Mukesh Bansal picks Deepinder Goyal as his dream collaborator, citing his ‘extreme ambition and intensity’

Serial entrepreneur Mukesh Bansal, who has previously built two of India’s most recognisable consumer brands—Myntra and Cult.fit—said he wants to collaborate with Deepinder Goyal, Founder and CEO of Eternal (formerly Zomato), calling him one of the few entrepreneurs who combine “extreme intensity with extreme ambition.”

“I think Deepinder thinks very differently. His mindset and his ability to combine extreme intensity with extreme ambition—that’s pretty unique,” Bansal said during a fireside chat with YourStory's Shradha Sharma at TechSparks 2025.

The comment comes at a time when Goyal has started exploring new-age mobility and aerospace. Goyal, one of India’s most prolific founder-investors, has in recent months expanded his interests far beyond Eternal's core businesses.

In June 2025, he invested $20 million in LAT Aerospace, a Bengaluru-based startup developing short-take-off-and-landing aircraft—his boldest bet yet on India’s aviation and regional-connectivity future. Goyal also founded LAT Aerospace earlier this year with Surobhi Das.

Earlier this year, he rebranded Zomato as Eternal Ltd, signalling a long-term plan to diversify into adjacencies beyond food delivery, which for the longest time has been its core business. Goyal has also launched a personal investment fund, backing startups across deep-tech, logistics, and consumer infrastructure.

For Bansal—who has evolved from fashion retail to health and now artificial intelligence—Goyal’s trajectory resonates. His latest venture, Nurix.ai, raised $27.5 million from Accel and General Catalyst in 2024 to build AI-driven enterprise tools.

A collaboration between the two, if it ever materialises, would bring together Bansal’s enterprise-AI vision and Goyal’s consumer-to-infrastructure execution playbook. For now, though, it remains a hypothetical pairing—Bansal mentioned Goyal’s name only as part of a rapid-fire round, with no concrete plans on the table.

Both founders, among India's oldest internet entrepreneurs, represent India’s evolving entrepreneurial arc—one that’s steadily moving from scaling digital platforms to building hard-tech and AI-native businesses aimed at global markets.