India's Startup IPO Boom: Record Listings, Mixed Returns
30 Jul 2026
India has quietly become the epicenter of global IPO activity, and startups are increasingly part of that story. In 2024, the country overtook both the US and China to become the world's largest IPO market by volume. By 2025, total IPO fundraising crossed Rs 1.75 lakh crore, against a national market capitalisation of $4.9 trillion.
New-age tech companies have been a growing slice of this pie. The number of new-age tech IPOs rose from just 5 in 2023 to 18 in 2025, raising a cumulative Rs 70,000 crore over that period. Regulatory changes have helped: SEBI expanded the anchor investor pool to 40%, potentially easing access to anchor capital for companies preparing to list. Meanwhile, NSE EMERGE — a listing platform often used by smaller companies — has hosted 730 companies since inception, with 160 graduating to the mainboard, suggesting a possible on-ramp for startups not yet ready for a full public listing.
The performance gap
The volume of listings, however, hasn't translated into uniformly strong post-IPO performance. As of March 2026, roughly 55% of 2025's startup IPOs were trading below their issue price — a figure the report flags as a possible sign of investor caution around new-age tech valuations.
Profitability concerns are part of that picture. OYO, one of the more closely watched names in the space, reported a loss of over Rs 1,200 crore in FY23. Notably, the company's core operations turned profitable for the first time in the first nine months of FY2026 — a turnaround that came only after, not before, its public-market ambitions were well underway.
What's coming next
The pipeline of pending IPOs is substantial. OYO, Zepto, Zetwerk, PhonePe, and Cult.fit collectively have filings on record worth more than Rs 30,000 crore. In a separate and much larger move, Reliance Jio filed its DRHP in June 2026 for what would be India's largest-ever IPO — though the report does not specify expected valuation or size.
Structural shifts are also underway: Flipkart redomiciled from Singapore back to India in March 2026, and Boat returned with a revised IPO filing after shelving its original 2022 plans — though the reasons behind that reversal aren't detailed in available reporting.
Why founders should care
- The surge from 5 to 18 new-age tech IPOs in two years suggests going public in India is becoming a more viable exit and growth-capital route than it was even recently — though not necessarily an easier one.
- With roughly half of 2025's startup IPOs trading below issue price, founders should probably not assume that a successful listing guarantees sustained valuation support from public markets.
- SEBI's expanded anchor investor pool may signal a somewhat more founder-friendly fundraising environment around IPO time, though the report doesn't detail how this plays out for specific companies.
- The queue of large, near-simultaneous IPO filings — from OYO to Zepto to Jio — could mean founders eyeing a 2026 listing face more competition for investor attention and capital than in prior years.
- OYO's shift to profitable core operations ahead of scaling suggests public investors may increasingly reward demonstrated unit economics over growth narratives alone, though this is one data point rather than a confirmed market-wide trend.
What's still unclear
The report doesn't break down which specific companies make up the 18 new-age tech IPOs, nor which ones are among the 55% trading below issue price. Individual timelines and expected sizes for the Zepto, Zetwerk, PhonePe, and Cult.fit listings remain undisclosed, as does the expected valuation for Reliance Jio's IPO. For founders weighing their own listing plans, the aggregate numbers point to a market that's opening up — but the underlying company-by-company reality appears considerably more mixed.