That pipeline is substantial. Khandelwal said close to 120 companies have already received regulatory approval to launch their IPOs in the next six months, while the total number of companies that have filed for an IPO stands between 240 and 250.
He also pointed to a regulatory tailwind: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) gave companies whose approvals were expiring an extension until September, along with permission to cut their IPO size by up to 50%, compared with the usual 20% limit, so they can complete the process despite earlier market conditions.
Khandelwal projects ₹50,000 crore of issuance in October alone, led by Reliance Jio’s offering along with other large deals including Hero. He pointed out that capital markets activity was subdued in the first half of the year, at around ₹25,000-30,000 crore raised across IPOs by June.
Activity then accelerated sharply, with about ₹50,000 crore raised between July and August alone. Between January and August, India recorded 61 IPOs raising ₹75,000 crore, compared with 90-100 IPOs raising ₹1.5-1.7 lakh crore for all of calendar year 2024.
He attributed the pickup to increasing institutional participation. “It’s institutionally driven. IPOs are institutionally driven, which are seeing a significant amount of institutional participation, are actually seeing significant post-listing gains,” he said. He noted that average listing gains between January and June stood at just 1.8%, compared with more than 22% from July onward, a shift he called a flywheel effect drawing in more participants.
Bhavesh Shah, Managing Director and Head of Investment Banking at Equirus Capital, placed the current cycle in a longer historical context. He said India raised about ₹2 lakh crore through IPOs in the 2000-2010 decade, and a similar ₹2 lakh crore in 2010-2020, but has already raised more than ₹6 lakh crore in the current decade, with this year alone expected to add more than ₹2 lakh crore. Shah said the momentum is being driven by both supply and demand of a quality that has not been seen before.
Shah also cited returns data for the year. Investing an equal amount in every IPO in 2026 would have returned 13.88% overall, he said, but IPOs that listed in August alone returned 28%. “Clearly, there’s money to be made on the table. This is a buyer’s market,” Shah said, while noting that every listing still requires significant work from bankers to complete.
Khandelwal said domestic capital has been the main driver of capital markets activity over the past 12 months. Foreign portfolio investors, despite being net negative in secondary market trading, put in ₹36,000-40,000 crore into IPO anchor books between January and August, out of a total of about ₹75,000 crore raised through IPOs in that period.
Asked whether companies going public this year will sustain their post-listing performance better than in the past, Shah said company performance needs to match the expectations set with investors at the time of listing, rather than requiring specific growth targets, and that deviations from stated expectations tend to reflect quickly in share prices.
Khandelwal added that markets have grown more selective since the exuberance of 2024, with both bankers and investors now assessing valuations more carefully, which he expects to support stronger post-listing performance for companies that listed in 2025 and are expected to list this year.
For the full interview, watch the accompanying video
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