New Delhi, July 12 -- India's cybersecurity startups are increasingly looking to merge with overseas firms to scale, a trend that will continue unless the domestic demand steps up, IT Secretary S Krishnan said on Friday. "This won't change until Indians start paying for cybersecurity tools and services," he said, underlining the need for stronger local demand to support homegrown capacity in the sector. To bridge this gap, he stressed the need for greater investment, pointing to an assessment by Cert-In, the nodal agency for cybersecurity incidents, which recommends that 15-20% of all spending on software, IT, and digital infrastructure should go toward cybersecurity, a benchmark India has yet to meet. The Secretary's remarks came at the la...