Collecting almost 26 billion rupees in fees from local initial public offerings that have reached an all-time high in 2021, Indian investment bankers are set for their best year ever.

Raising almost USD 18 billion, a little over 110 companies ranging from online grocers to food delivery and beauty startups listed their shares in Mumbai this year.

“It was an extraordinary busy year, something I haven’t seen in my 30-year career,” said Jayasankar Venkataraman, head of equity capital markets at Kotak Mahindra Capital Co. in Mumbai. “Investment bankers carried work home and they weren’t fully switched off.”

One 97 Communications Ltd., Zomato Ltd. and PB Fintech Ltd., led the IPO surge. Where companies have raised about USD 181 billion this year, at an unprecedented level, the wave of listings in India has tracked the wider trend in Asia.

Besides the proposed mega listing by state-owned Life Insurance Corp. of India, which could raise at least 400 billion rupees, there are many more share sales lined up for next year in India.

By selling a stake in its mutual fund venture through an IPO, the country’s biggest bank, State Bank of India, could mop up about USD 1 billion. Digital-education startup Byju’s Pte. and e-commerce firm and Walmart Inc. unit’s, Flipkart Online Services Pvt., are also preparing for first-time share sales.

Similar amount of fundraising in 2022 is expected by Kotak Mahindra’s Venkataraman. But risks such as the spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus, rising inflation and interest-rate increases could damp the sentiment in the market, he added.