India, Dec. 13 -- It won't be unfair to say that 2025 was a year of IPOs for India's startup ecosystem with late-stage giants like Groww, Urban Company, PhysicsWallah and Lenskart making their debuts in the market, and delivering major returns to their early backers and VCs.

Some 18 startups went publicin 2025, raising close to INR 33,000 Cr from the market, and a few more could yet follow this parade in the last few days of the year. Most of the successful IPO stories ended with unprecedented returns and liquidity delivered to their early institutional backers who chose to exit.

The public floats opened the door to VCs that had nurtured these companies for years to execute partial or complete stake sales. As was the case in 2024, some ...