Yotta flips IPO strategy, to pursue India IPO first, keeps Nasdaq listing option open

The Mumbai-headquartered company, which has campuses in Navi Mumbai, Noida and GIFT City, has received approvals to list its parent entity in the US following a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).

Yotta CEO Sunil Gupta said the company will now prioritize an initial public offering (IPO) in India due to growing domestic investor appetite for digital infrastructure and AI-related assets. He said Yotta retained the option to raise capital abroad later.

“Our current plan is to raise capital primarily in India. The structure allows us to keep the US option open, it’s a matter of sequencing,” Gupta said. he said. Mint. “If all goes well, we will be able to enter the Indian market in the next financial year.”

Gupta said the company has received all regulatory approvals for a new regulation. Nasdaq is slated to list in late 2025 but has chosen to prioritize Indian markets due to its dominant position, India-based operations and strong response from domestic investors during pre-IPO fundraising discussions.

“Indian investors already take India risk into account when investing. For overseas investors, India is still an external risk,” he said. “Given the response we have seen from family offices, high-net-worth individuals and funds in India, we believe we can raise sufficient capital domestically to fund our near-term GPU, cloud and data center expansion.”

Yotta’s parent company, Nidar Infrastructure, said it plans to list on Nasdaq through a merger with Cartica Acquisition Corp, valuing the business at $2.75 billion pre-transaction, according to regulatory filings. The combined entity was expected to be listed under the tickers YTTA and YTTAW.

Scale first

But Nidar Infrastructure said in a Jan. 7 filing that it chose not to proceed with the business combination outlined in its Form F-4 registration statement. Gupta said the SPAC transaction is now off the table and any future U.S. listing would require a new process.

Gupta said an initial listing in India would allow Yotta to build scale and valuation before expanding into overseas markets.

“Once we are listed in India, we can approach foreign markets in a much stronger way,” he said.

Market participants said: India’s public markets are warming to AI-adjacent and data center listings, reflecting a broader shift in investor sentiment.

“India’s capital markets investors show a strong appetite for AI-adjacent public listings, especially in AI software, data centres, cloud services and application layer technology,” said Shivam Bajaj, founder and CEO of Avener Capital.

Bajaj said the current listed universe offers limited pure-play AI exposure, leaving investors with few direct paths to participate in the theme.

“A key question for AI developers will be how public market investors will ultimately value the business, whether as a data center-led infrastructure platform with stable cash flows or as a technology-focused upside strategic AI company,” he added, pointing to a healthy pipeline of future data center IPOs.

Sify Infinit Spaces Ltd has received the approval of the market regulator. ₹3,700-crore IPO as Hyderabad-based CtrlS Datacenters explores a public listing to fund its expansion to over 1 gigawatt capacity in four years.

AI financing

Gupta called for a sharp increase in government funding for the IndiaAI Mission in the upcoming FY27 budget.

“The current allocation is approx. ₹11,000 crore in five years is very small for a country like India. IndiaAI Mission’s budget should at least be increased ₹50,000 crore,” he said. The government has allocated ₹2,000 crore IndiaAI Mission in FY26 budget, ₹173 million lira last year.

Yotta’s revenue more than doubled to an estimated $49.2 million in FY24 from $22 million in FY23, while its net loss narrowed marginally to $52.8 million. The company projects revenue of $156 million in FY25, along with a deeper net loss of $113.4 million as it accelerates capital spending.

According to Mordor Intelligence, India’s data center and AI infrastructure market is expected to grow from around $11.76 billion in early 2026 to $25.07 billion by 2031, driven by cloud adoption, data localization requirements and AI workloads.

India’s data center and AI infrastructure market is expected to more than double from $11.8 billion in 2026 to $25.1 billion by 2031.

Yotta has expanded the land bank from an initial 20 acres to around 70 acres at its flagship Panvel campus near Navi Mumbai, enabling development of up to 22 data center buildings, Gupta said. He declined to disclose the completion timeline, saying construction would be driven by customer contracts and demand visibility.

“We will not build blindly. The pace depends entirely on the deals we win,” he said.

Once fully constructed, the Panvel campus alone will have an energy feasibility of up to 2 GW supported by land, fiber and grid connectivity.

Capacity projections

Gupta added that India’s data center capacity estimates may now be conservative.

“Without AI, we projected an overall capacity of around 3 GW by 2028-2030. With AI demand, India could reach 6 to 7 GW in the same period.”

Yotta’s revenue mix has shifted sharply towards higher layers of the stack. Colocation now contributes about 20% of revenue; dominant cloud and managed services account for approximately 30%, while GPU and AI services account for 40-50%.

Of course, the economy varies significantly across tiers. Building a traditional colocation facility typically requires $5-6 million per megawatt of IT load. A purely GPU-based AI infrastructure could require investments of up to $40 million per megawatt.

“Capital expenditure is much higher, but returns are also significantly higher,” Gupta said.

He said investment in Yotta’s 22-building plan could reach up to $10 billion.

He added that despite strong demand, access to venture capital remains the biggest constraint for India’s AI infrastructure ecosystem.