MAGAZINE Voices Anand Neelakantan Neha Sinha Anuja Chandramouli Ravi Shankar Dr Deepali Bhardwaj Swami Sukhabodhananda Buffet People Wellness Books Food Art & Culture Entertainment NEW DELHI april 19 2026 SUNDAY PAGES 12 It’s Raining Leading the Pack IPOs Zomato IPO `76 ➞ `318 2021 2024 +318% India’s record-breaking IPO boom has unleashed unprecedented capital and participation, while exposing a widening fault line between speculative excess and businesses built to last Ather Energy IPO `321 ➞ `692 2025 2026 +116% By Suruchi Kapur Gomes I ndia’s IPO market in 2026 is navigating a delicate balance between strong domestic fundamentals and rising global uncertainty External . tensions have made markets more cautious, and regulators have responded with measured flexibility to keep activity steady The core . drivers—strong liquidity resilient growth, and a widening investor base— , remain intact. In Gurugram, Sara, a CEO, starts her day early She grabs a . quick coffee on her way to a meeting that will finalise her company’s IPO. Months of preparation have come down to this. The conversations now are not about big dreams, but about pricing, timing, and getting the listing right. In Mumbai, Shekhar, a stockbroker, takes a crowded metro to his office before the market opens. He scans the news, checks early signals, and prepares for another day of swings—profits and losses moving side by side. While in Bengaluru, Ramesh unfolds his morning newspaper and studies the pink pages. He looks at new listings, compares numbers, and tries to decide where to put his money The excitement is palpable. . This is the story of three people, who may be real, or not, but they represent India’s booming IPO economy . The CEO Sara had always imagined the day her company would go public as a moment of triumph—ringing the bell, watching the ticker flash, seeing years of risk distilled into a single number called “valuation.” But in 2026, as she sat across bankers and early investors, the word felt less like a celebration and more like a negotiation—fluid, contested, and increasingly unforgiving. Just a year ago, the market had seemed buoyant, almost generous. Companies like Tata Technologies and Kaynes Technology had shown how public capital could translate into scale and credibility Sara had watched closely con. , vinced her own company could follow that Complete Guide to the IPO Process in india From private to public arc. Back then, founders like her could set ambitious price bands and expect the market to meet them halfway . But things had shifted. Now, as her advisors laid out valuation scenarios, they also spoke of resistance—of large mutual funds pushing back, questioning assumptions, demanding clearer paths to profitability The market, Sara . realised, had grown sharper. She flipped through recent IPO data. In 2025, over a hundred companies had hit the market, raising staggering sums. Listing-day gains were still there—enticing enough to keep retail investors hooked—but beneath that surface, churn was evident. Stocks that surged on debut didn’t always sustain momentum. Many were being sold within days, their promise traded for quick profit. That unsettled her. She didn’t want her company to become just another listing-day headline. Her CFO pointed to cautionary tales. Paytm had once commanded enormous attention but struggled under the weight of expectations. The lesson was hard to ignore: liquidity could create hype, but only fundamentals could sustain value. At the same time, the structure of IPOs itself seemed to be evolving. A growing share of offerings were “offers for sale”—early investors exiting rather than companies raising fresh capital. Sara’s own cap table reflected that tension. Her earliest backers were eager for liquidity; they had waited years for this moment. But she wondered what signal it would send if most of the proceeds bypassed the business itself. Would investors see it as maturity—or as an exit door? Beyond spreadsheets and strategy decks, there was also the mood of the market to consider. India’s growth story remained compelling; consumption was rising, and capital continued to flow. There was even talk of the economy scaling to $5-6 trillion in the coming years. Yet, alongside that optimism ran a quieter caution. Investors were no longer indiscriminate. They were choosing more carefully rewarding resilience over , rhetoric. If she priced aggressively she might , secure a strong debut—but risk a post-listing slide. If she priced conservatively she might , leave money on the table—but build trust over time. The decision wasn’t just financial; it was philosophical. What kind of public company did she want to become? Late that evening, she closed her laptop and stepped back from the numbers. The market, she realised, was asking her to be credible—to show not just ambition, but endurance. And perhaps that was the real shift. The IPO dream hadn’t dimmed. It had simply grown up. The Stockbroker Shekhar had seen cycles come and go—bull runs that felt like destiny, crashes that felt like betrayal. Sitting behind a desk worn smooth by decades of elbows and ink, the stockbroker watched India’s IPO market with a familiar mix of curiosity and caution. The frenzy was back. New names, new narratives, new money But the patterns? . Those hadn’t changed. He remembered how eagerly investors had chased stories—how Zomato arrived with fanfare, stumbled, surged, and then cooled. How Paytm had promised the future, only to falter under the weight of its own valuation. Even the mighty Life Insurance Corporation of India, a household name, had struggled to justify its aggressive pricing despite oversubscription. He had learned, long ago, that the market is an unforgiving judge. In private markets, you could tell a story and find believers. In public markets, numbers had to do the talking—and they had to make sense quickly These days, . Shekhar noticed, the crowd was younger. First-time investors chasing listing-day gains, scanning social media for the next big pop. They came in with confidence, sometimes with borrowed conviction. He didn’t blame them. Access had been democratised; the gates were open wider than ever before. But access, he knew, wasn’t the same as understanding. He leaned back and thought of the companies that had quietly done well—the ones with steady cash flows, clear plans, and businesses that could be explained without jargon. These weren’t always the loudest stories, but they endured. The new market, for all its obsession with narratives, still rewarded discipline. There was something else he noticed too: a shift in character. Professional management, independent boards, audited discipline—signs that the market was maturing. The old promoterdriven opacity was giving way, slowly, to governance that could withstand scrutiny . That, he believed, would matter more than any hype cycle. Still, Shekhar remained wary of the fine print. Too many IPOs, he felt, were exits in disguise—private equity cashing out at peak sentiment. Not always a bad thing, but something to read carefully If a company . didn’t need capital, what exactly was the listing for? He often found himself returning to a simple thought: an IPO wasn’t the end of a journey—it was the beginning of accountability Too high a starting price, and the . company would spend years trying to grow into its own promise. The best opportunities, he told his clients, weren’t always at the opening bell. Sometimes, patience was the real edge. If you missed the IPO, there was always another chance—once the noise settled and the price found its truth. He glanced at the screens one more time. Numbers flickered, stories shifted, and somewhere between them lay value—quiet, patient, waiting to be understood. Not every investor, he knew, needed to chase it directly For many, the wiser path lay . in diversification, in steady compounding rather than speculation. The market would always tempt. That was its nature. But survival—and success—belonged to those who could see past the story . Turn to page 2 Urban Company IPO `103 ➞ `123.87 2025 2026 +53% Digit Insurance IPO `272 ➞ `359 2024 2026 +32% Growth Signals A clear, scalable business model with credible unit economics Strong brand or parent-group backing (e.g., Tata), which removes a layer of trust friction Investor-friendly pricing and a clear growth story; markets see near-term revenue ramps, as in Nykaa’s brand narrative Favourable sector dynamics, such as Zomato’s platform model and its secular adoption play