BENGALURU: India’s star start-ups such as Flipkart, Policy Bazaar and Zomato are most likely to go public this year which could lead to the combined value of the sector jumping to almost $180 billion by 2025, a report by HSBC Global research said.
The internet giants are going strong despite the double whammy of the Covid-19 disruptions and tensions with neighbouring China, which has tightened its purse string. In the last five years, start-ups have received $60 billion.
“The growing scale and maturity of India’s internet economy is starting to create more value and investment opportunities. More than $60 billion has been invested in India’s internet start-ups in the past five years, with around $12 billion in 2020 alone,” as per the report.
It added that the firms in food delivery, insurance and e-commerce verticals are on the cusp of going public.
Investment analysts have said that the big start-ups are eyeing dual listing in 2021 especially as India has proposed amending the Companies Act (2013) to stipulate new norms for direct international listing of firms.
Players like Paytm and Policy Bazaar are awaiting clarity on the guidelines since there are clauses on limited foreign jurisdictions for the listing purposes.
The norms for facilitating direct overseas listing of Indian firms are aimed to broaden their access to the capital in international markets.