Tonbo Imaging IPO Subscription Status October 16 2026: Day 1 Booked 3.99x, Day 2 Preview

The Tonbo Imaging IPO subscription status at the end of the first day leaves little room for doubt. The ₹852.18 crore offer was booked 3.99 times overall by the close of Day 1 on Thursday, October 15, 2026, and every investor category was fully covered. Investors bid for 3,40,36,590 shares against 85,26,033 on offer, according to NSE’s consolidated bid data (NSE and BSE combined) updated at 4:57 pm IST. Day 2 bidding opens at 10:00 am IST on Friday, October 16, so there are no Day 2 numbers yet. Below, we go through Day 1 category by category, lay out the issue terms from the red herring prospectus (RHP), do the lot-cost and allotment-odds arithmetic, and note what to watch as the book goes into its second day.

Tonbo Imaging IPO subscription status after Day 1

Every figure below is a subscription multiple, which is simply the shares bid for in a category divided by the shares reserved for it. The anchor portion allotted on October 14 is left out. All numbers come from NSE’s consolidated category-wise data as of 4:57 pm IST on October 15.

Moneycontrol, citing NSE data, reported the same 3.99 times, with NII at 5.93 times and retail at 3.19 times. Business Standard rounded the 5 pm position to four times. Chittorgarh, which pulls together the NSE and BSE feeds, had a slightly later 4.01 times, with NII at 5.96 times and retail at 3.21 times. Those small differences are about when each snapshot was taken; nobody disagrees on the direction. We stick to the NSE numbers throughout.

Put in rupees, Day 1 bids at the ₹700 upper end of the band were worth about ₹2,383 crore by our calculation (3,40,36,590 shares × ₹700). The shares on offer to non-anchor investors were worth roughly ₹597 crore.

The offer terms, from the RHP and NSE

Tonbo Imaging India Ltd is a Bengaluru company that makes defence electronics: thermal imaging cores, weapon sights, targeting systems and missile seekers. Here are the main terms, taken from the RHP and NSE’s issue page:

• Offer type: a pure offer for sale (OFS) of up to 1,21,74,046 equity shares of face value ₹2. There’s no fresh issue, so none of the money goes to the company; it all goes to the selling shareholders.
• Price band: ₹665 to ₹700 per share. Eligible employees get a discount of ₹65 per share (NSE).
• Issue size: about ₹852.18 crore at the upper band (Moneycontrol; 1,21,74,046 × ₹700 by our calculation).
• Bid lot: 21 shares and multiples of 21 (NSE).
• Anchor portion: 36,48,013 shares (NSE), allotted at ₹700 on October 14 for about ₹255.36 crore (Business Standard).
• Bidding window: Thursday, October 15 to Monday, October 19, 2026, from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm IST. The UPI mandate cut-off is 5:00 pm on October 19 (RHP, NSE).
• Lead managers and registrar: JM Financial and IIFL Capital Services as book running lead managers; KFin Technologies as registrar (NSE, RHP).

This is the indicative post-issue timetable in the RHP:

Apart from the closing date, the RHP says these dates are indicative and could change. The company has 5,72,82,100 shares outstanding both before and after the offer, so at ₹700 the implied market value comes to about ₹4,010 crore by our calculation. That lines up with the roughly ₹4,010 crore valuation Moneycontrol reported. We went through the selling shareholders, order book and valuation in our Tonbo Imaging IPO opening-day analysis.

Who bid on Day 1, and how much

Institutions: foreign money in, mutual funds absent so far

QIBs covered their portion 3.92 times on Day 1. NSE’s breakdown shows where the 95,43,324 shares of QIB bids came from. Foreign institutional investors put in for 51,43,320 shares, about 54% of QIB demand by our calculation, and the “others” sub-group bid for 44,00,466 shares. Domestic banks, financial institutions and insurers bid for a token 1,176 shares. Mutual funds hadn’t bid at all by 4:57 pm.

