Shark Tank India Judge and Founder of Shaddi.com, Anupam Mittal, shares a follow-up on his critics of Indian startups.
Previously, while speaking at a hosted by Grip Invest, he said, “We have companies posing as tech,” where he criticized major industry giants like Zomato and Uber. He said that these companies depend on tech but don’t meet the benchmark for pure tech valuation.
In a recent post, Mittal took the discussion one step further by clarifying his speech.
He emphasized the need for an investor or an employee to know the true nature of the company. He referred to a real estate developer ad in TOI, which positioned itself as a ‘leading consumer tech company.’
Mittal identified the key difference between real tech and tech-enabled firms, categorizing Shaddi.com, Whatflix, Dream11, and others as real tech while placing Swiggy, Unacademy, and others in the tech-enabled category.
Mittal criticizes the “tech-washing” phenomenon, where tech-enabled companies often inflate their valuations by positioning themselves as real tech companies.
He concludes by writing that both are valuable for India, but if we wish to build global companies from India, then founders must focus on building pure-tech companies.
