New Delhi: India’s startup ecosystem is witnessing a debate over where investment capital should go: businesses that deliver groceries within minutes or companies spending years developing semiconductors, satellites, robotics and advanced technologies.
The discussion gained momentum on October 18, 2026, after Neosapien co-founder and CEO Dhananjay Yadav questioned why some consumer-facing startups can raise substantial capital despite heavy cash burn, while deeptech businesses struggle to secure funding.
In a post on X, Yadav wrote that his feed was full of “househelp startups burning enormous amounts of capital to capture market share.” He contrasted them with deeptech startups that, according to him, generate significantly more revenue with lower cash burn but struggle to raise even a fraction of that money.
“To me, this is one of the biggest problems with our ecosystem. We say we want to build products in India for the world, but we invest far less in the future than the US does,” Yadav wrote.
His comments triggered a wider discussion among venture capitalists and technology entrepreneurs about whether India’s startup funding ecosystem is adequately supporting long-term innovation.
‘Most of Deeptech Is a Grift’: VC’s Remark Sparks Debate
Anmol Maini, general partner at early-stage venture capital firm Untitled Ventures, challenged Yadav’s argument.
“In a decade we will realize most of the deeptech is a grift,” Maini wrote on X, arguing that quick services and quick-commerce businesses would do more to drive the economy.
The remark drew criticism from several users who questioned whether consumer businesses and deeptech ventures needed to be treated as competing investment priorities.
Another venture capitalist, Deedy Das, offered a different explanation for the funding challenges faced by deeptech startups.
Das argued that the central issue is the difficulty of evaluating potential returns. Deeptech companies may take years to generate meaningful revenue, require substantial capital expenditure beyond the initial funding round and face regulatory challenges.
He also pointed out that successful deeptech investing requires specialised industry knowledge, sufficient ownership to compensate for technical risk and access to large funds capable of supporting companies across multiple financing stages.
The discussion highlighted an important difference between the two business models: investors can often measure consumer demand relatively quickly, whereas deeptech companies may need to prove that their technology works commercially before their growth potential becomes clear.
Pixxel CEO Says Consumer Technology and Deeptech Are Connected
On October 19, Awais Ahmed, founder and CEO of space-technology company Pixxel, weighed in on the debate through a detailed post on X.
“We celebrate the extraordinary growth of fintech, quick commerce, grocery delivery, and consumer internet businesses (and rightly so!), but occasionally question why anyone would choose to spend ten years building rockets, semiconductors, new materials, or advanced energy systems when far quicker commercial opportunities exist,” Ahmed wrote.
He argued that consumer businesses and deeptech should not be viewed as competing visions.
Ahmed pointed out that a grocery delivery service depends on technologies such as transistors, GPS, lithium-ion batteries, cellular networks and cryptography.
“Deeptech expands the frontier of what humanity can do,” he wrote. “Everything built on top of it then expands the frontier of what humanity can use.”
His argument shifts the debate beyond the immediate returns offered by different startups. While consumer businesses turn existing technologies into products and services used by millions, deeptech companies can develop the underlying technologies that enable future industries.
Ahmed also argued that India should continue building successful consumer businesses, with their eventual returns helping support investment in deeptech.
Quick Commerce Has Become a ₹64,000 Crore Market
The interest in quick commerce is backed by substantial market growth.
According to a CareEdge report released in July 2025, India’s quick-commerce market reached approximately ₹64,000 crore in gross order value (GOV) in FY2025, more than double the ₹30,000 crore recorded in FY2024.
The report projected that gross order value could reach ₹2 lakh crore by FY2028.
Quick-commerce platforms such as Blinkit and Swiggy Instamart benefit from recurring consumer demand for groceries, personal-care products and household essentials. Their business models also allow investors to track indicators such as order volumes, repeat purchases, average order value, customer acquisition costs and revenue growth.
These metrics offer relatively frequent signals about customer demand and operating performance.
The sector has also attracted large funding rounds. In October 2025, Zepto raised $450 million at a reported valuation of $7 billion, highlighting investor interest in the opportunity.
However, rapid growth does not automatically translate into profitability.
Quick-commerce companies must spend on dark stores, inventory, warehousing, delivery networks, technology and customer acquisition. Intense competition can increase these costs as platforms try to expand into new markets and capture market share.
For investors, the opportunity lies in whether these companies can convert their scale into sustainable margins and long-term returns.
Deeptech Funding Is Growing, but Access Remains a Challenge
The argument that deeptech receives little investment also requires closer examination.
According to the Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association’s Bharat DeepTech Report 2026, India’s deeptech sector raised approximately $2.9 billion across 189 investment rounds in 2025, its highest annual funding total in the report’s series.
The sector attracted $11.4 billion in private equity and venture capital funding between 2015 and 2026 year-to-date. More than 85% of that funding was raised in the preceding six years.
Yet funding totals do not reveal how evenly capital is distributed across startups or whether companies can raise the follow-on investment needed to commercialise their technologies.
A survey of 100 deeptech founders for the report Deeptech India 2025: Mapping the Next Frontier found that 53% considered capital difficult to access, while 45% identified a lack of investor understanding as a key funding constraint.
Deeptech companies can face several obstacles before reaching commercial scale.
First, research, prototyping, testing and regulatory approvals can delay revenue. Second, manufacturing advanced technologies may require specialised infrastructure and significant upfront expenditure. Third, investors need the technical expertise to assess whether a product can work reliably and compete commercially.
These challenges can make deeptech less suitable for funds operating with shorter investment horizons or limited capacity to finance companies across multiple stages.
The issue, therefore, is not simply whether money is available. It is whether the right investors are willing and equipped to support companies through lengthy development and commercialisation cycles.
Are Investors Choosing Faster Returns Over Long-Term Innovation?
The debate reflects different ways of measuring a startup’s potential value.
Quick-commerce companies can demonstrate customer demand through orders, repeat purchases and revenue growth. Deeptech startups may need years to establish technical viability, secure customers and build production capabilities.
Neither model guarantees success. Consumer businesses can burn substantial cash while competing for market share, while technically advanced companies can struggle to find commercially viable applications for their innovations.
The funding question is also more complex than a direct comparison between the two sectors. The $2.9 billion raised by deeptech startups in 2025 cannot be directly compared with the ₹64,000 crore quick-commerce market size in FY2025 because one measures investment raised and the other measures gross order value.
A meaningful comparison would require consistent data on startup funding, deal sizes, investment stages and the concentration of capital across both sectors.
