212: From (Z)omato to (A)ther: India’s Tech IPO Shift Decoded | Avnish Bajaj | Rajinder Balaraman

India will see 100 tech IPOs by 2030. While Silicon Valley still waits for $5B+ exits, Indian founders are going public earlier - at $600 million.

Why? Because market receptivity has fundamentally shifted. The buyers want this asset class.

On the #ZeroToInfinity podcast, Avnish Bajaj and Rajinder Balaraman define what it actually takes to go public in India today. Through the lens of four distinct IPO waves, the duo traces how market expectations have evolved — from the early public-market pioneers, to the pricing missteps of 2021, and into a new phase where predictability and return on capital lead the way.

The team argues that IPOs are no longer about valuation peaks but about narrative control, access to permanent capital, and owning the category early. For founders, that means shifting how companies are built, instead of chasing scale at any cost to designing for profitability, pricing discipline, and long-term market trust from the outset.

This conversation unpacks the why, when, where, how of IPOs and the thresholds that separate companies that list from those that last. The team reframes the “To IPO or not to IPO” debate into a first-principles question for founders: Are you building with the intent to go public?

India may be heading toward its own Nasdaq moment -  the first 100 tech companies that go public will reshape how founders raise, grow, and exit. 

See why India's IPO math has permanently changed and what it means to be IPO-ready in India only on the latest episode of the Z47 podcast.