InMobi founder Naveen Tewari predicts a tech boom in the Indian stock market

Tech companies are set to significantly increase their presence in the Indian stock market in the coming years, predicts Naveen Tewari, Founder and CEO of InMobi.

Revealing that InMobi will be part of this surge, Tewari said the consumer tech company will go public “soon.”

Tewari was speaking at the 15th edition of YourStory's annual TechSparks summit in Bengaluru.

India has historically been a challenging market for public listing due to factors such as limited investor awareness, economic instability, and regulatory hurdles. However, the landscape is steadily changing with a wave of successful IPOs from startups like Firstcry, Unicommerce, and Ola Electric. Foodtech company Swiggy is also preparing for an IPO.

Discussing the evolution of the Indian stock market, Tewari, who is also the founder of two tech unicorns—InMobi and its subsidiary Glance—foresees a substantial increase in the presence of tech companies on the stock exchange in the near future.

“The Indian stock market is about $5 trillion to $6 trillion… Only 3% to 5% is tech. There are two things that are going to happen. One, the stock market will go to $15 trillion-$20 trillion. More importantly, the tech component will go to 30%-35%.

"So, you are effectively looking at a disproportionate scaling in the stock market because of tech stocks,” he said during a fireside chat with Shradha Sharma, Founder and CEO of YourStory.

Tech can create immense value

Tewari finds this shift exciting, as tech has the potential to generate immense value. Indian retail investors, drawn to the buzz around startups, are eager to be part of this journey, marking the beginning of a 20-year cycle of widespread participation in value creation.

“Every large economy in the world has gone through these 20-year cycles of growth that are unparalleled. So if you're in a good position today to participate in this economy, trust me, for the next 20 years, nobody is coming close to us,” he said.

Tewari pointed out that Germany experienced this transformation in the 1940s, the United States in the ’50s, Japan from the ’70s to the ’90s, and more recently, China. Now, India is poised to undergo a similar evolution.

Discussing the creation of Glance, a multi-billion dollar business within InMobi, Tewari noted that successful companies in markets like India will evolve into digital conglomerates capable of generating disproportionate outcomes much faster than their competitors.

Over the next 20 years, Tewari expects two major trends: companies that have spent the last decade leveraging the advantages of the Indian ecosystem will expand their portfolios, and there will be a significant influx of new startups.

Evolution of InMobi

The key to building long-term enterprises, Tewari said, is to have "your set of people, especially in the leadership team."

He pointed out about a third of his company has been with him for over 6-7 years. Around 70% of the leadership team has spent more than 8 years at the firm, he added, emphasising that he knows these people well.

In the last seven years, InMobi has undergone a “DNA change” as it decided to build a consumer platform on top of its enterprise platform. InMobi has transitioned from being solely a B2B company in the advertising space to leveraging its global advertising capabilities to create Glance, thus establishing itself as a consumer tech platform.

Glance is a lock-screen based content discovery platform, which provides personalised content on Android smartphones without requiring the user to unlock their phone or download an app.

"We now have about 400 million consumers across the world using Glance, which is effectively our take on how phones should change in the world. We are only using the app ecosystem that has existed for one-and-a-half decades. It’s archaic, and it should go through a change, especially with artificial intelligence,” InMobi's chief noted.

Content should be delivered to users from the internet using AI, as opposed to people seeking content through apps. This is the pathway to reaching a billion consumers on Glance, he said.

AI initiatives

The consumer platform is making a significant investment in generative AI (GenAI), rather than using just traditional AI. Glance is betting on generating content from the internet in real time.

Tewari believes the traditional method of retrieving content from servers through internet searches will become outdated and be replaced by a real-time, personal internet tailored to individual preferences.

“If TikTok created what is called a personalised feed, we are going for what is called the 'personal internet'. The world is going to move from the personalised internet to a personal internet,” he said.

Earlier this month, Singapore-based InMobi secured $100 million in debt financing from Mars Growth Capital, a joint venture between MUFG and Liquidity Group. The funds will be used for the firm’s strategic acquisitions and AI initiatives to deliver personalised solutions.