84 Mainboard IPOs Have Raised ₹1.10 Lakh Crore in 2026 YTD; ~130 Issues Have SEBI Approval and Another ~75 Are at DRHP Stage

Mumbai: The Association of Investment Bankers of India (AIBI), the apex body representing India’s investment banking industry, today released its Mid-Term White Paper, India Capital Markets: Navigating Geopolitics, Capital & Growth. The Report finds that India’s primary market is moving beyond an episodic IPO cycle towards a deeper and more sustained capital formation ecosystem. According to data presented by the Association of Investment Bankers of India (AIBI), the mainboard IPO pipeline has reached approx. ₹3.86 lakh crore as of September 2026, around 3.5 times the ₹1.10 lakh crore raised through 84 mainboard IPOs so far this year.

The pipeline comprises approximately 130 companies that have received SEBI approval, with another ~75 companies having filed their Draft Red Herring Prospectuses (DRHPs) and awaiting approval. The scale of the pipeline points to sustained issuer interest in public markets and provides significant visibility on the potential depth of India’s primary market beyond the capital already mobilized in 2026.

The expansion is part of a much larger structural transformation in India’s equity capital markets. Mainboard IPOs have cumulatively mobilized ₹8.36 lakh crore between 2016 and 2026 YTD, with annual fundraising rising from ₹26,494 crore in 2016 to ₹1.76 lakh crore in 2025. In just the first part of 2026, fundraising has already reached ₹1.10 lakh crore across 84 issues. The number of mainboard IPOs has also expanded sharply, from 26 in 2016 to 103 in 2025 and 84 in 2026 YTD.

Mr. Mahavir Lunawat, Chairman, AIBI, said, ““India’s primary market has moved well beyond an episodic fundraising cycle. We have already seen ₹1.10 lakh crore mobilised through 84 mainboard IPOs in 2026 YTD, taking cumulative mainboard fundraising since 2016 to ₹8.36 lakh crore. More importantly, the market today has a ₹3.86 lakh crore pipeline, including around ₹2.43 lakh crore from companies that have received SEBI approval and another ₹1.44 lakh crore from companies awaiting approval. This depth of supply and stronger participation across QIB, HNI and retail investors, demonstrates that the primary market is becoming a broader and more durable channel for capital formation.”

He further added, “The larger structural shift is that India’s capital markets are increasingly being supported by domestic capital and a much wider capital formation architecture. Domestic investor participation has deepened, mutual fund assets have scaled significantly, and the market is increasingly connecting public equity with private capital, debt market. The next phase, therefore, cannot be measured only by the quantum of IPOs or the number of listings. It will be measured by how effectively we channel these pools of capital into business expansion, new capacity, infrastructure and long-term productive investment. For India’s Viksit Bharat ambition, the opportunity is to convert market depth into productive capital formation while continuing to strengthen disclosure, investor protection, price discovery and market efficiency.”

The deepening of the primary market is not restricted to large issuers. India’s SME IPO ecosystem has expanded significantly, with 267 SME IPOs in 2025, the highest annual number in the period covered, followed by 156 issues in 2026 YTD. Cumulative SME fundraising has reached ₹39,849 crore over 2016–2026 YTD, while the average SME issue size has increased from ₹8 crore in 2016 to ₹45 crore in 2026 YTD.

The growth in market activity has also been accompanied by a larger intermediary ecosystem. The number of registered merchant bankers has increased from 188 in September 2016 to 250 in September 2026, an increase of approximately 33%, reflecting the expansion in both the number and scale of public-market transactions.

Investor participation remains broad-based. For 2026 YTD, the AIBI data shows average subscription levels of approximately 49 times among QIBs, 86 times among HNI investors and 26 times among retail investors, although subscription levels continue to vary materially across individual issues.

Against this backdrop, AIBI believes the next phase of India’s primary market will be defined not merely by the number of companies coming to market, but by the quality of issuers, depth of institutional participation, quality of disclosures, wider distribution of capital and the ability of the ecosystem to support companies through successive stages of growth.

The ₹3.86 lakh crore pipeline, together with the decade-long expansion in mainboard fundraising, the rapid growth of SME participation and the strengthening of intermediary capacity, points to an Indian primary market that is increasingly evolving from an IPO-led fundraising avenue into a structural pillar of capital formation. The next challenge will be to ensure that this growing depth translates into efficient capital allocation, stronger investor confidence and sustainable long-term market development.