Report

Executive Summary

India is the only major capital market to have sustained 8x growth in IPO proceeds over a single decade and CY26 is already on track to become the biggest listing year in history globally. What we found is not just a story of scale, but of quality - PAT-positive companies at listing have risen from 50% to 70% between FY22 and FY26, domestic institutional capital has structurally replaced foreign flow dependency, and the pipeline has never been deeper or better prepared.

We assessed 1,400 new-age companies through our proprietary IPO Readiness Index and identified 210 ready for public markets in the next 24 months.

The index is a forward-leaning one, companies scoring 75+ have delivered 46% average annualised returns against -6% for those below 60. With India's listed new-age ecosystem projected to grow from $150 billion today to nearly $1 trillion by 2030, the question for every CXO is no longer whether India's public markets will grow. It is whether your business is positioned to be part of it.

Chapter One

India in the Global IPO Landscape

1.1 India is the only major main board market still compounding.

India's main board market has grown roughly eight-fold in a decade, adding more than 300 new listings between FY21 and FY26 alone. That pace of compounding has no comparable across major listing markets over the same window.

Four forces keep the arc intact -

  1. A deep and sticky domestic capital base, with retail systematic investment flows now contributing meaningfully to large listings.
  2. Sustained corporate earnings growth that has kept the underlying multiple support in place through the cycle.
  3. A maturing exit pipeline that converts both PE-backed and founder-led companies to public markets with a consistency earlier cycles did not have.
  4. Supporting regulatory infrastructure has kept pace with each, helping the market absorb the volume it has seen.
View
By country
India by sector
Metric
Proceeds ($Bn)
Proceeds indexed
IPO count
Count indexed
Geos
India US China/HK Japan Korea Indonesia Brazil
India is third globally by main board proceeds in 2025 but first by trajectory. India has outperformed every other major market on primary issuance over the decade. The methodology matters: we use main board only across all geographies, so STAR / ChiNext (China growth boards), Tokyo Growth, KOSDAQ (Korea), Indonesia Acceleration and Bovespa Mais are all excluded for like-to-like comparison.

Note: main board only across all seven geographies. show definitions

1.2 The biggest listing year in history is already underway.

CY26 is shaping up as the most consequential listing year in modern capital markets history.

The largest IPO ever priced happened this year, with SpaceX listing on the Nasdaq in June at a valuation of roughly $1.75 trillion, the biggest public debut on record. OpenAI and Anthropic have both filed confidentially and are expected to follow in H2, each targeting a valuation at or near the $1 trillion mark, and together the three could raise close to $200 billion, which is more than the entire US IPO market raised across the previous four years combined.

The story runs well beyond the US. Hong Kong and India are carrying heavyweight pipelines into the second half, with few mega listings coming up. The defining feature of CY26 will be scale: this is a year that will be remembered not for how many companies listed, but for the size of the companies that did.

1.3 India's H2 pipeline alone can out-raise last year's proceeds.

CY25 was India's best-ever primary market year, with 100+ mainboard IPOs raising a record $18.5 billion, and yet the market may look back on it as a warm-up. While H1 CY26 stayed largely silent as issuers waited out the volatility, the second half is projected to deliver $19-22 billion on its own, out-raising the whole of last year's record $18.5 billion from just six months of listings. The depth behind that projection is visible in the queue: some 200+ companies are lined up to list, of which 150+ already hold SEBI approval.

The credibility comes from who is in that queue. NSE filed in June, followed by Jio Platforms in the same week, both of which are slated to be India's largest-ever IPOs. SBI Funds Management opens the H2 window in July with a large issue of its own, and behind these anchors sit the wider new-age cohort this report maps. Diwali, as ever, anchors the large-issue calendar.

1.4 By December  ’26, the top 10 lists will not look like January’s.

CY26 is re-drawing the leaderboards at both ends. SpaceX's $1.75 trillion debut carried it straight into the ranks of the world's most valuable companies, and OpenAI and Anthropic are filing at valuations that would place them in the same conversation the moment they list. Companies entering the global top 10 by market cap directly from the IPO market, rather than through years of post-listing compounding, has limited modern precedents, and CY26 may deliver it more than once.

