Even as India witnessed record public issue filings and listings in 2025, many of the country’s fastest-growing large companies remain privately held, according to the JM Financial and Hurun India Unlisted Gems 2026 report, adding that the next wave of public market candidates is building.
With ₹8.9 trillion in combined revenue across 100 large unlisted companies, India’s initial public offering (IPO) pipeline remains far from thin, it said.
In markets such as China, a majority of billion-dollar firms have already gone public, according to Rupert Hoogerwerf, chairman and chief research officer of Hurun. “Close to 70% of unicorns have already been listed based on the latest research,” Hoogerwerf told Mint.
India continues to house almost 70% of its unicorns in the private market.
Large consumer and retail players dominate the cohort, led by Reliance Retail, Flipkart, and Malabar Gold and Diamonds, while capital-intensive manufacturing bets such as Tata Electronics and Tata Passenger Electric Mobility have emerged among the fastest growers as India ramps up semiconductor and electric mobility capacity.
Infrastructure and core industry players such as Gawar Construction and Wonder Cement also made the list, alongside financial services firms, including SBI General Insurance and Zerodha Broking. Anas Rahman Junaid, founder and chief researcher at Hurun India, however, clarified that the list does not imply that the companies will go public soon, but rather points to public-market readiness.
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This comes even as a decade-high number of IPO filings in 2025 brought the country close to record annual fundraising levels, Mint reported on 19 November. In 2026, the activity slowed amid volatile equity markets and muted investor response to some recent listings.
According to Trendlyne data cited by Mint on 20 February, 31 companies across the mainboard and SME segments have raised funds so far this year, with three more expected to list next week, compared with 50 during the year-ago period.
The top 100 unlisted list includes companies that have crossed ₹1,000 crore in revenue, demonstrate a three-year revenue compound annual growth rate, show improving Ebitda margins, and importantly have not filed a draft red herring prospectus (DRHP).
“The three-year revenue CAGR for these unlisted companies is about 20%, compared with roughly 9-11% for the Nifty 50,” Junaid told Mint. “Revenue growth in 2024-25 was around 12%, versus about 4.5-7% for the benchmark index.”
Technology companies account for only about 10-15% of the cohort by revenue, with no dedicated artificial intelligence-focused firms yet emerging as dominant near-term listing candidates, a clear contrast with Western markets where AI companies increasingly shape IPO narratives.
“India still needs more mature AI companies at scale. We may start seeing them feature meaningfully in the next couple of years,” Junaid said.
Geographically, Mumbai leads the list with 20 companies, followed by Bengaluru with 17.
The pre-IPO pipeline remains robust, but the benchmarks have changed, said Yash Vardhan Singh, counsel at corporate and startup advisory firm Sarvaank Associates. “Valuations are no longer being built on vanity metrics like user downloads or GMV; instead, the focus has moved to Ebitda margins, PAT positivity, and high-quality revenue.”
He added that one of the more significant shifts is the entry of large, unlisted traditional businesses into public markets. “The most healthy development is the professionalization of large, unlisted traditional businesses that are now seeking public capital to fund real-world capex,” Singh said.
With the valuation gap between private and public markets narrowing, he said, companies that can pair growth with fiscal discipline are more likely to find a durable footing on the bourses.