Gaja Capital files for a ₹656 crore IPO—a first for a PE in India

Gaja Alternative Asset Management Ltd, the homegrown private equity (PE) platform behind investments in Teamlease, Xpressbees and LeadSquared, has filed its updated draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) for a ₹656-crore initial public offering, becoming the first Indian private equity firm to seek a public listing.

Gaja Capital had used the confidential pre-filing route for its IPO documents in June.

According to the updated document, the IPO will comprise a ₹549 crore fresh issue and a ₹107 crore offer for sale by promoters and early shareholders. The IPO is being managed by JM Financial Ltd and IIFL Capital Services Ltd.

The IPO’s primary proceeds will be used to strengthen the firm’s platform and for general corporate purposes such as covering sponsor contributions to specific existing funds, namely Gaja Capital India Fund 2020 LLP and Gaja Capital India Fund 2020, as well as the repayment of a bridge loan amount.

A person aware of the firm’s strategy said the IPO is aimed at making the platform more institution-friendly and enabling broader access to alternative assets as domestic capital deepens. The IPO will also substantially bolster the firm’s balance sheet. “This is largely a primary IPO… it doubles the net worth of the business,” added the person who did not wish to be named.

The firm is simultaneously scaling its fund platforms, with plans for a ₹2,500-crore fifth fund. This will be higher than other flagship funds, with Fund II at ₹902.4 crore, Fund III at ₹1,598 crore, and Fund IV at ₹1,775 crore. It is also raising a ₹1,250-crore secondaries vehicle, the filing showed.

The person quoted above said the firm is close to hitting the investment threshold required the from fourth fund to formally begin the fifth fund, while the secondaries vehicle is a work in progress.

Mint’s request for a comment from Gaja Capital did not elicit a response at the time of publishing the story.

Promoters Gopal Jain, Ranjit Jayant Shah and Imran Jafar, and Sudesh Jain, alongside joint holders Chitra Jain (jointly with Gopal Jain) and Mona Ranjit Shah (jointly with Ranjit Shah), will dilute part of their holdings through the offer for sale, the filing showed.

The top-selling shareholders in the offer include promoters Shah and Jafar, who will each offload shares worth ₹20 crore, along with early investor Sanjay Hiralal Patel, who is also selling ₹20 crore worth of shares.

The rest will come from Anshuman Goyal, with an offloading of about ₹10 crore, followed by promoters Jain and a group of other selling shareholders including Manish Sabharwal, Abhinav Jain, Sushane Chopra, and Saurabh Sood, each selling shares worth ₹5 crore.

Ahead of the draft prospectus, the firm had raised ₹125 crore in a pre-IPO round, which set its valuation at ₹1,625-crore from institutional investors, including HDFC Life, SBI Life, Volrado and One Up.

Founded in 2004, Gaja Capital is a mid-market investor with a focus on themes such as education, consumer services and financial services. The firm’s portfolio includes Teamlease, Lighthouse Learning, RBL Bank, John Distilleries, Xpressbees, Educational Initiatives (Ei), LeadSquared and Signzy.

The PE player reported a net worth of ₹575 crore and ₹62 crore in profit for the first half of FY26, with profit margins expanding to 56% in the period.

According to the filing, the company may consider a pre-IPO placement of up to ₹1,09.8 crore, which would reduce the size of the fresh issue.

First IPO bet by a PE

Gaja’s listing marks a milestone for India’s maturing private capital market. While unprecedented locally, publicly-listed PE firms are common in the US.

Blackstone went public in 2007, followed by KKR in 2010. Apollo Global Management and Carlyle Group followed in 2011 and 2012, respectively. The latest to hit the market was TPG that went public in 2022.

Gaja’s move signals a similar shift in India, where the domestic alternatives industry has scaled rapidly over the past decade. As of September 2025, the total commitments raised by alternative investment funds (AIFs) in India reached ₹15.05 lakh crore, approximately $180 billion.