India is running the same script at its own scale. NSE and Jio Platforms would list directly among the country's top 10 most valuable listed companies. When the largest debuts of the year arrive on the leaderboard rather than climb towards it, the message is the same in both markets: private capital has been building public-scale giants for a decade, and CY26 is the year they surface.

1.5 Foreign Institutional Investor exiting is the wrong headline - India is buying India.

Foreign institutions were net sellers of Indian equities market in three of the last four years. Read in isolation, that is an exit story. However, when that is read against the primary market, it is a handover story. Share of domestic institutions, fed by record SIP inflows, has increased over five years, and the shift is also evident in the new-age cohort. Domestic capital now carries more of the weight on Indian issuance, simply because there is more of it.

This is what market maturity looks like; a decade ago, an Indian IPO cycle could not survive an FII retreat phase. The marginal buyer of Indian growth is now Indian. That is the single most important structural change of the decade, and it is what de-risks the Indian IPO pipeline.

Who funded the main board wave

Foreign money led the book. Domestic caught up.

Share of IPO proceeds by investor cohort, FY21 to FY26. FPIs led through FY24; DIIs overtook them in anchor books in FY26.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Not a bubble. India is the only major capital market that has compounded through the last decade on primary issuance. Every other market moved in discrete boom-bust cycles. India listed more than 300 mainboard IPOs FY21-FY26 and is now roughly 8x the size it was ten years ago. The bubble read looks at each oversubscribed listing in isolation and treats it as a spike. The data underneath is a decade of steady expansion.
Three structural reasons. A deep and sticky domestic capital base. Sustained corporate earnings growth. An exit pipeline that has matured, PE-backed and founder-led both. These are structural rather than cyclical, which is why India compounded through a full decade while other markets moved in shorter cycles.
The record is already being set as we speak. SpaceX listed in June at roughly $1.75 trillion, the largest public debut ever priced, and OpenAI and Anthropic have both filed for H2 at valuations near the $1 trillion mark, with the three together capable of raising close to $200 billion, more than the entire US IPO market raised across the previous four years. India runs the same script at its own scale, with Jio filing for what would be the country's largest-ever IPO and NSE for its largest financial-infrastructure listing. When the world's largest market and its fastest-compounding one both rewrite their all-time records inside a single calendar year, historic is simply the accurate word.
The headline captures six months. The DRHP queue underneath tells the opposite story. Reliance Jio and NSE have filed; each is a top-tier issue if priced today. SBI AM is likely the first big-ticket of H2. Other expected names: Manipal Hospitals, Zepto, Turtlemint. Diwali historically anchors the large-issue window. CY26 will most likely close as a heavy listing year, not a cooling one.
CY25 set India's all-time record at $18.5 billion across 100+ mainboard IPOs, and the second half of CY26 is projected to deliver $19-22 billion on its own, a projected 1.0-1.2x of that full-year record from just six months of listings. The full year is projected at $21-24 billion. The depth behind the projection is in the queue: some 200+ companies are lined up to list, of which 150+ already hold SEBI approval. Timing still depends on secondary-market stability and not every filing will convert, but the pipeline is deep enough that even a partial H2 clears the CY25 bar.
The selling and the story sit in two different markets. Foreign institutions were net sellers of Indian secondary equities in three of the last four years, but in the primary market their allocations to Indian IPOs grew over the same window; their share fell only because domestic institutions grew faster and more than doubled it. What reads as an exit is a handover. Domestic capital, fed by record SIP inflows, is now the anchor bid and the price-setter on new-age issuance, and it has underwritten enough listings to trust its own judgement. India buying India is not a consolation narrative, it is the structural reason the IPO market kept compounding through a decade in which foreign flows reversed three times.
The West Asia conflict did not create the market's problems so much as expose the ones already there. Crude spiked, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz was disrupted, inflation expectations reset higher and rate cuts slid off the table, all landing on a US market already managing tariff friction and a tighter immigration stance, with capital tilting towards M&A over listings. Indian secondary markets had their worst first half since 2020. The primary market used the same window differently: IPO activity stayed resilient, and the filing queue deepened rather than thinned. Wars move IPO windows; they rarely move IPO pipelines, and the pipeline is what H2 prices.
In both markets, it already is. SpaceX's $1.75 trillion debut carried it straight into the ranks of the world's most valuable companies, and OpenAI and Anthropic are filing at valuations that would place each in the same conversation the moment they list. Jio would list directly among India's most valuable companies, with NSE landing just behind the top tier. Arriving at the top of the leaderboard rather than climbing towards it is itself the signal: private capital has spent a decade building public-scale giants, and CY26 is the year they surface.
Chapter Two

