No Better Time Than Now To Do A Startup: Sundar Pichai At Google For India 2022

Speaking at Google For India 2022, the tech major’s keystone event for its largest market, India, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said that there was no time than now to do a startup, despite the current macroeconomic situation.

“There is no better time to do a startup than the current moment, even though we are working through a macroeconomic moment like this,” said Pichai in a conversation with Union Minister for Telecom, Electronics, IT and Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw.

“Companies like Google were created in moments of a downturn. I’m very bullish about it over time,” the Google and Alphabet CEO added.

Speaking in detail about India’s startup ecosystem, Pichai said that the sophistication of the country’s startups increases every time he comes back to the country. Notably, Google For India 2022 was the first time since the 2019 event that Pichai was present in person.

Pichai also compared the US startup ecosystem with the Indian and European startup ecosystems. 

“If you look at the US market, the reason why US startups are successful is that when they build something, they have access to a 300 Mn+ market and it’s easy to build something which can scale,” said Pichai, adding that Indian startups also have access to a similar kind of scale. 

Pichai added that the European startups had to look at 26 or so markets, which made it tricky for startups to achieve the kind of scale US or India-based startups might have.

The year 2022 has been nothing short of a crucible moment for startups in India. With the war in Ukraine triggering a massive global economic downturn, the funding in Indian startups has seen a massive drop, with late and growth stage funding suffering the most.

As of December 20, 2022, Indian startups have raised $24.03 Bn across 1,432 deals, which is down 39% compared to $39.79 Bn raised by Indian startups in the corresponding period last year across 1,534 deals, per Inc42 data. 

This funding shortfall, prompted by many other factors such as shaky investor confidence followed by multiple failed startup IPOs, has seen Indian startups turning back to basics and improving their business models and unit economics to find a path to profitability.

However, the struggle to stay afloat has also prompted massive layoffs across the startup ecosystem in India. Per Inc42’s ‘Indian Startup Layoff Tracker’, startups in India have laid off more than 18,000 employees in 2022 so far.