Vionix Biosciences CEO Vivek Wadhwa has added to the ongoing debate around the direction of India’s startup ecosystem, backing recent comments by Union Minister of Commerce, Piyush Goyal.
Vivek Wadhwa backs Piyush Goyal
Speaking at the News18 Rising Bharat Summit 2025 on April 8, Wadhwa remarked that Indian entrepreneurs focus too much on food delivery and gig work instead of using technology to solve real, pressing problems.
“You can build smart cities using the advanced sensors in today’s smartphones,” Wadhwa said during his keynote. “These are the same types of sensors that used to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and were once found only in nuclear missiles.”
Wadhwa claimed that these sensors, now standard in Apple and Android phones, could be deployed to tackle challenges like pollution.
“Use these sensors in Delhi and Punjab to monitor pollution—it’s inexpensive,” he said. “I don’t know why India hasn’t done this yet. As Goyal said, entrepreneurs here are busy building brain-dead startups instead of solving real problems.”
Wadhwa said that India has a major advantage in the global AI race due to its vast and diverse datasets.
“We are the richest country in the world when it comes to data,” he said. “This is a trillion-dollar opportunity—not just to uplift India, but the rest of the world as well.”
He added that the country’s IT firms already recognise the value of this “data goldmine” and the role it could play in developing transformative AI applications.
What is Vionix Biosciences?
Vionix Biosciences is building the medical diagnostics laboratory of the future that would fit on a desktop. The company’s objective is to make medical testing affordable and accessible to everyone across a wide range of diseases and conditions in near real-time, enabling true precision medicine.
Also read: ‘Food Delivery Apps Are Turning Unemployed Youth Into Cheap Labour,’ Says Piyush Goyal; Aadit Palicha Responds (startuppedia.in)
/startuppedia/media/media_files/2025/04/09/LLlS79vvd6ZFL8Sfbfgo.jpeg)