Creating a vibrant M&A market key to unlocking liquidity and value in India’s startup sector: Industry experts

The Global Fintech Festival 2025 (GFF) wrapped up an action-packed three days in Mumbai, drawing attention from investors, startups, and policymakers from around the world. As the curtain falls on this year’s festival, industry experts say creating a vibrant mergers and acquisitions (M&A) market will be crucial to unlocking liquidity and value in India’s startup ecosystem.

Yashraj Erande, Global Leader of Fintech at BCG, said this year’s festival marked “a different order of magnitude” in driving game-changing reforms and policy moves. Pointing to GIFT City as a key gateway, he added, “If you tap into GIFT City, you tap into the rest of the world.” The city has recently seen the launch of a foreign currency exchange that enables settlement in just three minutes, highlighting India’s efforts to integrate talent, technology, capital, and ideas on a global scale.

Kris Gopalakrishnan, Chairman of Axilor Ventures, said investor sentiment is turning positive, with several IPOs completed and a pipeline of startups preparing to go public. “The excitement that GFF 2025 has created, plus the large number of international visitors, especially investors, I think they got an appreciation of the length and breadth of innovation that’s happening in India,” he said, adding that the conversations at the festival are expected to translate into funding for fintech startups.

Regulatory support has also strengthened, according to Sohini Rajola, Executive Director of Growth at NPCI. She pointed to multiple launches by the RBI Innovation Hub and NPCI during the festival, saying, “The regulators are really leading from the front. Of course, it is the regulator's role to ensure that guardrails are put in place, but the vibrant ecosystem we see here, and also the very participative journey of the regulator, puts us in a very, very good place.”

As GFF 2025 concludes, the message from industry leaders is clear: scaling affordability, unlocking capital, and creating a thriving M&A environment are essential to sustaining India’s fintech momentum and ensuring that the next wave of innovation finds both value and opportunity.

Watch accompanying video for entire conversation.