New-Age IPOs Go Mainstream

2.1 The path to a $1 Tn listed new-age cohort by CY30.

The listed new-age cohort sits at roughly $150 billion today, about 3 percent of India's total mainboard market capitalisation, and our base case takes it to about $1 trillion by 2030. Set against a mainboard that itself roughly doubles over those five years, that trillion still works out to about 11.5 percent of the total, because the cohort grows nearly seven times faster than the market it sits inside. New-age moves from a sliver to a core position in a single IPO cycle.

The listed cohort

The 53 cos that make up today’s ~$150 Bn pool.

Every new-age main board listing since 2006. First a visual aggregate, then a company-by-company cut on the same metrics as the cohort comparison in 2.2.

Market capitalisation, new-age listed cos
Box area ∝ market cap · INR Cr · coloured by sector
←  Swipe to see all companies  →
Others = Education + SaaS + Healthcare. Combined into one bucket because each category has fewer than 10 listings on its own.

A trillion-dollar figure reads as a headline, and invites the usual scepticism, at 11.5% of total main board market capitalisation, new-age is projected to sit above most individual themes playing out today, which makes it an allocation question rather than a talking point. No institutional investor, at any size, can hold zero against a segment that large. By 2030, new-age, which cuts across sectors, becomes the single biggest theme in Indian equities. It stops being a bet an allocator can take or leave and becomes an exposure they must actively decide against.

Three scenarios
Bear
Base
Bull
Redseer's central view · the base case is what we believe.

Strategise your next growth unlock. Start building your IPO narrative.

Model verdict
Cohort lands at ~$1 Tn. Redseer's central view.
~$1 Tn
Cohort by CY30 (base case)
Trajectory

Stacked contribution: existing cohort vs new listings

2.2 The IPO market used to reward growth, it now demands profitable growth.

The FY22 new-age cohort was subscribed at a median of 83x and listed half-profitable, 4 of 8 names arriving PAT-positive. The FY26 cohort was subscribed at a median of 20x and listed fourteen of twenty in the black, while median pre-IPO revenue growth eased from 50% to 33%. Demand has cooled to a quarter of its FY22 peak, and the cohort clearing it is more profitable. The premium for quality has moved from the order book to the aftermarket, where readiness at listing does the sorting.

Companies scoring 75-plus on the Readiness Index have averaged +46 percent annualised since listing, the 60-74 band +11 percent, and those below 60 minus 6 percent.

Further, domestic institutions have become an anchor buyer of the new-age cohort, they are underwriting a cohort where 14 of 20 listings now arrive profitable, where pricing is set against listed comparables rather than the last private round, and where a company's readiness at listing measurably predicts the returns that follow. This is capital that has seen the cohort mature and priced that maturity in.

Metric
IPO Proceeds
#IPOS
Subscription
Listing Gain
1Y Gain
Rev Growth
PAT Positive
Fresh Issue %
Median Age
Exhibit

IPO Proceeds Raised, by Cohort Year

Median of the cohort. New-age IPOs only.

FY22 to FY26 movement, every metric

FY22 vs FY26 Cohorts · New Age

FY22: 8 IPOs · FY26: 20 IPOs

FY22 FY26 → change
For investors and IBs

The post-listing tracker, cohort by cohort.

