Amagi slides in India debut, as cloud TV software firm tests investor appetite

Amagi Media Labs, a Bengaluru-headquartered company that sells cloud software used to run and monetize TV and streaming channels, saw its shares slide in its India market debut after raising ₹17.89 billion (about $196 million) in an IPO — a deal that stands out in a market still dominated by consumer companies going public.

Shares opened at ₹318 on Wednesday, a 12% discount to the ₹361 issue price, before climbing to ₹356.95 and later trading around ₹348.85, valuing Amagi at ₹75.44 billion (around $825.81 million), according to the National Stock Exchange. Amagi was last valued at $1.4 billion in a private funding round in November 2022, after a $100 million raise led by General Atlantic, and investors sought to buy more than 30 times the available shares.

The Bengaluru-headquartered company sells cloud software that helps TV networks and streaming services distribute and monetize video, and earns almost all of its revenue outside India — including around 73% from the U.S. and about 20% from Europe — CEO and co-founder Baskar Subramanian said in an interview, making it a rare export-first technology listing on Indian exchanges.

The $196 million IPO included a fresh issue of shares worth ₹8.16 billion (about $89.33 million), while existing investors sold about 26.9 million shares through an offer-for-sale. The deal was smaller than Amagi’s earlier plan, after the company trimmed the fresh issue and reduced the number of shares to be sold by existing backers from 34.2 million.

Norwest Venture Partners, Accel, and Premji Invest were among Amagi’s existing shareholders who sold shares in the IPO. Subramanian told TechCrunch the sales were only a “very small portion” of holdings, and said the company’s founders were not selling a single share.

“For us as an event, it’s a pit stop in a long journey,” he said.

Accel has particularly retained close to a 10% stake in Amagi after the IPO, even as the listing locks in a roughly 3.3x gain on shares it acquired at around ₹108 per share. “To make the IPO, we are reluctantly exiting as little as possible to make this happen,” said Shekhar Kirani, an Accel partner.

Founded in 2008 by Subramanian, Srividhya Srinivasan, and Arunachalam Srinivasan Karapattu, Amagi counts content companies such as Lionsgate Studios, Fox, and Sinclair Broadcast Group among its clients, as well as distributors including Roku, Vizio, Rakuten TV, and DirecTV, and advertising platforms such as The Trade Desk and Index Exchange.

Subramanian said Amagi is riding a shift as broadcasters and streamers move away from “big iron” hardware and satellite-based workflows toward cloud-based operations, arguing that only a small portion of the industry has completed the transition so far. The company has also begun pitching new automation and AI-driven tools to help media companies cut labor-heavy operating costs, he said.

The company’s revenue from operations rose 34.6% year-over-year to ₹7.05 billion (around $77.18 million) in the six months ended September 30, 2025, while net revenue retention was about 127% — meaning existing customers increased their spending by 27%, per its prospectus (PDF).

Amagi is betting that broadcast and live video are still in the early stages of moving to the cloud, Subramanian told TechCrunch, estimating that less than 10% of the industry has made the shift, leaving a long runway as media groups modernise infrastructure and expand ad-supported streaming.

The company’s appeal lies in being a “premium” and highly reliable platform for blue-chip customers, said Rachit Parekh, a partner at Accel, arguing that downtime during major live events can be highly costly for broadcasters and streamers. This dynamic has helped drive high customer retention and expansion.

Nonetheless, Amagi is also competing against legacy broadcast vendors that are racing to modernize their own offerings for the cloud, while its push into AI-driven automation will test whether Amagi can expand beyond infrastructure into software with better profit margins without rising cloud costs eating into profitability.

Amagi said it plans to plow most of the fresh proceeds into technology and cloud infrastructure, allocating ₹5.50 billion ($60.21 million) for that purpose, while also setting aside funds for potential acquisitions and general corporate use, per its prospectus.

Amagi’s debut comes as India’s IPO market has drawn a rising number of technology-led listings, supported by strong domestic investor demand even as late-stage startup funding remains subdued. The shift has positioned public markets as both a growth-financing option and a path to exits for early backers, a dynamic that has become more visible as private capital has turned more selective.

India’s tech sector recorded 42 IPOs in 2025, up from 36 in 2024, per market intelligence firm Tracxn. Several venture-backed startups, including consumer and fintech firms, are also widely expected to test public markets in 2026 as the pipeline builds.