What the published numbers say about Indian deals

Diligence follows deals, so the deal numbers are a fair place to start. Here is what the published figures show, source by source. Each publisher counts in its own way, so each figure is given on its own terms.

A strong M&A year

Grant Thornton Bharat’s Annual Dealtracker counts 963 M&A deals in CY2025, up 41 per cent in number on CY2024, with a total deal value of USD 60.2 billion. The report describes M&A activity in the year as reaching “unprecedented levels”, so CY2025 is best read as a high point rather than a normal year.

By number of deals, most were domestic: the same report counts 713 domestic M&A deals in CY2025, against 88 inbound and 162 outbound.

Grant Thornton Bharat’s Q2 Dealtracker counts 240 M&A deals worth USD 27.9 billion in Q2 2026 (April to June), which it calls the highest quarterly M&A value since Q2 2022.

Listings and private capital

Listings had a strong year too. PRIME Database’s year-end release of 30 December 2025 counts 103 main-board IPOs in CY2025 raising ₹1,75,901 crore, an amount it calls an all-time high, alongside 267 SME IPOs raising ₹11,430 crore.

More companies also filed to list. The same release reports that 249 companies filed offer documents with SEBI in CY2025, against 145 in CY2024. PRIME Database’s FY2025-26 release adds that at 31 March 2026, 144 companies held SEBI approval for a main-board IPO and 63 were awaiting it. That is a snapshot on a single date, not a count of filings made during a year.

On the private side, EY-IVCA’s Trendbook 2026 puts India PE/VC investment in CY2025 at USD 60.7 billion across 1,475 deals, including real estate, infrastructure, credit and PIPE investments. It calls the value the second-highest on record, and the deal count the highest ever recorded, up 9 per cent year on year.

Investors and advisers on the register

SEBI’s Annual Report 2025-26 counts 1,829 registered AIFs at 31 March 2026, up from 1,526 a year earlier, and 240 merchant bankers on the same date. ICAI’s List of Firms statistics count 97,180 chartered accountant firms (head offices) at 1 April 2026; that covers every registered firm, not only those that do deal work.

What this means for diligence

Each of these deals carries diligence, and the work is shared out. An acquirer or fund, its lawyers and chartered accountants, the merchant banker on a listing and the company’s own finance team all work from the same documents, and every answer has to stand up later. When deal activity runs high, the same questions come up in each room: who can see what, and which page backs each answer.

That is the work we built CADO for: an AI-native data room specialising in Indian deals. It flags missing mandatory documents against an India due-diligence checklist for the deal’s stage and industry, asks each member to accept the room’s NDA before they see a document, enforces roles on the server and keeps an exportable audit trail. Its AI agents cite the page, slide or spreadsheet row behind each answer.