India loves the idea of flying cars. They represent ambition, technology, and the future. But founder Shubham Bansal’s widely shared argument—“flying cars can wait”—raises a more practical question: should India’s startup ecosystem focus more on affordable, everyday consumer businesses than on futuristic deep-tech moonshots?
The answer is not that flying cars do not matter. It is that India also needs companies that make ordinary life better: affordable food, personal care, home products, health brands, and everyday services.
Why the flying cars debate matters
Shubham Bansal argued that India needs more “ice-cream-type innovation” rather than “flying-car-type innovation.” His point was not that flying cars are useless. It was that India’s startup ecosystem may be paying too much attention to futuristic technologies that serve a small, affluent minority, while underinvesting in products that can improve life for millions. Moneycontrol reported Bansal’s post.
His argument rests on three ideas:
- Consumer businesses employ more people than most technology sectors.
- Affordable products can create a broad upgrade cycle in consumption.
- India should not leapfrog into elite-focused deep-tech before strengthening its consumer economy.
Bansal clarified that he was not against flying cars or deep-tech. He said a small share of founders pursuing frontier technologies is reasonable. But he argued that the ecosystem needs more founders solving problems for the masses rather than mainly for affluent consumers. Moneycontrol reported his clarification.
Flying cars versus everyday innovation
Flying cars, space systems, semiconductors, robotics and advanced manufacturing can create strategic capabilities. But they usually need long development cycles, large capital, and specialised talent. Everyday consumer businesses work differently. They may look less exciting, but they have repeat demand, familiar products, and clear customer needs. Examples include:
- Ice cream, snacks and beverages.
- Personal care and wellness products.
- Home cleaning and kitchen products.
- Affordable fashion and footwear.
- Dairy, fresh food and packaged staples.
- Everyday services such as repairs, childcare and local logistics.
The employment argument against flying cars first
Bansal’s strongest argument is employment.
A consumer brand does not only create jobs in its own office. It creates work across a wider chain:
- Farmers and raw-material suppliers.
- Contract manufacturers.
- Packaging and logistics companies.
- Distributors, wholesalers and retailers.
- Sales teams, warehouse staff and delivery workers.
- Marketing, design and technology teams.
This is why consumer businesses can have a broader economic multiplier than a software company with the same revenue. A D2C brand that sells physical products must build a supply chain, move inventory and reach customers across the country.
Flying cars may create high-skill engineering jobs. But a successful consumer brand can create employment across factories, farms, warehouses, transport networks and retail stores.
But everyday businesses need patient capital
The problem is that “boring” does not mean easy.
Consumer brands need capital for inventory, manufacturing, marketing, distribution, and working capital. Unlike a software company, they cannot scale purely by adding users to a digital platform.
India’s D2C companies raised nearly $6 billion across almost 2,000 equity funding rounds between January 2021 and August 2026. But most of that capital has gone into seed and early-stage funding, which accounted for 70% of total funding value in 2025. CIOL reported the D2C funding data.
That creates a problem: many brands can raise early capital, but fewer can raise the larger amounts needed to build factories, expand offline distribution, and compete with large FMCG companies.
Distribution is the real moat
For consumer businesses, distribution matters more than technology.
A brand can create a good product, but it still needs to get that product into homes. That means building relationships with distributors, retailers and marketplaces, managing inventory and maintaining consistent pricing.
Offline expansion is especially difficult. It requires distributor and retailer margins, sales teams, inventory across locations and longer credit periods. Exclusive stores add rent, fit-out costs and staff expenses. The Financial Express reported the offline-expansion challenge.
This is why some D2C brands have struggled when they moved offline. Online growth can rely on performance marketing and variable fulfilment costs. Offline growth creates fixed costs that remain even when demand disappoints. The Financial Express reported the cost structure.
Margins decide whether “boring” becomes big
Consumer businesses can generate venture-scale returns only if they maintain strong margins while scaling.
The challenge is that consumer brands often face:
- High customer-acquisition costs online.
- Discounting pressure on marketplaces.
- Rising input and packaging costs.
- Distribution margins offline.
- Inventory and working-capital needs.
- Competition from large FMCG companies.
A Crisil Ratings report found that D2C brands grew at 40% annually between fiscal 2021 and 2024, much faster than legacy FMCG firms’ 9% growth. But fewer than 15% of D2C startups crossed ₹250 crore in revenue before acquisition, and only one-third were profitable. The Economic Times reported the D2C performance data.
India is not ignoring flying cars and deep-tech
India’s deep-tech sector has attracted nearly $11.4 billion in private equity and venture-capital investment between 2015 and 2026. AI, generative AI, electric vehicles and battery technologies have attracted a significant share of that capital. IANS reported the IVCA deep-tech data.
The government is also supporting the sector. The Research, Development and Innovation Scheme has a ₹1 lakh-crore corpus over six years, with ₹20,000 crore allocated in FY26. It is designed to support high-risk, high-impact innovation, including deep-tech startups. PIB reported the RDI Scheme.
But deep-tech has a different capital problem. These companies need longer development cycles and more capital before reaching commercial scale. India still has gaps in seed capital for speculative technologies and growth capital for technically validated companies. Inc42 reported the deep-tech funding gap.
What investors must change
If India wants more consumer champions, investors must fund them differently.
They need to accept that consumer businesses may grow more slowly than software companies. They need to fund inventory, factories, and distribution. They need to be patient with offline expansion. They need to judge brands on gross margin, repeat purchases, and cash conversion—not just revenue growth.
The current market is moving in the opposite direction. In the first half of 2026, Indian tech startups raised $7.2 billion, but the number of deals fell 43% year on year. Investors are concentrating larger sums in fewer, more mature companies, with capital moving toward infrastructure and deep-tech. The Economic Times reported the funding shift.
That makes it harder for early consumer brands to raise capital, even when the underlying opportunity is large.
Conclusion: flying cars can wait, but boring businesses cannot
India’s next big companies may not look like flying cars. They may look like better ice cream, affordable skincare, reliable dairy, quality home products, or everyday services delivered at scale.
But “boring” businesses will not scale automatically. They need patient capital, strong supply chains, and distribution networks. Without those, they remain small brands. With them, they can become large companies that create jobs, serve millions and generate venture-scale returns.
Read More: Jio IPO: What It Means for Every Startup Planning to List
