As 2025 winds down to a close, India’s tech startups leave behind a year of windfall gains from the market. They raked in approximately INR 33,573 Cr from 15 listings until November, surpassing nearly INR 29,070 Cr raised a year back.

The market was rather a damp squib in the early half of 2025, but it later shrugged off the sentiment and helped startups garner billions of dollars from the public markets. The startling rally drove the inescapable comparison with the dot-com era of the late 1990s, when many internet companies saw their stocks zoom despite sinking into losses.

And given the high valuations of some of the startups that have gone public, are we staring at a bubble waiting to burst?

“Certainly, not,” asserted Sanjiv Bhatia, the president and head of new economy and multinational coverage at Axis Bank. “It’s a healthy trend.”

In step with India’s transformation into the hottest listing destination, Axis Bank has emerged as a key investment banker for new-age companies, handling mandates for over 60% of the tech IPOs this year.

Its subsidiary Axis Capital has handled mandates for top tech listings this year that include Groww’s INR 6,632 Cr public issue, an INR 7,278 Cr Lenskart float and the INR 3,480 Cr PhysicsWallah IPO that together raised INR 17,840 Cr.

Standing against such a backdrop, Inc42 caught up with Bhatia to comprehend the evolving dynamics in India’s primary market.

He explained what are the forces behind the IPO rush, how the domestic savings engine has reshaped Indian markets, and why confidential filings may be the most important structural reform in years.

The Axis Bank executive who has been working closely with founders and VCs of some of the India’s top tech startups on their IPO journeys attributes the “hyped IPO trend among startups” to a combination of trends spanning from surging domestic inflows from SIPs and EPFOs, mutual funds hunting fresh deployment amid sky-high P/E ratios, and global private equity funds desperately seeking to exit late-stage funding drought.

Bhatia predicted a push from the investors and founders to raise money from the public market and this is likely to continue in 2026. “However there is no desperation to sell,” he adds.

Here are excerpts from the freewheeling interaction:

Excerpts

Inc42: India’s IPO market appears a lot hotter, especially for tech startups, compared to the subdued mood overseas. How do you see this?

Sanjiv Bhatia: There are a number of reasons. First, public markets are getting massive inflows from SIPs as formal employment is on the rise and there is........

© Inc42