ESDS Software Solution’s ₹720 crore IPO closes today, September 1, after drawing heavy demand through its bidding window. NSE data showed the issue subscribed over 28 times by mid-morning on the final day, while the grey market continues to price in a solid listing premium, though the exact size of that premium varies by tracker.
Last day to apply: the key numbers
ESDS Software Solution IPO issue opened on August 28 and closes today, September 1, with a price band of ₹408 to ₹429 per share. It is entirely a fresh issue of 1.68 crore equity shares, with no offer-for-sale component, aiming to raise ₹720 crore.
The lot size is 34 shares, so a retail investor needs a minimum of ₹14,586 at the upper band for one lot. Retail bidders can apply for up to 13 lots, or 442 shares, worth about ₹1.9 lakh.
Ahead of the issue opening, the company raised close to ₹216 crore from 19 anchor investors on August 27, allotting shares at ₹429 apiece. DAM Capital Advisors and Systematix Corporate Services are the book-running lead managers, while MUFG Intime India is the registrar.
Subscription has climbed through all three days
Demand built up steadily rather than arriving in one rush. Exchange data showed the issue subscribed 2.10 times by the close of day one, with retail bids at 2.69 times and the non-institutional (NII) category at roughly 3.5 times; the qualified institutional buyer (QIB) portion was barely touched.
By the afternoon of day two, bids had climbed to about 7.5 times the shares on offer, with NII demand well ahead of retail and QIB still lagging. The pace picked up sharply from there: by 10:30 am on the final day, NSE data showed the issue subscribed 28.31 times overall, with the NII category booked 81.74 times and retail at 21.17 times.
The pattern has stayed consistent through all three days: NII and retail investors have driven most of the demand, while QIB bids which conventionally build up only in the last hour or two of a mainboard issue took longer to catch up.
What the GMP is signalling
The grey market premium (GMP) , an unofficial, informal indicator of what investors are willing to pay above the issue price before listing, has stayed positive through the IPO, though readings differ noticeably by tracker. On September 1 itself, one platform quoted the GMP at ₹316, implying a listing price near ₹745, about 74% over the ₹429 band; another, citing data from Investorgain, put it at ₹250, implying roughly a 58% premium.
That gap is a reminder that GMP is not published or regulated by the exchanges; it is collected informally from grey-market dealers, so different platforms can show meaningfully different numbers on the same day. Through the week, various trackers put the figure anywhere between roughly ₹250 and ₹370, and it can shift again before the actual listing on September 4. It should be read as directional sentiment, not a forecast of where the stock will open.
Why brokerages have turned constructive
Brokerage Anand Rathi has assigned a “Subscribe – Long Term” view on the issue, pointing to the company’s expanding footprint in cloud and AI infrastructure and its improving profitability. At the upper price band, the brokerage pegs the valuation at about 41.6 times FY26 earnings, implying a post-issue market capitalisation of roughly ₹5,028 crore.
Choice has also given the issue a “Subscribe for Long Term” rating, framing ESDS’s last three years as a turnaround: from a loss-making, debt-heavy cloud operator in FY23 to a consistently profitable business today.
Company filings back up that turnaround. Revenue from operations rose from ₹286.5 crore in FY24 to ₹361.3 crore in FY25 and ₹472.2 crore in FY26, while profit climbed from ₹12.6 crore to ₹55.6 crore to roughly ₹121 crore over the same three years. Choice noted the EBITDA margin improved to 49.6% and return on capital employed reached 25.2% in FY26, with debt down to ₹109 crore against cash reserves of ₹720 crore.
What ESDS Software Solution does
Incorporated in August 2005 and based in Nashik, ESDS Software Solution is an AI-enabled cloud, data-centre and managed-services provider. It served 2,501 customers in FY26 across the BFSI, government and enterprise segments, and runs five Tier-3 data centres in India spanning more than 75,266 square feet.
Its offerings span Infrastructure-as-a-Service (colocation, and public, private, hybrid and community cloud), managed services, Software-as-a-Service, and GPU-as-a-Service for AI workloads. Of the IPO proceeds, ₹576 crore is earmarked for cloud-computing equipment and data-centre infrastructure, with the rest going toward general corporate purposes.
What happens next
Allotment is expected to be finalised on September 2, with shares credited to successful applicants’ demat accounts and refunds processed for others on September 3. The stock is tentatively scheduled to debut on the BSE and NSE on September 4.
Anyone applying today will need an active demat account to bid and to eventually hold the allotted shares, and can track the stock’s performance once listed through their broker’s online trading platform. As with any IPO, grey market chatter and brokerage views reflect sentiment and analysis at a point in time actual listing performance can differ once the shares start trading.
