New Delhi, Dec. 19 -- The Indian capital markets are poised for a wave of listings by cloud-based software providers, with investment bankers and investors predicting that at least seven to eight such startups are preparing to go public locally over the next 12-18 months.

Unlike the consumer-facing firms that have dominated the listed pipeline so far, software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies are expected to drive tech initial public offerings (IPOs). RateGain and, more recently, Capillary Technologies have been the only large Saas listings in India.

Other ventures including Amagi, Leadsquared, BusinessNext, Zenoti, Icertis, Mindtickle, Juspay and Whatfix are now kicking off the new wave with them either preparing for IPOs or considering p...