IPO Readiness: Start Prep 12 Months Early, Says Tarun Singh
14 Jul 2026
The core message: revenue isn't the readiness signal
Speaking at MSME Sparks 2026, Tarun Singh, Founder and Managing Director of Highbrow Securities, argued that IPO readiness has little to do with hitting a specific revenue number. Instead, he framed it as a question of narrative: can a founder explain why their business deserves public capital, and why now?
Singh has worked on more than 150 IPOs since 2008, including some of the first SME listings on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE). That background informs a framework he laid out for founders considering when — and how — to go public.
Three questions every investor asks
According to Singh, serious investors consistently probe three things before committing capital:
- Why does this business deserve public capital?
- Why is now the right time?
- Why this founder, rather than someone else?
His view: investors are underwriting conviction about the future, not simply rewarding a company's past performance. That distinction matters for how founders should prepare their pitch — less historical justification, more forward-looking clarity.
The 90-second thesis test
Singh recommended that founders be able to articulate their IPO thesis in roughly 90 seconds. The exercise isn't about brevity for its own sake — it's a proxy for whether a founder has genuinely distilled why their business merits public investment at this moment, rather than relying on a longer pitch to obscure gaps in reasoning.
He also pushed back on the instinct to downplay risk. In his framing, founders who openly acknowledge risks — and explain how they're managing them — tend to signal confidence rather than weakness. Investors, he suggested, are more reassured by candor than by a pitch that avoids hard questions entirely.
Timing: three years of consolidation, twelve months of prep
Two specific benchmarks stood out in Singh's remarks:
- Three years of consolidated operations for family-run MSMEs before attempting an IPO. Singh's implication is that governance and structural cohesion take time to build, and rushing this step introduces risk that revenue growth alone can't offset.
- Twelve months of preparation before a company expects to hit a key revenue milestone. Starting IPO groundwork a year ahead, rather than reactively once the milestone is in sight, appears to be central to his readiness model.
The report doesn't specify outcomes or success rates tied to this framework, so it's worth treating these benchmarks as directional guidance rather than proven thresholds.
Why founders should care
For early-stage founders eyeing a future public listing, Singh's framework suggests a few probabilistic takeaways:
- Founders who begin IPO preparation roughly a year before a key revenue milestone are likely better positioned than those who start once the milestone is already visible.
- Family-run businesses that consolidate operations for at least three years before pursuing an IPO may face fewer governance-related risks during the listing process — though the report doesn't quantify this risk reduction.
- Being able to compress a business rationale into a 90-second thesis could correlate with stronger investor engagement, since it reflects clarity that longer pitches sometimes lack.
- Transparency about risk, rather than avoidance, may be more likely to build investor trust than a polished but risk-free narrative.
None of these are guarantees — the report offers no data on success rates tied to this specific approach — but they represent a consistent point of view from someone who has worked on over 150 IPOs.
What's missing from the picture
Singh's remarks, delivered at the virtual MSME Sparks 2026 event (held June 22–25, culminating June 26), don't come with supporting data on outcomes. The report doesn't identify which companies or sectors were among his 150+ IPO engagements, nor does it specify exact dates for the early BSE/NSE SME listings he worked on. Founders looking to apply this framework should treat it as experienced-practitioner guidance rather than a data-backed formula — useful as a mental model, but not a substitute for sector-specific due diligence.