Recent mega initial public offerings in India have found a new set of takers emerging at the pre-IPO placement stage: family offices.
PI Opportunities Fund, an investment vehicle of Azim Premji’s family office Premji Invest, and Alrox Enterprises, the family office of Sun Pharmaceutical’s promoters, participated in SBI Funds Management’s pre-IPO round, Mint reported recently. Earlier in December, the family offices of Azim Premji and Rakesh Jhunjhunwala participated as anchor investors ahead of ICICI Prudential Asset Management Co.’s IPO.
A February note by EY Family Offices Advisory Services highlighted several marquee private-market deals involving family offices, including Patni Family Office’s investment in Bombay Shaving Co. Reports indicate that Bombay Shaving Co. plans to go public within the next 18 to 24 months.
Family offices have traditionally looked at public markets for equity alpha, with some playing actively in private equity markets. Many more are moving further up the value chain, backing companies long before they list. Alpha represents the returns over and above what’s expected for a given risk level, typically measured by a benchmark index.
The reason family offices are well-placed in this trend is the ticket size of the deals, said Riddhiman Jain, managing director and head of investment strategy and solutions at Waterfield Advisors. Most pre-IPO rounds want cheques that high networth or retail-style investors simply can't write out.
“This (pre-IPO and unlisted investments) is one of the more genuine structural shifts in family office investing lately,” Jain noted.
Given that much of what trades on unlisted desks is just illiquid stock with no listing catalyst in sight, family offices are also better-positioned to conduct the due diligence needed to put a big amount down, Jain added.
Alpha going to ether
An August report by Julius Baer-EY found that family offices are increasingly bypassing traditional fund-only routes, investing directly in startups and unlisted growth companies, while co-investing alongside PE and VC funds to get an earlier access to value creation.
Vodhi Chakravartty, head of strategy, Kotak Private Banking, pointed to how family offices in India have grown to over 300 now from roughly 45 in 2018. Assets under management are projected to grow 50% in three years and a lot of that growth is chasing pre-IPO bets that are high-growth assets, even if they come with valuation risks, he added. Unlisted-market valuations can correct sharply before a primary market debut, unnerving investors.
While pre-IPO remains compelling, Rohit Suri, CEO – UHNI Business, Ionic Wealth, cautioned that the upside of an easy alpha has largely disappeared.
“India’s unlisted market saw trading volumes fall 40-70% from late-2025 peaks, while average IPO listing gains declined from 28% in FY25 to just 8% in FY26 despite record activity,” Suri said. In his view, the ‘buy private, wait for IPO, make 2x’ playbook no longer works automatically.
The opportunity today, according to Suri, is identifying companies where private-market valuations still materially understate future earnings potential. A pre-IPO investment then becomes a satellite alpha strategy around a core listed-equity portfolio.
Listing gains have become harder to come by, with India's IPO fundraising slowing in 2026 after record years. Issuers are now prioritizing deal execution over maximizing valuation, given mixed post-listing performance and weaker risk appetite. That said, some recent pharma and specialty-chemical listings, such as Rubicon Research, have still delivered outsized gains, underscoring the stock-specific nature of returns, Chakravartty of Kotak said.
“…strategic family offices hold for years; a large set of newer entrants are chasing the listing gains as well,” he added.