Key Takeaways
- • Anmol Maini, general partner at early-stage firm Untitled Ventures, said in an X post that "in a decade we will realize most of the deeptech is a grift," arguing that quick services and quick commerce companies will do more to drive the economy.
- • The remark, a reply to a post by Neosapien CEO Dhananjay Yadav, drew heavy reactions on X and sparked a broader debate over where India's venture capital should flow.
- • Yadav contended that deeptech startups generate significantly more revenue with far less burn than consumer startups yet struggle to raise even a fraction of the capital consumer firms attract.
- • Deedy Das argued that the core obstacle for deeptech investors is underwriting returns, given slow revenue, heavy equity-funded capex and regulatory hurdles.
- • Pixxel founder and CEO Awais Ahmed argued that consumer and deeptech are "different layers of the same story," with consumer returns eventually flowing back into deep tech.
Summary
Anmol Maini, general partner at early-stage venture capital firm Untitled Ventures, has triggered an online debate about the direction of capital in India's startup ecosystem. In a post on X, Maini wrote that "in a decade we will realize most of the deeptech is a grift," adding that quick services and quick commerce companies will do more to drive the economy. The remark was a reply to a post by Dhananjay Yadav, CEO of AI startup Neosapien, and drew heavy reactions on the platform.
Yadav had written that his feed was filled with household-services startups burning large amounts of capital to capture market share. By contrast, he said he knows several deeptech startups that generate significantly more revenue with far less burn but struggle to raise even a fraction of that funding. "We say we want to build products in India for the world, but we invest far less in the future than the US does," he wrote.
VC Deedy Das said it cannot be determined whether deeptech is a grift, but explained why investors find the sector difficult to back. The central problem, he said, is underwriting returns: deeptech companies rarely show revenue quickly, require heavy capital expenditure that must be funded with equity even after the seed round, and can face difficult regulatory battles. Das said the best deeptech investors either have deep industry expertise to underwrite technical risk, take larger ownership to compensate for risk, or have access to a deep capital ecosystem with large funds across stages.
Several users criticized Maini's framing, with one arguing that India need not choose between "this or that" and another noting that the claim did not need to be framed as a grift to make a point about economic contribution. A day later, Awais Ahmed, founder and CEO of Pixxel, published a lengthy post on the subject. He acknowledged the growth of fintech, quick commerce, grocery delivery and consumer internet, but argued the two sectors are "different layers of the same story." He noted that a ten-minute grocery delivery relies on technologies such as the transistor, GPS, lithium-ion batteries, cellular networks and cryptography. Ahmed concluded that India should keep building consumer companies, whose returns will eventually flow back into deep tech.
Yadav had written that his feed was filled with household-services startups burning large amounts of capital to capture market share. By contrast, he said he knows several deeptech startups that generate significantly more revenue with far less burn but struggle to raise even a fraction of that funding. "We say we want to build products in India for the world, but we invest far less in the future than the US does," he wrote.
VC Deedy Das said it cannot be determined whether deeptech is a grift, but explained why investors find the sector difficult to back. The central problem, he said, is underwriting returns: deeptech companies rarely show revenue quickly, require heavy capital expenditure that must be funded with equity even after the seed round, and can face difficult regulatory battles. Das said the best deeptech investors either have deep industry expertise to underwrite technical risk, take larger ownership to compensate for risk, or have access to a deep capital ecosystem with large funds across stages.
Several users criticized Maini's framing, with one arguing that India need not choose between "this or that" and another noting that the claim did not need to be framed as a grift to make a point about economic contribution. A day later, Awais Ahmed, founder and CEO of Pixxel, published a lengthy post on the subject. He acknowledged the growth of fintech, quick commerce, grocery delivery and consumer internet, but argued the two sectors are "different layers of the same story." He noted that a ten-minute grocery delivery relies on technologies such as the transistor, GPS, lithium-ion batteries, cellular networks and cryptography. Ahmed concluded that India should keep building consumer companies, whose returns will eventually flow back into deep tech.
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