Every new-age IPO since FY21, with post-listing trajectory at Day 0, 1M, 6M, 1Y, current. Index inclusions. Profitability inflection points. Lock-up expiry impact. Identify which cohort signals predict 12-month price action.

Frequently Asked Questions

The bar the market prices on. Wave 1 (Zomato, Nykaa, Paytm, PolicyBazaar) listed on the premise that scale and growth alone were enough. Public markets did not extend the patience private markets had. In FY22, only 4 of 8 new-age listings were PAT-positive or on a credible path. In FY26, 14 of 20 were. Median pre-IPO revenue growth compressed from 50 percent to 33 percent over the same window. The market is now paying for profitable scale, not scale alone.
The drawdown was a re-rating, not a failure of the underlying business models. Post-listing performance was weak, profitability questions surfaced, and the narrative reset. The FY25 and FY26 cohorts that followed listed on tighter operating fundamentals. That is the direct read the market applied to what it learned from Wave 1.
Five pillars, each sector-tiered. Scale (is revenue at a level that excites public-market investors). Growth (sustained YoY versus the sector). Profitability (PAT-positive at listing, or credible path; this pillar carries materially more weight post-2022). Valuation Discipline (defensible against listed comps). Operating Maturity (governance, board, audit quality). The bar for a consumer brand at ₹500 Cr revenue is not the same as for a SaaS company at ₹500 Cr, which is why each pillar is tiered.
Yes, strongly. Companies that scored 75+ on the Readiness Index at listing have averaged +46 percent annualised returns since (5 cos in this band). The 60-74 band: +11 percent (29 cos). Below 60: −6 percent (19 cos). The signal is sustained post-listing momentum, not listing-day pop.
The listed new-age cohort holds about $150 billion of market cap today, roughly 3 percent of a mainboard that sits in the $5 trillion range, and our base case takes it to about $1 trillion by 2030. Set against a broader market that itself roughly doubles over those five years, that lands new-age at around 11.5 percent of the total, because the cohort compounds close to seven times while the market compounds twice. The share is the number to hold onto rather than the trillion: new-age nearly quadruples its weight in the Indian market inside a single IPO cycle, and at 11.5 percent it stops being a thematic bet an allocator can take or leave and becomes a core allocation.
We scored roughly 1,400 new-age companies on the five-pillar Readiness Index, which is what lets us see the pipeline that filings-based trackers miss. Fifty-three have completed the journey and trade on the mainboard today, and we track each of them post listing. Another 210 sit within a 24-month listing window, 60 IPO-Ready now and 150 Near-Ready, set against the full FY21-FY26 record of 300-plus mainboard IPOs. Every forward claim in this report, the $1 trillion base case included, is built bottom-up from that scored universe rather than extrapolated from the marquee names in the headlines.
The cohort finally gives them something worth underwriting. Domestic share of new-age IPO money grew as domestic capital grew, but the conviction behind those allocations comes from the quality shift beneath it: profitability at listing as the norm, valuations benchmarked against listed comparables rather than the last private round, governance and disclosure at public-market grade, and five years of evidence that readiness at listing predicts post-listing returns. Domestic institutions are long-horizon, mandate-driven buyers that anchor markets rewarding fundamentals, and new-age issuance has become exactly that market. The depth of the domestic bid is the proof, and it is earned on both sides.
Chapter Three

Redseer IPO Readiness Index

3.1 What is the Redseer IPO Readiness Index?

We assessed 1,400 new-age companies on the Readiness Index, each scored across five sector-tiered pillars — scale, growth, profitability, valuation discipline, and operating maturity. Fifty-three have already listed and trade on the NSE or BSE mainboard today, and we track each of them post listing, cohort by cohort. Another 210 sit within a 24-month listing window, 60 IPO-Ready now and 150 Near-Ready, a group that includes the filed-DRHP names every banker and investor is currently circling.

The framework reads what public markets consistently reward and builds those qualities into the bar. So when we say the bar for listing has moved, the claim rests on 1,400 scored companies and five years of post-listing returns, not on a handful of marquee debuts.

Five non-overlapping dimensions, sector-tiered scoring, one composite.

