The nature of work at a startup makes them even less tolerant of those kinds of risks than companies such as Intel.

"If you're a startup and you're doing a lot of iterative design and you constantly need a higher level of agility, you might find it more burdensome than the cost differential is worth," Karamouzis said.

On the other hand, "If you can give the Indian team things that are clearly delineated that they can own and drive on their own, then it works out pretty well," said Pejman Roshan, cofounder and senior director of marketing at Agito Networks, a wireless technology startup in Sunnyvale, Calif., that outsources software coding to a services firm in Bangalore. Roshan acknowledged, though, that the wage gap is shrinking.

"I'd heard there was a five-to-one [ratio of Silicon Valley wages to Bangalore wages], and we were salivating at that notion," Roshan said. "We're seeing a three-to-one benefit, and we're still happy with that."

Riya's Shah is confident that moving the company's operations back to the United States was the right move and expects to see more companies doing the same in the months ahead. 

"We might be a little bit ahead of the curve in our decision -- maybe six to 12 months -- but I don't think wages are going to stop rising," said Shah, who detailed his decision in his CEO blog, Recognizing Deven. "I don't think we’re isolated."

Still, despite wage increases, new startups aren't likely to rule out Indian operations any time soon, Gartner’s Karamouzis said. In fact, they may have to consider such operations in order to get venture capital.

"More often than not, what I hear is that venture companies are almost demanding that [startups] leverage India or Russia both to optimize the cost structure and to maximize a 24-hour cycle to get things done faster," Karamouzis said.