Why does that matter? The RHP reserves 5% of the net QIB portion for mutual funds, which on NSE’s share count of 24,32,009 is about 1,21,600 shares by our calculation. That said, Business Standard reported that leading domestic mutual funds and insurers were among the anchor investors on October 14. So their absence from the open book on Day 1 doesn’t, on its own, mean they aren’t interested.

Non-institutional investors: the smaller tickets did the heavy lifting

At 5.93 times, NII was the strongest of the three main categories, and most of that came from the smaller sub-category. Bids of ₹2 lakh to ₹10 lakh (sNII) were 8.70 times subscribed, compared with 4.55 times for bids above ₹10 lakh (bNII). The RHP sets aside one-third of the NII portion for sNII and two-thirds for bNII. That’s why the bNII pool of 12,16,005 shares is exactly double the sNII pool of 6,08,002.

Retail: more than three times over

Retail investors bid for 1,35,78,852 shares, 3.19 times their quota of 42,56,017. About 85% of that, or 1,15,62,201 shares by our calculation, was bid at the cut-off price, which means those applicants will take whatever final price is fixed within the band. NSE’s consolidated demand chart also shows 99.9% of all shares bid at ₹700 or at cut-off. There’s very little price-sensitive demand below the cap.

Employees

The employee reservation of 14,000 shares drew bids for 90,510, or 6.47 times. It’s a small slice of the issue. Employees do get a ₹65 discount, though, so at the upper band they pay ₹635 a share.

Day 1 demand was broad, but it was not evenly spread: foreign institutions and small-ticket NII bidders carried the book while domestic mutual funds had not yet bid in the open QIB portion.

Doing the maths: lot cost and allotment odds

The arithmetic here uses only the verified figures above. It’s meant to show how allotment works, not to forecast where the final book ends up.

The cost of a single lot

• One lot: 21 shares × ₹700 = ₹14,700. This is the amount blocked in your bank account for a cut-off bid, even if the final price is set lower.
• Largest retail bid: retail bids are capped at ₹2 lakh (NSE). ₹2,00,000 ÷ ₹14,700 = 13.6, so the maximum is 13 lots, or 273 shares worth ₹1,91,100.
• Smallest sNII bid: 14 lots, or 294 shares worth ₹2,05,800, the first bid size above ₹2 lakh (Chittorgarh lists the same minimum).
• Smallest bNII bid: ₹10,00,000 ÷ ₹14,700 = 68.03, so the first lot count above ₹10 lakh is 69 lots, or 1,449 shares worth ₹10,14,300.
• Employee lot: 21 shares × ₹635 = ₹13,335 at the upper band after the ₹65 discount.

How many retail applicants can actually get a lot

The RHP says each successful retail applicant gets at least one lot, subject to availability, with any leftover shares allotted proportionately. Divide the retail quota of 42,56,017 shares by the 21-share lot and you get 2,02,667 full lots. That’s how many retail applicants can receive the minimum allotment. Once valid retail applications cross that number, allotment goes to a lottery among them, and each winner gets one lot.

NSE publishes shares bid, not the number of applications, so exchange data can’t give you exact Day 1 odds. The share count still tells us something. 1,35,78,852 retail shares is 6,46,612 lots, so if every retail applicant had bid for just one lot, there would be 6,46,612 applications. Plenty of people bid for more than one lot, which means the real application count is lower. Here’s how the odds move with the number of applications, using the 2,02,667 figure:

Two things follow from this. In a lottery, bidding for 13 lots doesn’t improve your chances over bidding for one; it just blocks more of your money. And the odds get worse if more applications come in before the October 19 close.

Same exercise for NIIs

Under the RHP, each NII allottee gets at least the minimum application size, subject to availability. With a 294-share minimum, the sNII pool of 6,08,002 shares can serve about 2,068 applicants and the bNII pool of 12,16,005 shares about 4,136, by our calculation. sNII was already 8.70 times subscribed, so the fight for those 2,068 minimum allotments is likely to be tight.

