Tonbo Imaging Prices Its ₹852-Crore IPO at ₹665–700, Putting a Home-Grown Thermal-Imaging Maker in Front of Public Investors

Bengaluru's Tonbo Imaging, one of India's best-known defence electronics start-ups, has set a price band of ₹665–700 a share for an initial public offering of about ₹852 crore. The issue opens for subscription on October 15 and closes on October 19, 2026, with the anchor book opening a day earlier and listing on BSE and NSE expected around October 23.

At the top of the band, the company is valued at roughly ₹4,010 crore. That is a sharp step up from the reported ₹1,500-crore valuation at which Tonbo raised ₹175 crore in a Series D round from investors including Florintree Advisors, Tenacity Ventures and EXIM Bank in April 2025.

What is on offer

The IPO is entirely an offer for sale (OFS) of about 1.22 crore existing shares by promoters and investors. There is no fresh issue, which means Tonbo itself will not receive any of the money raised; the proceeds go to the selling shareholders. The minimum bid lot is 21 shares.

Before the listing, Tonbo's register was already moving. CEAQ India and CEAQ Singapore sold 59,11,200 shares at ₹700 apiece on September 29 and 30, 2026, a combined ₹41.38 crore, in secondary transfers. The price of those trades matches the top of the IPO band.

What Tonbo does

Tonbo designs and builds thermal imaging and sensing systems — the electro-optic "eyes" that let soldiers, vehicles and weapon systems see at night, through smoke and in poor weather. Its business is split between tactical systems (hand-held and weapon-mounted sights and similar equipment) and platform systems fitted to larger assets such as vehicles. The company describes itself as the largest supplier of thermal imaging systems to Indian government and defence agencies by sales value, and says it has deployed more than 28,000 systems across 24 countries.

Thermal imaging is a strategically sensitive niche. The detector cores and optics that sit inside night-vision sights have historically been imported, and the ability to design and integrate such systems in India is one of the capabilities the government has tried to build under its defence indigenisation push.

The numbers investors will weigh

The offer documents show a business that had a difficult year. According to figures reported from the prospectus:

• Revenue from operations fell to about ₹362.65 crore in FY26 (year ended March 2026), down roughly 23% from ₹469.08 crore in FY25.
• Profit after tax declined to ₹50.88 crore from ₹72.76 crore.
• EBITDA was ₹104.62 crore, a margin of about 28.9%.
• In the June 2026 quarter, Tonbo reported a loss after tax of ₹17.74 crore.

The prospectus links part of the decline to a delayed export order affected by logistics disruptions in West Asia. The effect on the revenue mix was dramatic: exports, which made up about 65.5% of revenue in FY25, fell to about 5.6% in FY26. Platform systems grew to around 40% of revenue as tactical sales dropped.

Concentration is another point to note. The top 10 customers accounted for about 77.8% of FY26 revenue — typical for a defence supplier whose order book depends on a small number of government buyers, but a source of lumpiness for public-market investors used to steadier earnings. At the top of the band, the issue is priced at roughly 79 times FY26 profit.

Why this listing matters

Tonbo's IPO is a test of how public markets value Indian defence-technology companies that are built on intellectual property rather than on large manufacturing contracts. Listed defence stocks have attracted strong investor interest over the past two years, helped by rising domestic procurement and export ambitions. Tonbo is a different kind of company: smaller, design-led and exposed to swings in export orders.

The structure of the deal also matters for India's deep-tech funding cycle. Because the issue is a pure OFS, it is effectively an exit route for early investors who backed a hardware company through long product-development and qualification cycles. Successful exits are what persuade venture funds to keep writing cheques for capital-intensive deep-tech businesses, which take longer to mature than software start-ups.

For India's defence ecosystem, a listed Tonbo would add another domestic sensor maker with public disclosure obligations, giving policymakers and buyers a clearer view of how indigenous electro-optics suppliers are performing. The company's ability to recover its export business — which drove its FY25 numbers — will be watched as an indicator of whether Indian defence electronics can compete consistently overseas.

What to watch

• Subscription levels across institutional, non-institutional and retail categories between October 15 and 19.
• Listing-day performance around October 23, given the steep valuation step-up from the 2025 Series D.
• Recovery of the delayed export order and a return to profitability after the June-quarter loss.
• Domestic order flow from the armed forces, which accounts for most of the revenue after the FY26 export slump.

Sources

• https://www.businesstoday.in/markets/ipo-corner/story/tonbo-imaging-india-ipo-opens-on-october-15-check-price-band-issue-size-other-key-details-560958-2026-10-12
• https://www.business-standard.com/amp/markets/news/defence-startup-tonbo-imaging-fixes-ipo-price-band-at-665-700-a-share-126101201269_1.html
• https://www.mstock.com/articles/tonbo-imaging-india-ipo
• https://www.multibagg.ai/market-pulse/articles/ipo/tonbo-revenue-decline-june-loss-rhp-cmv4tvpqu000ntiplsluzynib
• https://www.multibagg.ai/market-pulse/articles/ipo/tonbo-ceaq-sale-ownership-change-rhp-cmv4tukfa000mtiplxdpba6ze
• https://inc42.com/buzz/tonbo-imaging-sets-ipo-price-band-at-%E2%82%B9665-%E2%82%B9700-for-%E2%82%B9852-cr-issue/
• https://www.kotakneo.com/news/ipos/tonbo-imaging-ipo-price-band-date-15-october/