1,400
New-age companies assessed
India's full new-age universe, scored on five MECE pillars across sector-tiered thresholds.
See the methodology →
210
IPO ready over the next 24 months
The cohort the next 100 to 200 listings will come from. Includes filed-DRHP cos and those scoring 60 or above.
Sector breakdown →
53
Already listed new-age cos
India new-age cos on NSE / BSE mainboard. Combined market cap ~$150 Bn as of H1 CY26, roughly 3 percent of total Indian mainboard market cap.
See the listed cohort →

3.2 How the index works.

One composite score, broken into five non-overlapping pillars. The financial pillars use sector-appropriate scoring, so marketplaces and lending are judged against different bars than SaaS or D2C.

Composite Readiness Score Default view
A single 0 to 100 score per company, built from five non-overlapping pillars with sector-tiered thresholds. Four bands: IPO Ready (80+), Near Ready (60-79), Building (40-59), Early Stage (below 40).
The industry chart below updates to show the composite by sector.
Distribution

1,400 new-age companies assessed

Count of companies by composite score band

Pillar performance by industry

Composite score by industry

Avg composite (0-100) across scored cos in each industry

3.3 Sectors that are better positioned to go public.

The readiness concentrates in four pockets of the cohort, Retail & Leisure, BFSI, Consumer Goods and the enterprise segment spanning SaaS, Manufacturing, Mobility & Supply Chain, which together make up close to four in five of the 1,400 companies covered here and post the highest composite scores in the table.

What put them there is a decade of demand- and channel-side shifts. A consumer base that has widened and deepened across income tiers, digital channels that let these businesses scale distribution without scaling cost alongside it, and the steady brandification of the Indian market have each pulled companies towards public-market scale and margins at the same time. Readiness of this kind does not arrive on its own; it is what those forces look like once they show up as a balance sheet a public investor can actually underwrite.

Sector readiness breakdown

Where the Ready and Near-Ready cohorts sit, by industry

N = coverage-loaded cohort size, rounded. Avg score is the composite mean across the cohort. Distribution shows the band-wise split.

IPO Ready (80+) Near Ready (60-79) Building (40-59) Early Stage (<40)
IndustryNAvg scoreDistribution by band

3.4 Valuation discipline in focus.

Pillar 4 of the index, weighted at 20 percent. Without it, a company can score 90 on the other four pillars and still be priced for perfection. Select a single sector below to overlay its median revenue multiple, "reasonably priced" benchmark, and average readiness score directly on the 2x2.

See where your company sits on this chart.
Readiness vs valuation

The IPO-ready cohort: composite vs valuation multiple

N in brackets is the coverage-loaded cohort size. Click chips to add sectors; toggle Box view to see the dispersion. Select a single sector to overlay its reference lines.

Sectors:
Hover any bubble on the 2x2 to see why that company is priced where it is. Company names are gated; the factor is not.
The named scores live here

1,400 named companies, each with five pillar sub-scores, sector benchmarks, and a listing-window view.

Redseer clients see the company-level composite, the five pillar sub-scores, the sector benchmarks, the sector deep dives, and our read on when each company is likely to hit the window. Investors, IBs, and soonicorn CFOs get different cuts tailored to what they need to decide.

Check IPO Readiness

3.5 Score your company on the same five-pillar index.

Tell us your numbers. You get a composite, your sector benchmark, your three closest peers, and your gap to the IPO-ready band. The honest deep dive is the conversation with us.

Verify your email to check IPO readiness

Tell us who you are and we will email you a one-time code. You get up to 5 company checks.

Your readiness score
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Your dot will light up against the cohort.
How Redseer can help
  • Enter inputs to see Redseer's three-step next move tailored to your sector and score.
Your position vs the cohort

Readiness score vs valuation premium

X-axis: composite readiness score (0-100). Y-axis: valuation multiple as a ratio of the sector median. Pick which sectors to overlay.

