Groww, widely recognized as India’s largest retail-focused brokerage platform, is preparing to test the resilience and depth of the country’s capital markets with a highly anticipated multi‑billion‑dollar initial public offering. This landmark listing is particularly significant because it arrives a little more than a year after the company carried out a major corporate restructuring, transferring its legal domicile and central operations from the U.S. state of Delaware back to Indian soil. That strategic reversal of its earlier globalization move positions Groww to potentially become the very first Indian startup that, after relocating from the United States, proceeds to list publicly on domestic exchanges.

The company has attracted the attention and confidence of several prestigious investors. Its backers include Microsoft’s chief executive Satya Nadella, as well as globally renowned venture capital firms such as Y Combinator, Ribbit Capital, and Tiger Global. The forthcoming listing—slated for later this calendar year—is therefore not only an important milestone for Groww itself but also a critical point of exit for a number of global funds that had invested heavily in the business during its rapid growth phase. According to the draft IPO papers submitted earlier this week, the three foreign investment firms collectively plan to divest around 236 million shares, which amounts to roughly 5.6% of the firm’s total shareholding. Their combined offer is set to represent the single largest bloc of shares available for sale, constituting approximately 41% of the entire volume that will be offered to incoming investors during the flotation.

This move by Groww reflects a broader phenomenon among prominent Indian technology startups that have begun reversing earlier decisions to base themselves in foreign jurisdictions. Companies ranging from Pine Labs and Razorpay to Meesho and Zepto have in recent years either completed or initiated the process of re‑domiciling to India. A striking example is PhonePe, which counts Walmart among its strongest supporters; it shifted its headquarters from Singapore to India in 2022. Flipkart, another homegrown e‑commerce giant that was once the parent company of PhonePe and is similarly backed by Walmart, has also announced intentions to follow suit by relocating its registered base back to India.

Groww was one of the early pioneers of this reversal trend. In its case, restructuring the corporate headquarters involved paying a substantial tax outlay—roughly $159 million—which reflected the costs associated with unwinding the Delaware incorporation. Such financial commitments highlight how serious Indian startups have become about achieving regulatory alignment within their domestic market. Relocating back home provides several strategic advantages: it allows companies to harmonize with India’s evolving legal framework, benefit from rules tailored to Indian securities markets, and position themselves more strategically for domestic IPOs. Furthermore, given the steady expansion of India’s retail investor base and the increasingly strong appetite among Indian households for equity investment, tapping into the local stock market often proves more attractive than seeking a foreign listing. This growing inclination to list at home underscores the maturation and improving allure of India’s financial markets compared with overseas alternatives.

Interestingly, while large foreign shareholders are seeking to liquidate a meaningful portion of their stakes, Groww’s founding team has taken a markedly different approach. Founders Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain, Neeraj Singh, and Ishan Bansal together will part with only about 4 million shares according to the draft prospectus. That figure translates to merely 0.7% of the overall shares designated for sale, displaying their long‑term confidence in the company’s trajectory. This contrast between the founders’ minimal divestment and the sizable offloading by established foreign investors signals the leadership’s commitment to maintaining strong equity participation in the future of their creation.

Financially, Groww’s IPO structure is designed to achieve two principal objectives: fresh capital infusion and partial liquidity for existing shareholders. The Bengaluru‑based company aims to raise approximately ₹10.6 billion (about $121 million) in new primary funding, which will directly augment its balance sheet and fuel expansion. In parallel, the offering will include the secondary sale of 574 million shares from current holders, collectively valued in the range of ₹5–6 billion, equivalent to about $568–682 million. As a result, the IPO is anticipated to confer upon Groww a market capitalization in the vicinity of $9 billion, thereby placing it among India’s more valuable publicly traded fintech firms.

The company’s financial performance over the last fiscal cycle mirrors its growing operational scale. For the year ending March 31, Groww reported revenue of ₹40.6 billion (around $462 million), a year‑on‑year surge of 45%. The most striking turnaround, however, was on the bottom line: the firm posted a post‑tax profit of ₹18.2 billion (approximately $208 million). This represented a dramatic reversal from the preceding year, in which the company had incurred a net loss of around ₹8 billion, largely due to the considerable one‑time costs associated with its corporate relocation from Delaware.

Beyond headline financials, Groww’s scale of user adoption reflects its dominance in the retail investing space. As of June, the platform hosted nearly 37.4 million individual demat accounts, which allow investors to hold securities electronically. This massive figure equates to roughly 19% of India’s entire market for such accounts. On the National Stock Exchange, the firm supported 12.6 million active clients, thereby commanding around a 26% market share. Its mutual fund and SIP (systematic investment plan) penetration was equally impressive, with approximately 17 million active SIPs and 9 million distinct mutual fund investors. Groww has also achieved a technological benchmark unmatched by competitors, becoming the only investment application in India to surpass 100 million cumulative downloads to date.

To execute this monumental offering, Groww has enlisted seasoned global and domestic financial institutions as advisors. Among them are JPMorgan Chase, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Citigroup, Axis Bank, and Motilal Oswal Investment Advisors, each contributing expertise in structuring, pricing, and distributing such a large and consequential share sale to the investing public.

In sum, Groww’s impending IPO is not merely a company‑specific event but also a watershed moment for the broader Indian startup ecosystem. It encapsulates themes of global capital movement, the realignment of technology companies toward India, the deepening of domestic capital markets, and the increasing sophistication of retail investors. With its founders signaling faith through limited divestment, and global funds preparing to realize returns, the offering is poised to set both financial and symbolic precedents for future Indian startups considering the path of returning home and going public.

Sourse: https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/16/groww-backed-by-satya-nadella-set-to-become-first-indian-startup-to-go-public-after-u-s-to-india-move/