India’s initial public offering (IPO) pipeline will soldier on despite no clarification on when Indian markets will revisit their 2024 peaks, sources said.

As pricing new deals get challenging, banks with large IPO teams have used the slow market to meet potential new clients and to deepen ties with existing ones, said two bankers.

Others are either working on preparation of regulatory filings or building early-stage books, on anticipation of a market comeback in the next three to six months.

So far this year, 172 companies have filed for IPOs compared to 145 filings during the same period in 2024, according to Dealogic.

“IPO launches have slowed down,” said Varoon Chandra, Head of Capital Markets at AZB & Partners, “But companies remain focused on getting the documentation for IPOs in place so that they are in a state of readiness to launch whenever a suitable market window opens up.”

While no IPOs have officially been pulled from the market, firms such as LG Electronics India and Ather Energy have trimmed their IPO valuations. Companies, especially those with a US-export bias, will assess any impact on earnings – a key element of valuation building.

India’s benchmark index, NIFTY 50, has shed 11% since its September record, though up about 5% from a year ago. In March and April last year, 51 companies raised USD 1.4bn on the Indian market; this year, 14 companies raised about USD 72m during the same period, according to a recent report.

Volatility is expected to remain high until US President Donald Trump finalizes his tariff plan after the 90-day pause announced on 9 April.

Companies without the bandwidth of fundamentals to begin pre-IPO preparations could opt for pre-IPO funding, or explore private equity (PE) and private credit options.

Meanwhile, companies with no urgent need for capital, and financial sponsors who are not facing general partner (GP) wind up pressures, will wait until the sun again appears on the horizon.

Domestic buffer

While the way India’s IPO market copes with heightened volatility doesn’t seem different from the rest of the region, the country’s pipeline of potential share floats is deep enough to make every market jealous.

Also, multi-national companies (MNCs) have listed their subsidiaries in India, setting precedents for other MNCs to follow suit, said Vivek Sriram, partner at Khaitan & Co. Examples include Hyundai Motor India, which listed in October 2024 to raise USD 3.3bn.

Another strong point is India’s fast growing retail participation in IPOs, though that is still lower than the 60% in the US.

“This insulates the market from deep emotion-driven selling pressure to an extent,” said Utkarsh Sinha, managing director at boutique firm Bexley Advisors. “This structural retail participation acts as a buffer—absorbing volatility from (foreign investment) outflows and insulating the domestic market.”

Several salaried individuals invest regularly in the market via systematic investment plan (SIPs) – a voluntary domestic saving scheme – and the “nature of this participation is stickier and increasingly institutionalized,” said Sinha.

“This base acts as a counterweight to any short term (foreign institutional investor) outflows, providing resilience during periods of global turbulence.

Despite a recent decline in SIP inflows into Indian mutual funds (MFs), in FY24/25, the average monthly SIP contribution grew to INR 241bn (USD 2.8bn) from INR 166bn (USD 1.92bn) in the year prior, according to a local April media report.

This is one of the factors cushioning the Indian market from falling as much as elsewhere in the region, said an industry banker. He also pointed to a notable emergence of Indian family offices into the equity market as a bolster to domestic markets.

“Despite all the uncertainty … this is a moment of opportunity,” said Ravi Dharamshi, founder and CIO at ValueQuest Investment Advisors.

Geopolitically, India is seen as a trusted counterbalance in the face of threats. Strategically, it is diversifying its global supply chains, and demographically, it has the demand and consumption. India remains in a strong position to counter expected market dips and troughs, especially as the country’s corporate promoters move to “aligning valuation expectation with today’s more volatile, capital-conscious world,” said Dharamshi.