VC regaled a few attendees of a dinner with the story of his life. He was close to pursuing a PhD in physics abroad but had decided against it. He claimed he had the chance to be an early employee at Google — 30th or thereabouts — which would likely have made him a lot of money but didn’t take it.
However, when it came to his daughter 20 years later, he could not resist but to get her into a foreign university boasting more than 100 Nobel laureates. Indian academia does not have much to offer, he felt. His passion project is now to support startups engaged hardcore engineering. And he tries his best to put his money where his mouth is as well.
That it’s not all about the dough for the tech elite was clear from what Flipkart founder Sachin Bansal said. He nursed a grudge, it seemed, of losing the ownership of Flipkart to the US retail giant Walmart, a deal which led Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma to call him the unhappiest billionaire.
Apart from the dialectic of money versus passion, one idea that brought everyone together was India’s potential to take on the global majors powered by its flourishing startup ecosystem.
“We are very proud of what India has done. But are we the best in the world as yet? Not yet. Should we aspire to be? Yes,” said Goyal.