Anupam Mittal, founder of Shaadi.com and a well-known venture investor, has taken aim at one of India’s most common startup excuses: that “Bharat doesn’t pay.” In a direct LinkedIn post, Mittal described this narrative as lazy and costly. He argued that founders often use it to hide poor unit economics or a lack of real product-market fit.
Drawing from his own experience with Shaadi.com, Makaan.com, and Mauj, Mittal was clear: Bharat pays, but only for real value at a fair price. To support his argument, Mittal highlighted Abhishek Kejriwal and his team at Primetrace, the company behind the community network Kutumb. After a strong launch, Kutumb went quiet for a long time, leading many in the ecosystem to assume the worst. They were mistaken. While the headlines faded, the business continued to grow.
Primetrace has quietly developed into a high-yield operation, now running at a reported ₹200 crore EBITDA run-rate—no vanity metrics, no hype cycles, just disciplined execution at scale. Mittal views this as a sign of a larger shift in Indian tech since 2021. The market has moved decisively from growth-or-profit to growth-and-profit. Indian users, he argues, are more willing to spend their money, but only for smart, well-priced solutions. His conclusion was clear: the so-called “Bharat struggle” is usually not a market issue. More often, it stems from a lack of insight and imagination on the founder’s part.