The number of initial public offerings (IPOs) that hit the Indian market and the funding that they managed to raise between the months of April and October, surpassed the same during the whole of the previous financial year, the Finance Ministry informed the Lok Sabha on December 6.

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During the first seven months of the current financial year, a total of 61 companies were listed publicly and collected a total of Rs 52,700 crore. During the FY20-21, a total of 56 companies hit the primary market and managed to raise over Rs 31,000 crore, according to information from the Ministry of Finance.

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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman added that many of the 61 companies listed were small and medium enterprises (SME).

During the financial year 2020-21, 56 entities came out with IPOs, of which 27 were small and medium enterprises (SMEs). During the financial year 2021-22, 61 entities have already come out with IPOs till October 2021, of which 34 are SMEs, the Finance Minister said in Lok Sabha.

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Sitharaman added that many of the companies that were listed this year were spread across various important sectors like automobiles, cement, electronics equipment, food processing, textiles. Ten of the companies that were listed were in the healthcare segment as well.

“A large number of manufacturing and services sector companies are coming up for listing. The growth of the manufacturing sector in the country aids and promotes employment generation not only in manufacturing but also in other sectors and vice-versa,” the minister added.

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India’s startup space has seen incredible growth over the past year, as foreign investors pivoted away from riskier Chinese bets to Indian companies. Regulatory crackdowns from Chinese authorities have put off plans of listings of many Chinese companies, while a red hot equity market, attention from foreign investors, ease of capital, and a large potential market have boosted India’s IPO strength.

Interest from retail investors in issues like Zomato, Nazara Technologies, Sona BLW, MTAR Technologies, Paras Defense, and Laxmi Organic has brought their current share prices to nearly double that of the issue price in many cases.

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At the same time, Indian startups in the pre-listing space are also growing. The country already has more than doubled the number of its existing unicorns (startups valued at more than $1 billion), this year. India added 41 unicorns in 2021, against an existing total of 37 at the start of the year. Companies like CRED, Vedantu, Licious, CureFit, Upstox and CoinDCX highlight the segment variety for startups.

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(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)