IPO pipeline — SEBI filings

The two documents

A company that wants to go public files a draft red herring prospectus with SEBI. The DRHP carries the business description, three years of restated financials, the risk factors, the promoter holding and what the money is meant to be used for. What it does not carry is a price band, a lot size or any dates — those do not exist yet, and will not for months.

SEBI reviews the draft and issues observations: a formal set of points the company must address before it can proceed. Sometimes these are minor. Sometimes they require substantive changes to disclosure, and occasionally they stop an issue altogether. Once satisfied, the company files the red herring prospectus — the final version, with the price band, the lot size and the bidding window in it. Only at that point does the issue appear on NSE or BSE, and only then does it appear on our live board.

How long the gap is

The distance between a DRHP and an open issue is commonly six months to a year, and sometimes considerably longer. A SEBI approval is valid for a limited window, and companies routinely let one lapse and refile later with updated financials when market conditions look poor. A company that filed eighteen months ago and has not opened is not necessarily in trouble — it may simply be waiting.

Why many filings never become IPOs

A draft prospectus records an intention, not a commitment. Companies withdraw for reasons that have nothing to do with the regulator: a funding round on better terms, an acquisition offer, a bad quarter that would have to be disclosed, or a market that has turned against new listings. Others are held back by their own bankers. The pipeline is a list of possibilities, and a meaningful share of it will never reach an exchange.

What the pipeline is genuinely useful for

Two things. First, lead time: the DRHP is the earliest public description of a company that may list, and it is the same document the eventual investors will be reading, months before anyone is talking about the issue. Second, terms drift — comparing a DRHP against the RHP that follows shows what changed between the two, which is often the most informative thing available about an issue. Which sections of either document are worth your time.

What it is not useful for is timing. There is no reliable way to predict from a filing date when — or whether — an issue will open.

How this page is built

We read SEBI’s own filings listing once a day and record every offer document as it appears, with a link back to the source. Where we can match a filing to an issue already tracked on the site, the company name links through to its page and the status column reflects where it has reached. Where we cannot, the row still appears — an unmatched filing is a real filing, and hiding it would make the pipeline look tidier than it is.

We do not classify, rate or predict any of these. The document type and filing date are the exchange’s own; everything else on this page links to the primary source so you can read it yourself.