Taking cues from some of the most dramatic conundrums, meltdowns and discords of the recent past, Inc42’s 2025 Year In Review would be incomplete if it skipped the commotion that has defined the year so far. 

What unfolded during the year wasn’t just a series of isolated controversies, but a pattern of moments that exposed where India’s startup ecosystem continues to stumble.

Unlike 2023, which grappled with governance issues, or 2024, a year dominated by FIRs, heists, courtroom drama and founder-investor brawls, 2025 has been the year of full-blown public meltdowns and regulatory flashpoints. Founders, regulators, platforms and the public collided in real time. 

What makes 2025 distinct is the speed and scale at which some of these controversies unfolded, triggering consequences like arrests, asset freezes, ban from public markets, public apologies and abrupt leadership exits. 

With 2026 approaching, we round up the controversies that dominated headlines and group chats, trended across social media, unnerved investors, and forced the ecosystem to confront uncomfortable questions. 

Without further ado, here’s a look at the controversies that rattled the Indian startup ecosystem in 2025.

The Eggoz Controversy

Recently, a YouTube channel called Trustified, which tests food products, posted a video claiming that Eggoz’s eggs contain a chemical linked to cancer. The video went viral, raising concerns among the masses.

Trustified tested Eggoz’s eggs and said they found traces of banned antibiotics (nitrofurans), which are not allowed in India because they may cause cancer.

Eggoz’s founder Abhishek Negi strongly denied the claims, stating that the eggs are safe and that the company will release an independent test report to prove it.

In his defence, the founder added that Eggoz does its own lab tests every few months, and their recent report also showed very small traces of the same antibiotics, but within India’s permissible limits.

WinZO’s RMG Reckoning 

At the end of November, real money gaming platform WinZO landed in a full-blown storm after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested its founders, Saumya Singh Rathore and Paavan Nanda, for money laundering. The duo, who were hailed as top founders of the gaming industry, were taken into custody in Bengaluru, following hours of questioning.

The arrests stem from a series of allegations levelled by the ED after raids on WinZO. According to investigators, WinZO allegedly held INR 43 Cr belonging to gamers that should have been refunded once India banned real-money gaming in August 2025. Instead, the agency claims the company restricted or delayed withdrawals while continuing to operate real-money games abroad (in Brazil, the US, and Germany) via the same platform used in India.

The ED also alleged that WinZO used ‘unscrupulous’ algorithms that made customers play against software instead of real users, without informing them. According to the agency, this practice helped the platform generate illegal betting proceeds. Assets worth INR 505 Cr in bonds, FDs, and mutual funds have been frozen under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

WinZO has rejected the charges, calling fairness and transparency central to its platform and asserting full compliance with the law. But, with its founders under arrest, customer funds frozen, and its core business model questioned by investigators, the controversy around WinZO has escalated into one of the gaming industry’s most serious legal crises to date.

Dataisgood Founder’s Dramatic Arrest 

Looking back at 2025, one of the year’s most dramatic startup controversies unfolded far from boardrooms, at the arrival gate of Delhi International Airport. It was here that Dataisgood founder Ankit Maheshwari was detained the moment he stepped off an international flight, before being flown overnight to Kolkata. The incident capped months of simmering allegations and became one of the most talked-about flashpoints in India’s edtech sector.

The story begins in May 2025, when an FIR was filed in Kolkata by Kantika Mukherjee, a deputy director at LawSikho, part of the Skill Arbitrage group that acquired Dataisgood in 2023. 

The complaint accused Maheshwari, cofounder Shishir Singh, and others of cheating, criminal conspiracy, misusing investor funds, and even stealing data. As the investigation picked up speed, courts rejected back-to-back anticipatory bail pleas.

The Supreme Court gave the founder three weeks to surrender. By late September, he was in police custody in Kolkata, even as his family maintained that the allegations were ‘motivated’.

As Inc42 reported earlier, after acquiring Dataisgood, Skill Arbitrage soon discovered that the latter had disclosed only a fraction of its problems.

Beyond the two legal disputes mentioned during due diligence, the startup was entangled in multiple refund claims and allegations of fake job guarantees. Verification checks exposed a trail of false promises, including job guarantees and fabricated alumni stories.

BluSmart’s Breakdown

The BluSmart story became one of those startup sagas where admiration, doubt and disbelief all collided in real time. For years, the Jaggi brothers, Anmol and Puneet, were celebrated as the poster boys of clean mobility, the founders who dared to build an electric........

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