In an oversubscribed retail book the number of applications decides the odds, not the number of shares bid, so a one-lot application at cut-off is the most capital-efficient way to enter the draw.

The grey market number doing the rounds

Citing InvestorGain, Moneycontrol reported that Tonbo shares were commanding a grey market premium (GMP) of 72% on the morning of October 15. Keep in mind what that is. The grey market is unofficial and unregulated, no exchange publishes its quotes, and they can swing sharply before listing. Moneycontrol itself says GMP doesn’t guarantee listing gains. We haven’t used GMP for any figure in this post, and we wouldn’t treat it as a price forecast.

The business behind the book

The RHP shows revenue from operations falling 22.69% to ₹362.65 crore in FY26 from ₹469.08 crore in FY25, while restated profit after tax dropped to ₹50.88 crore from ₹72.76 crore. In the June 2026 quarter, the company posted a loss of ₹17.74 crore on revenue of about ₹36 crore. The RHP puts this down to delays in international orders linked to the West Asia conflict and some orders slipping into FY27. It also says the business is seasonal: the second half of FY26 brought in 78.61% of that year’s revenue from operations.

At the ₹4,010 crore implied value, the stock is priced at about 79 times FY26 profit by our calculation. Business Standard reported that brokerages including SBI Cap Securities, ICICI Direct and Ventura Securities rated the issue “Subscribe”. A strong Day 1 book tells you there’s appetite for listed defence technology names. It doesn’t answer the questions about falling revenue and a loss-making quarter, and the RHP’s risk factors are worth a read on those before you bid.

Things to track on Day 2 and after

• Mutual fund bids in the QIB book. Mutual funds had bid for zero shares by the end of Day 1. Whether they show up in the open book and fill their 5% sub-quota is the clearest institutional signal to look for.
• Retail momentum. At 3.19 times, the retail book is already well past full. Watch how the multiple changes each day, and remember that the lottery odds depend on application counts, which the exchanges don’t show during bidding.
• The gap between sNII and bNII. Small-ticket NII demand ran almost twice as hot as large-ticket demand, so the bNII multiple has more room to move if big bids come in over the remaining days.
• A possible early QIB close. The RHP allows the company and its lead managers to close bidding for QIBs one working day before the issue closes.
• Bid quality at the cap. Nearly all the demand so far is at ₹700 or cut-off. If that holds, pricing at the top of the band looks likely.
• Deadlines. The issue closes on Monday, October 19. UPI mandates have to be accepted by 5:00 pm that day, and the RHP lists earlier cut-offs for some bank and syndicate channels on closing day, so don’t leave it to the last hour.

Day 2 numbers will start showing up on NSE and BSE once bidding opens at 10:00 am IST on October 16. Until then, the Day 1 data above is the latest official position. If you want a way to judge an IPO beyond its subscription book, our guide to IPO investing in India lays one out, and the Stock Market Today India hub tracks the wider market through the day.

Where the Tonbo book stands

Tonbo Imaging’s IPO cleared every category on its first day, ending Day 1 at 3.99 times overall on NSE data, with NII at 5.93 times, QIB at 3.92 times and retail at 3.19 times. Two bidding days are left, today (October 16) and Monday, October 19. How the final book looks will depend on whether mutual funds turn up, whether large-ticket NII bids arrive late, and how many retail applications land by the October 19 close. If retail stays this oversubscribed, a one-lot application is basically a lottery ticket, and the business case in the RHP deserves more of your attention than the subscription headline.

Disclaimer: This article is for information and education only and is not investment advice or a recommendation to subscribe to, buy or sell any security. IPO investments carry risk, including the risk of listing below the issue price. Subscription data changes during the bidding period; check the latest figures on NSE or BSE and read the RHP, or consult a SEBI-registered adviser, before making a decision.