Sectors:
Y-axis · Valuation Multiple ÷ Sector Median (1.0 = at sector median)
Diamond · your company / portfolio company Sector cohort (faded) Darkened · peers within ±5 readiness of your score
A 30-min call with our IPO Practice team.
How to read your score: This is a directional snapshot using public scoring logic. The full Redseer assessment adds: governance and audit quality review, sector specific calibration vs listed comps, IPO window timing view, and a pillar by pillar gap analysis. The conversation is where the value sits.
Getting Listing-Ready

What this means for you, and how Redseer helps.

A strong listing is 18 to 24 months in the making. The companies that clear the bar use that runway to fix what the market will scrutinise, well before they file. Redseer works with management across that window in three areas.

  1. Helping solve strategic problems - We solve the business problems that decide the equity story, from unit economics to the path to profitable scale. This is the work that makes the growth defensible when public-market investors test it.
  2. Market reports - We help the ecosystem understand the business model before it has to price it. An independent, data-backed read educates investors and analysts, so the story is already credible by the time the roadshow begins.
  3. Data pipelines - We help build the reporting and data infrastructure that establishes a track record early. Credibility compounds over 18 to 24 months, and by the listing date the numbers carry a story the market already trusts.
For soonicorn CFOs and founders

The full diagnostic. Your gap, your peers, your window.

Pillar by pillar gap analysis. Your three closest sector peers benchmarked (named, with permission). Sector benchmarking against listed comps. Governance and audit-readiness checklist. A one-page IPO preparedness roadmap. Confidential.

Frequently Asked Questions

Three building blocks. About $230 billion from the existing 53 listed new-age cohort compounding at ~10 percent post-listing CAGR. The balance from new IPOs across the next five years. A few mega-listings at ~$50 billion each doing disproportionate work. Today's listed new-age market cap is ~$150 billion, roughly 3 percent of total Indian mainboard market cap. Getting to $1 trillion is a five-year build with three components, not one line item doing all the work.
About 60 companies are IPO-Ready today (could list within 12 months). Another 150 are Near-Ready (12-24 months out). Together that is ~210 within a 24-month window, drawn from a scored universe of ~1,400 new-age companies. That 210-name list is what every banker, investor and operator in the market is talking to right now. It is the actual pipeline behind the trillion-dollar number.
Today's listed mix leans heavily on Retail & Leisure, with Fintech gaining share. By 2030, Fintech and TMT lead, with Consumer Goods and B2B becoming meaningful buckets. The composition of the trillion is a different shape from the composition of today's ~$150 billion.
18-24 months minimum from “we want to IPO” to actually ready. Most companies start six months too late. Time is the pillar founders under-price. Given the pipeline math (210 cos in a 24-month window), the market will look for readiness signals, not just intent.
The Team

The team behind 9 out of 10 new-age IPOs.

Redseer is the named industry consultant on 9 out of 10 new-age IPOs across FY25 and FY26, the dominant consultant in consumer internet, marketplaces, payments, and digital wealth. The team below leads the IPO practice.

Anil Kumar
Founder

Anil Kumar

CEO, Redseer Strategy Consultants

Founded Redseer in 2009 and spent 15 years building it into the strategy firm behind India's most consequential business decisions, from growth and scale to the bulk of consumer, B2B, BFSI, and TMT IPOs filed since FY21.

Rohan Agarwal
IPO Practice

Rohan Agarwal

Partner, Redseer Strategy Consultants

Leads Redseer's IPO practice. Has steered the IPO journeys of 75+ disruptors over the last 5 years, starting with Eternal (formerly Zomato), making redseer a partner of choice. Works closely with founders and IBs, from positioning to listing.

Abhishek Tandon
IPO Practice

Abhishek Tandon

Associate Partner, Redseer Strategy Consultants

Leads Redseer's IPO centre of excellence and built the IPO Readiness Index. Put together the proprietary database underlying this report, which covers the 300+ mainboard IPOs since FY21 and the 1,400 new-age companies we assess.

Mrigank Gutgutia
Private Transactions

Mrigank Gutgutia

Partner, Redseer Strategy Consultants

Leads Redseer's Private Equity and Principal Investors practice. Runs due-diligence and portfolio work for global funds, and strategy engagements with India's consumer-internet businesses.