Promoters and venture capitalists of companies that listed in the stock market up to the first week of July 2026 have earned lower share of the total offer for sale component than the year ago peroid.

The share of owners or founders of the companies along with private equity or venture capitalists, the early investors in the company, reduced to 84% of the total offer for sale (OFS) proceeds to ₹10,696 crore, according to an analysis of IPO data up to July 8 2026 sought from primedatabase.com.

This share was 95.5% in the same six-month period of calendar year 2025. This share was 94% in 2023 and 68% in 2024, the lowest in the last four years. 

Initial public offering (IPO) is the process by which companies that are privately held list in the market, effectively becoming “public limited.” The shares of these companies are then bought and sold by investors in the stock market. In that process, companies can raise money from new investors via fresh issues or existing investors via owners selling part of their shares to the public. While the former may be used for developing the company, the latter, called offer for sale (OFS), goes into the pockets of the sellers. 

Many large investors and market observers have often criticised OFS as a system of wealth transfer from retail investors to large company owners and that private equity funds were basically using the primary market to exit the company rather than helping the firm raise productive capital. For context, the Knight Frank, a property consultant, said in its report that the IPO boom and the new wealth created out of it drove luxury real estate demand last year. 

The criticism came from as high as the Chief Economic Advisor to Government of India V. Anantha Nageswaran, where he called out P/E and VCs, for making listing as an “exit route.”

Owners and early investors took home just half of the ₹12,783 crore garnered from the market up to July 2026. This share was much higher in 2023, when 73% of the IPO proceeds were OFS. This slipped to 54% in 2024, increased slightly to 61% in 2025 and again fell to 52% in the current calendar year. 

While this may look like serious capital deployment from money earned in the market, the overall share still remains more than half of the proceeds. 

The headline number while suggesting that they are earning a smaller share, however, hides the larger trend. In the past four years, share in OFS proceeds has been swinging between owners and VCs. For instance, last year, in the six-month period, VCs  earned just 7.4% of the ₹29,486 crore of OFS proceeds. Promoters were the largest sellers, pocketing over 88% of the money. To be sure, VC shares in total OFS have reduced from over 60% in 2023, to just about 36% of the total OFS sales in 2026. 

Owners, however, consistently made a minimum of 30% of the total offer for sale in the last four years. 

To be sure, several large IPOs, which can potentially have huge OFS shares are yet to happen in 2026. This includes the largest stock exchange NSE, Reliance Jio, Oyo, Phone Pe, Zepto among others. Including large IPOs can, however distort underlying trends. 

The overarching trend of IPOs as an exit route still remains. It is just the composition of the sellers and the intensity that has kept changing. 

Published - July 19, 2026 06:05 am IST