By the numbers, 2025 was the best year India's IPO market has ever had. Roughly 103 companies raised a record ₹1.76 lakh crore, comfortably ahead of the ₹1.6 lakh crore that about 90 firms raised in 2024. New-age tech did its share of the heavy lifting: 18 startups, including Lenskart, Groww, Meesho and PhysicsWallah, raised over ₹41,000 crore, up from around ₹29,000 crore a year earlier. But strip away the headline haul and a quieter shift is visible in how these companies actually traded on day one.
The blockbuster was the exception, not the rule
Groww, operated by Billionbrains Garage Ventures, delivered the year's cleanest new-age debut. Its ₹6,632 crore issue, subscribed about 17.6 times, listed on 12 November at ₹114, a 14% premium, and closed its first day near ₹130.94, up roughly 31%. That is the kind of pop the 2021-era retail investor was trained to expect. In 2025, it was the outlier.
The new normal: list weak, grind higher
The more instructive debuts were the tepid ones. Lenskart, the year's largest new-age offering at ₹7,278 crore, priced at the top of its band at ₹402, then listed below it, at ₹395 on the NSE and ₹390 on the BSE. It fell as much as 11% intraday before clawing back to close at ₹404.55, a slender 0.6% gain, valuing the eyewear retailer near ₹69,000 crore. This was after the book was subscribed more than 28 times. Demand and debut had decoupled.
Ather Energy told the same story earlier in the year. Its ₹2,981 crore IPO was subscribed a thin 1.43 times, listed on 6 May at ₹328, a 2% premium over its ₹321 price, and slipped below the issue price the same session. Yet over the following five months the stock climbed roughly 106% to a record high. The verdict of listing day and the verdict of the market had almost nothing to do with each other.
What the pattern says
Three of 2025's most-watched new-age issues, Groww aside, either listed at a discount or barely held their price, and two of them subsequently traded well. The takeaway for investors is that the grey market premium and the subscription multiple have become poor predictors. The market is increasingly pricing these businesses on cash flows and competitive position after listing, not on scarcity and hype at the bell. For founders, the flip side is real: a fat subscription number no longer guarantees a pop, and the pressure has moved to delivering on the numbers in the prospectus.
The 2026 pipeline is enormous, and conditional
The queue ahead dwarfs what has already listed. 28 startups have filed draft papers (DRHPs) with SEBI, with two dozen more finalising plans, and analysts estimate Indian firms could raise more than ₹2.5 lakh crore in 2026. The marquee names include Reliance Jio, Zepto and fintech giant PhonePe, expected to seek around ₹13,500 crore.
But the window is macro-dependent, and 2026 has already shown its teeth. In March, PhonePe put its IPO plans on hold as an Iran conflict rattled global equities, a pointed reminder that even the most anticipated books wait on conditions no founder controls. The record set in 2025 was built on abundant domestic liquidity. Whether the class of 2026 matches it depends less on the pipeline's ambition than on the market's nerve.