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Tonbo Imaging India, a defence electronics maker, has set a price band of ₹665-700 per share for its ₹852 crore (around $88 million) initial public offering (IPO), showed its red herring prospectus (RHP) filed on Monday. At the upper end, the company would be valued at around ₹4,010 crore (around $420 million). The issue is entirely an offer for sale (OFS) of 12.2 million equity shares by promoters and existing investors, with no fresh issue component. This means that there will be no fresh capital infusion into the company. Promoters Arvind Kondangi Lakshmikumar, Ankit Kumar and Cecilia D’Souza are partially selling their holdings in the company, as part of Tonbo Imaging's promoter group, Vinimaya Advisory LLP. Other investors who are partially exiting their stakes include Singapore-based CEAQ Technologies, angel investors Timothy Guy Mitchell, Amit Dilip Shah and Ramesh Radhakrishnan. The only investor completely exiting their stake is CEAQ India. Of the venture capital funds that have invested in the company, only US-based Artiman Partners is partially exiting its stake. The firm was among the first institutional investors in the company when it wrote a $6.4 million cheque in 2012. Tonbo raised ₹175 crore (around $20 million) in April 2025 from Florintree Advisors, Tenacity Ventures, and Exim Bank. Other investors in the company include Yali Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, and Celesta Capital. “They’re selling right now because this is a liquidity event to return money to their limited partners,” said Arvind Lakshmikumar, managing director and chief executive of Tonbo Imaging India, in an interview with Mint. The listing comes as India’s defence sector builds a deep pipeline despite weak ordering in the second quarter of fiscal year 2026-27 (FY27). A September 2026 results preview by Motilal Oswal Financial Services said that the defence acquisition council approvals stood at ₹1.62 trillion in FY27 so far and ₹13 trillion between FY25 and now. The brokerage also flagged the opening up of missile production to private firms and a simplified export framework that extends licence validity from two years to three. The export framework, in particular, is relevant for Tonbo, which says that about half its revenue comes from exports. Picking and choosing Tonbo’s bid-to-win ratio has slipped from 40.91% in FY24 to 35.94% in FY25, 34.35% in FY26, and 14.29% in the three months ended June 2026, according to its RHP. In that quarter, it won two of 14 bids, with five lost and seven still active. Across the period, it submitted 275 bids and won 97. Lakshmikumar said Tonbo skips mass-market tenders that draw about 10 bidders on diluted specifications, and tries to persuade customers to tighten them beforehand. The RHP says some bids were lost on tenders with loosely defined specifications, and that Tonbo may have to cut prices to win. “We convince the customer that what they need is a Ferrari, but we get it to them at a price point in between a Ferrari and a Maruti,” he said, adding that Tonbo walks away when even that price is unacceptable. The approach carries risk. The RHP says contracts are short-term and non-recurring, so Tonbo must keep winning fresh tenders. It received orders worth ₹118.15 crore between July and September 2026. Lakshmikumar said the company opted not to raise fresh capital through the IPO as it had raised money last year and already has working capital lines and term loans with banks. “Fresh funding can wait for the next year, and after we demonstrate our performance as a public company. Dilution can be reduced, and that's why we chose to do an OFS and not a primary right now." Diversifying revenue concentration In its RHP, Tonbo has flagged revenue concentration from its top five customers over the last three fiscals. In FY24, its top five customers contributed to 72% of its revenue; in FY25, that number jumped to 86%. In FY26, it declined to 53%. In a bid to diversify beyond over-reliance on specific geographies or nations, the company has empanelled itself for defence programmes across 24 countries, according to Lakshmikumar. “…when you are present in many places, you automatically kind of hedge your risks across different geographies.” Its revenue is also split between exports to developing and developed nations and bidding for tenders here in India. What's more, the company's target market is the developing market, where demand for specialized defence equipment is growing. “We sell in developed markets to demonstrate technology superiority, take that as a case study to developing markets to show them that it can be done,” said Lakshmikumar. “When we walk into the Philippines, Armenia, Vietnam, and demonstrate that we've sold our products in developed markets, it's a very easy sell.”
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