SME IPOs: Why retail frenzy has cooled

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) continue to lead India’s initial public offerings (IPO) rush in 2025, with 220 firms raising ₹9,453 crore from public markets—7% more than last year’s haul, with over a month still to go in the year.

- Abhinaba Saha

The momentum builds on 2024, when the country saw a record number of IPOs raising an unprecedented amount of capital. The SME segment dominated then as well, with 245 companies mobilizing ₹8,761 crore. That, however, is where the resemblance ends.

In 2024, retail investors drove a frenzy, pushing median subscriptions to a staggering 137 times, which translated into median listing-day gains of almost 40%. This year, the enthusiasm has vanished. Median retail subscription rates have collapsed to just seven times, and listing gains have evaporated, now hovering around only 4%, showed an analysis of primedatabase.com data. The reality of the secondary market has caught up to the hype of the primary market.

Mainboard IPOs also dwindled, but fared better than SMEs. Median listing gain dropped from 21% to .5%, while the retail subscription rate has nearly halved from 14% to 8% between 2024 and 2025.

However, nearly half (48%) of the issues drew less than 10 times subscription in 2025—a sharp increase from just 4% in 2024—indicating that the speculative base has shrunk significantly, making way for more cautious subscriptions.