MIIS 2026: Bolt-ons, continuation funds power India’s next private equity cycle

India’s private equity industry is seeing a rise in buyout opportunities as a growing pool of mature assets looks to professionalize operations and accelerate growth, speakers said at the Mint India Investment Summit held on 26–27 March in Mumbai.

“If you think about the investments we make on the buyout side, we are typically betting on an attractive macro theme and a good competitive position that we can build off. We feel like there’s a handful of things you need to do in a business to unlock value,” said Ashish Kotecha, partner at Bain Capital.

“While it varies by companies or investments, we do run initiatives on cost, cash and pricing. Part of that is M&A being an important tool as a platform or a bolt on acquisition to get a new customer or a market segment you don’t have exposure to. This accelerates the value creation journey and M&A is a key part of that,” he said, adding that the firm also spends significant time considering the right home for the business.

Bolt-ons typically allow larger firms, usually backed by private equity firms, to buy smaller businesses to expand operations, diversify offerings, or reach new markets.

Capital as commodity

For good companies with strong fundamentals, capital has increasingly become a commodity amid expanding global pools of money.

“They're asking a lot more from the capital partners regarding how they can help add value during the investment journey,” said Mayank Bajpai, partner, TPG Growth and Rise.

EQT, which began buyouts in India in 2013, said more founders are open to handing over control to institutional investors.

“We still think we are scratching the surface. I still think that buyouts are going to grow much more than in the past. Even talent-wise, we get a lot more managerial talent who say they want to work with private equity. Talent is shifting towards private equity, and it will continue to grow as a source of talent for buyouts,” said Hari Gopalakrishnan, partner and deputy co-head of Private Capital Asia and head of India and global co-head of Services at EQT.

However, buyouts may remain limited in the new-age segment, where first-generation entrepreneurs may resist ceding control.

“In such cases, private equity can still be minority investors. But as these founders decide to move onto other things, buyouts may open here as well,” Gopalakrishnan added.

Sectoral bets

“I think while (buyouts in the) financial services, healthcare, will continue, we will see a lot of investments in the entire AI space going forward,” noted Vikram Raghani, partner, JSA Advocates & Solicitors.

For private equity firms, returning capital has become as critical as deploying it.

“Pension funds and insurance companies were very risk averse, so capital protection is very important for them. As a result, the bulk of the buyout capital goes into businesses that seemed to be downside protected, giving regular returns over time and so established businesses naturally gravitate to that at some level,” Gopalakrishnan explained.

A vibrant capital market is equally vital for sustained exits.

“But I'm also conscious that for buyouts, if you buy 100% of a company, it's also not easy to sell down completely. But as the market matures, that will happen over time, and we'll see more private equity firms take a company from 100 to zero,” he said.

Liquidity tools

New fund structures are emerging to ease liquidity pressures. In 2024, ChrysCapital closed its largest-ever continuation fund at $700 million, anchored by HarbourVest Partners, LGT Capital Partners, and Pantheon Ventures, to remain invested in National Stock Exchange of India.

Continuation funds allow limited partners to exit while enabling firms to stay invested in high-performing assets beyond the typical fund cycle.

“I think you will see more single asset continuation vehicles in the future depending on how strong that one single asset is. There are other companies in our portfolio right now that eventually could be single assets. We will take that call as and when it happens,” said Saurabh Chatterjee, managing director of ChrysCapital.

ChrysCapital, which concluded its tenth fund last year with a corpus of $2.2 billion, has indicated that nearly half the capital will be deployed in control-oriented buyout opportunities.

Chatterjee cautioned that portfolio construction for continuation vehicles requires discipline.

“GPs get in trouble when they try to do a multi-asset CV and then slip in a substandard asset with one or two zero assets. In such cases, LPs will not appreciate it as the poor asset brings down the value of the overall portfolio,” he added.

As India’s capital markets deepen and founders grow more open to control deals, private equity firms appear set for a broader buyout cycle—supported by bolt-ons, sectoral expansion and evolving liquidity structures.