InMobi has reportedly appointed JPMorgan Chase, Jefferies, Kotak Mahindra Capital and Axis Capital to manage a potential initial public offering that could raise about $1 billion, reviving one of the most closely watched listing plans in India’s startup ecosystem. The SoftBank-backed adtech company is expected to begin IPO proceedings shortly and is targeting a listing in the next few months, although the final issue size remains under discussion and the plan could still change.
If completed, the IPO would mark a public-market debut for one of India’s earliest unicorns. Founded in 2007 by Naveen Tewari, Piyush Shah, Mohit Saxena and Abhay Singhal, InMobi built its core business around marketing and monetisation solutions for brands, advertisers and publishers. It later expanded through Glance, the AI-led Android lock-screen platform launched in 2019, giving the group a broader consumer-internet and advertising-technology footprint.
The listing plan is also connected to InMobi’s ongoing shift of domicile from Singapore to India. That move aligns with a larger pattern among Indian-origin technology companies seeking domestic listings, regulatory alignment and public-market access in India. InMobi has raised more than $320 million from investors including SoftBank, Sherpalo Ventures and Kleiner Perkins, and became a unicorn in 2011. Ahead of earlier listing efforts, cofounders Tewari, Singhal and Shah bought back a roughly 25%-30% stake from SoftBank, leaving the three with cumulative shareholding of around 60%.
The company has explored public markets before. It considered an IPO in 2021 but shelved the plan during weaker market conditions and the funding slowdown. Reports resurfaced in 2024 and 2025, but the transaction did not materialise. The latest banker appointments come as India’s new-age tech IPO pipeline expands, with companies across travel tech, fitness, ecommerce and enterprise technology seeking or preparing regulatory approvals.
InMobi’s proposed issue would test investor appetite for an Indian adtech and AI-enabled consumer-internet platform at a time when public markets are placing greater weight on profitability, cash generation, governance and category leadership. For the startup ecosystem, the deal would be closely watched not only for its size, but also for how public investors value mature technology businesses that have global revenue exposure, complex group structures and platform-adjacent AI assets.
