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Decoding the missing pieces in India’s tech puzzle: Mint CEO roundtable
Decoding the missing pieces in India’s tech puzzle: Mint CEO roundtable
India's technology sector stands at a critical inflection point—flush with talent, buzzing with innovation, but still searching for the capital and policy vision to match its ambition. These themes came alive at the Bengaluru chapter of the Mint Leadership Dialogues 2025, where a panel of industry veterans, investors, and technologists debated on India's tech moment. And how a shortage of capital, and policy to pursue that objective, is stalling India's drive to tech supremacy.
When asked to describe India's technology moment in a single word—breakout, balancing act, or crossroads—the answers reflected both optimism and frustration.
T.V. Mohandas Pai, chairman of Aarin Capital Partners, chose crossroads. “Look, there are three things required to be a great tech power — human capital, physical capital, financial capital,” he said. “We have the human capital. We have the physical capital in terms of data centres coming up.”
But for Pai, India's missing ingredient is capital. “We don't have the financial capital. For example, ChatGPT and OpenAI are saying $500 billion and they are able to get the money, people are signing up. What are we talking about? ₹11,000 crore policy from the government of India, which has no meaning. China invested $150 billion in AI starting seven years ago. They put $200 billion in EV over the last 10 years. What are we doing?”
He reeled off the numbers. “In the last 10 years—2014 to 2024—the US invested $2.35 trillion in venture and startups. China put in $845 billion, we did only $160 billion, out of which maybe 70% came from overseas. So, where is the capital? We have a lot of exciting innovations happening on the edge, but they need dollops of capital to grow and tackle the global markets.”
The Capital Conundrum
Sudhir Sethi, founder and chairman of Chiratae Ventures, agreed with Pai. “We see a lot of people… these are in AI, semiconductor, space, electronics etc. They have new product, new technology, new GTM—everything is new,” he said. “But if I look at the amount of capital which goes into this—and this is risk capital—we are still dependent on international capital. In the last five years, we have seen $300 billion invested, and I don't believe more than 10% is from India.”For Sethi, that dependence is the real bottleneck. “If that's the case, then we ourselves as Indians are not taking enough risk in funding these products,” he said, adding that the money flowing into public markets in the past five months proves India has capital. He also pointed to the top five IT services companies spending a lot on share buybacks and dividends.
“So there is corporate money, family offices, institutions, banks, insurance, etc. It is imperative to my mind for the growth of innovation which is really paralyzed right now,” Sethi said.
He called for bold policy decisions to unlock private capital. “Let's first release private capital—there's a couple of trillion dollars in private capital in the country—let's release part of that, that's a major thing.”
Deepak N.G., managing director of Dassault Systèmes India, offered a conciliatory view, calling the capital challenge an advantage as well. “Each state is competing—it can be a healthy competition — the policies are also different.”
He also spoke of the possibility of a common policy across the country for funds to be diverted to R&D? “1% spend on R&D is definitely not in the range where you can actually put up more and more resources on developing something,” he said.
When Capital Walks Away
Faiz Shakir, vice-president and managing director, Nutanix for India and APJ, pointed to a worrying trend. “In the last four-five years, there have been some very exciting companies founded,” he said, “but there's also this clear undercurrent within the investor community to have them move to Silicon Valley.”“So, there is capital, but that capital says this (India) is not the right place to put it, why don't you move there (US), we'll also get a lot of local support, you can probably create a hub and spoke model, have engineering staff in Bangalore but move your business in your headquarters,” he added.
Shakir echoed Pai's concern that India is failing to nurture its own innovation. “There's capital in terms of human capital. There's a lot of tech savviness that we have. But I don't think we have got the backing that one deserves in a country of this size and scale.”
Sajai Singh, partner at JSA Advocates & Solicitors, added another layer. “That move can also be IP related,” he said. “If you are creating IP, code cannot be patented in India. It can be patented in the US. So a lot of times when a product is being developed or you're reaching that level, you move the headquarters to the US while the development may continue to happen in India. So, IP protection may be another issue, not just getting capital.”
Shakir agreed but stressed that investors push for relocation to unlock western revenues. “I think investors and large private equities are looking at it more from what revenues come out of the western world provided you're headquartered in the right space,” he said.
Crossroads and Breakout
Manish Gupta, chairman and CEO of Indegene, offered a nuanced view, saying that India's moment is both at a crossroads as well as breakout. “Crossroads because we have a lot of work to do, but breakout because there are almost like forces converging and giving us an amazing opportunity. There's talent, there is rising aspiration.”Drawing a historical parallel with World War II, Gupta said a lot of skilled people migrated to the US at that time and helped develop cutting-edge tech.
“India today has that opportunity. There are enough people who, because of what's happening especially in the United States, want to come back,” he said. “And these are cutting-edge people who are doing really high-end work in those places. and that's the reason I say using that we could actually be at a breakout moment.”
Repurposing Talent
For Venkatraman Narayanan, managing director of IT services company Happiest Minds, the human dimension remains key. “Today the tech landscape of India is 90–95% services,” he said. “If you're talking about a transformation, bringing in capital, getting those experts, and starting down the AI path, you're going to leave 98 or even 100% of the people behind. There is a huge amount of transformation that needs to happen of the people that we have.”He cited how large IT firms can play a bigger role. “Like Mr. Sethi said, there's so much of money that's paid out as dividends or buybacks (by IT services companies). You need to start ploughing that into companies. Keep away from quarter-on-quarter profitability pressures… free up capital from there, help that to transform the entire set of people that are today there. We are missing the bus on the transformation.”
The New Builders
Pai jumped back in to underline that transformation won't come from incumbents. “Every tectonic shift in technology is led by new companies, not incumbents,” he said. “The services companies will not be transformation agents in AI. They will use AI to transform their clients. They're not going to be in LLMs. They'll be in verticals and use AI in apps.”Pai's argument was that India needs new companies. “The old companies cannot do it. It's like SBI wanting to be Goldman Sachs—they can't do it. That is the DNA. So, new companies have come up. Now you must scale them up. They must grow 100% year-on-year.”
Turning to a ‘new' company, he asked Narendra Sen, founder and CEO of RackBank Datacentres: “Somebody gives you $5 billion—what will you do?”
Sen's answer was immediate. “Give me $5 billion and I'll build the world's fastest supercomputer in the country,” he said. “Our research scientists should not be dependent on US technology and share patents. The capital is constrained and that's why I mentioned the balancing, because the world after China every company started coming to India. But capital is a big constraint, policies are also equally important. We have talent.”
Sen also gave a glimpse of how AI is reshaping data centre operations. “Imagine an SOC (Security Operations Center) in a data centre—we have seven-eight people watching what is happening 24/7. Now if some developer comes up with an SOC agent app, we have to remove those six people. The agent is working 24/7, 365 days. The productivity has gone 7x or 10x depending on usage. But jobs have not gone up. So skilling and reskilling are equally important.”
Balancing Growth and Reality
G.N.V. Subba Rao, global head of operation centres at ABB India, ended on a pragmatic note. “Capital will remain a matter of debate for a long time,” he said. “Europe still looks at us as a talent pool, a pretty large one. There are many things which Europe either doesn't want to do on the manufacturing side or can't do due to various reasons, including the talent constraint they have. For a lot of us in India, that is a golden opportunity. It's an opportunity for us to bring in more and more manufacturing, while others are not too eager for it.”He added, “We'll have to take some hard decisions. Do we continue to invest in the services sector and develop it further? Or do we think in the future we'll also need an equally vibrant manufacturing sector? For a lot of us in India, that is a golden opportunity.”
Source: LiveMint
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