Goldman Sachs Sees $100 Billion IPO Windfall in India's AI Startups

India's AI startups could add $50 billion to $100 billion in listed market value if even a quarter to half of them go public, according to a new Goldman Sachs report cited by Forbes India. The bank's math rests on 84 unlisted companies it calls "Private AI Contenders," valued at a combined $55 billion.

The funding behind that pipeline is accelerating fast. Private equity investment in Indian AI startups rose from $1.6 billion in 2024 to around $5 billion in 2025 — a threefold jump. The Goldman Sachs report says funding in the first eight to nine months of 2026 has already matched 2025's record level, putting the year on track to exceed it.

AI now claims about 20% of all private equity funding in India, up from roughly 5% in 2024. Goldman Sachs says funding at this scale challenges the view that India sits on the sidelines of the global AI development cycle.

How does India rank globally?

Citing Stanford University's 2026 AI Index, the report ranks India sixth globally for private AI funding in 2025. By number of newly funded AI ventures, India places fourth, behind the U.S., the UK, and China.

The bank built its list after examining around 7,000 unlisted Indian companies that raised private funding over the past 15 years. The 84 contenders it identified represent about 40% of AI-related private capital raised in India since 2025.

What are these companies worth?

Goldman Sachs splits the field into three layers, and the value sits mostly upstream:

• Upstream enablers — power, semiconductors, and data centers — hold the largest share at roughly $35 billion in estimated value.
• Downstream adopters, which apply AI in healthcare, financial services, and robotics, are worth $18 billion across 42 of the 84 companies.
• Midstream "core engine" companies that develop foundational models are the smallest group: seven companies worth around $2 billion combined.

Geographically, Bengaluru leads with 32 contenders, followed by Delhi-NCR with 16, Mumbai with 12, and Hyderabad with eight.

What does the IPO math look like?

The report places 71 of the 84 companies in the growth, late-stage, infrastructure, or buyout stages, with a combined value of about $54 billion. Goldman Sachs notes that companies at these stages have historically taken two to five years to reach public markets, and have listed at valuations two to 10 times their last private round.

If 25% to 50% of these companies list at an average 4x valuation step-up, they could add $50 billion to $100 billion in market value to India's listed AI universe. That's small next to the $670 billion in the listed AI "Enablers" group, the bank said, but it could significantly change the nature of the opportunities available to investors.

Upstream companies could account for around 66% of potential new listings, while downstream adopters could make up about 31%. Segments likely to reach the market include data center operators, enterprise AI services, conversational AI, cloud and data management, healthcare AI, and computer vision.

What are the caveats?

Goldman Sachs flagged clear limits on its own numbers. The bank said its IPO-related assessment is illustrative only, and that it is not expressing a view on any specific listing or valuation. The report also acknowledged its top-down screen could include false positives and could exclude companies without significant private equity or venture backing.

The projection also lands against a harder global backdrop. An earlier assessment of U.S. AI by the same analysts flagged rising financing costs, construction delays, and power constraints as data centers expand. Several major projects there are being postponed or canceled — a reminder that compute capacity and investor confidence don't always grow on schedule. India's AI pipeline, in other words, has the capital and the companies; the next two to five years will show whether the public markets agree on price.