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Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], July 31: Anyone sitting in a startup boardroom in Bengaluru, Gurugram, or Mumbai this year can’t escape the buzz around those three letters: IPO. After playing it safe for a while, India’s startups are now diving headfirst into the public markets. 2026 already looks set to smash records for sheer IPO activity.
A Pipeline Like No Other
Right now, more than 48 startups are hustling to go public, and the line-up reads like a hit list of Indian tech: Zepto, PhonePe, OYO, Flipkart, Razorpay, boAt, and a long list beyond that. Nearly 30 have already put their draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) into SEBI’s hands. At least two dozen more are getting their bankers sorted and paperwork done.
This isn’t just a minor rebound. The momentum is real. In 2025, 18 startups hit the public markets and pulled in over ₹41,000 crore—a record at the time. The class of 2026 should blow past that. Just a handful of big names—Flipkart, Zepto, OYO, InMobi, Fractal, and Zetwerk—could raise over ₹50,000 crore, and if you count everyone, startup or not, mainboard issuers are eyeing a combined ₹2.5 to ₹2.65 lakh crore.
A couple of firms already dipped a toe in this year: logistics player Shadowfax and adtech company Amagi both completed their IPOs early in 2026. In a way, they’re test cases, and so far the market’s reception has been closely watched.
Why Now?
It’s not just one thing driving this rush.
India’s economy keeps maturing. Domestic consumers are still spending, government is pouring money into infrastructure, and the country’s broader macro story holds up even as global markets wobble. That’s giving bankers and founders the confidence to go public now.
Founders and early investors want liquidity—not just more funding. Remember, from 2018 to 2022, a lot of these companies raised huge venture rounds from firms like SoftBank, Accel, Peak XV, Tiger Global, Prosus, even Walmart. Many of those investors have held on for years and are ready for an exit. Listing gives everyone a chance to cash out—founders, backers, and employees with ESOPs. Last year alone, around ₹8,700 crore in employee stock turned liquid thanks to IPOs.
Governance is front and center now. Look at boAt. Before their latest DRHP, co-founders Aman Gupta and Sameer Mehta handed day-to-day control to Gaurav Nayyar, who came in as CEO. It’s a move aimed right at institutional investors—a message that the company is taking governance seriously.
It’s not just the usual suspects, either. Even deep-tech is joining the game. Garuda Aerospace, a dronetech company out of Chennai, quietly filed for an IPO in April 2026, aiming to raise up to ₹750 crore. It’s smaller than the giants, but it shows that even India’s cutting-edge tech players are ready for public scrutiny.
Even the country’s biggest name is watching closely. Reliance Jio Platforms might file for what could become India’s largest-ever IPO—just waiting for SEBI’s new rules to settle before making a move.
Investors Are Getting Choosier
Here’s where things get interesting. This IPO rush is happening right after a tough lesson. Of the 100-plus mainboard IPOs in 2025, nearly half now trade below their issue price—even though subscription numbers at launch looked great. Retail investors took notice, and average retail subscription rates dropped from around 34x in 2024 to 26x in 2025.
That’s forced a rethink on both sides. According to Inc42, almost half of investors now say they care about strong fundamentals—real profits, lower burn, and solid business models—over sexy growth stories alone. That’s a change from the pre-2022 days when just talking up your growth could land you a blockbuster listing.
Take Cult.fit, the fitness brand. It’s got heavy-hitter backers like Zomato, Accel, Tata Digital, Temasek, and lined up five big banks to steer a ₹2,500 crore IPO targeting a $2 billion valuation. But getting there hasn’t been about wild consumer numbers—it’s been years of tightening costs and proving real unit economics.
Another trend: in 2025, big IPOs relied heavily on the “offer-for-sale” model—existing investors selling down their stakes—which made up 63% of proceeds in the big listings. That signals something: most of these IPOs are about letting existing investors cash out, not just raising fresh money for growth. Maybe not surprising that post-listing performance has been uneven.
What Founders Need to Know
This IPO wave sends a pretty clear message: building a company in India isn’t just about raising the next big round anymore. The founders getting rewarded now are the ones who focus on governance, predictable revenue, and real financial discipline. The days when you could win on a vision and a deck alone seem over—public markets demand more than VCs once did.
What’s Next?
If even half the startups in the pipeline actually make it to the market in 2026, it’s a major milestone. The ecosystem that spent a decade learning how to build now has to prove it can deliver quarter after quarter with everyone watching. Domestic institutional investors are stepping in, anchoring these deals and giving some cushion even if retail enthusiasm dips. Whether that’ll be enough to prevent a repeat of 2025’s post-listing slump—well, that’s on the mind of every founder filling out a DRHP right now.
One thing’s certain: the path to Dalal Street has never been more crowded, and the companies getting on it have changed. They’re leaner. They’re older. And, for the first time, a lot of them are being asked to deliver real profits, not just pitch their vision.
