Hemant Prabhu and the institutional asset management architecture reshaping India's real estate fund platforms

India's real estate market is undergoing a structural transformation. The shift is visible in capital flows, asset class preferences, and the operational architectures that institutional leaders are building to deploy and manage billions of dollars. At the center of this evolution stands a cohort of executives whose platforms, spanning logistics, infrastructure, AI-driven fund management, and enterprise workspaces, are engineering the institutional scaffolding that India's property sector has long needed.

Hemant Prabhu, Chief Operating Officer of Industrial & Logistics at Hiranandani Group's Greenbase platform, represents one pillar of this new architecture. His work in scaling logistics and industrial assets places him within a broader movement that is pulling Indian real estate away from its traditionally fragmented, developer-led model and toward professionally managed, institutional-grade fund platforms.

The numbers confirm the magnitude of this transition. According to JLL, institutional investments in India's real estate sector reached USD 4.3 billion in the first half of 2026, a 23% year-on-year increase. More significant than the quantum of capital, however, is its origin: domestic investors contributed a record 64% of total institutional capital in H1 2026, marking a historic reversal of foreign capital dominance in the sector.

This is a structural turning point. For over a decade, India's institutional real estate market relied on offshore allocators, sovereign wealth funds, and global private equity firms as its primary capital source. The fact that domestic pools, including insurance companies, pension funds, mutual funds, and domestic private equity, now command a majority share signals a maturation of the investment ecosystem. It also raises profound questions about the kind of asset management infrastructure required to steward this capital.

What does the rise of domestic institutional capital demand from asset management platforms?

The dominance of domestic capital introduces a distinct set of requirements. Foreign institutional investors often deploy capital through global fund structures with established governance, reporting, and risk management frameworks. Domestic institutional capital, by contrast, frequently operates under regulatory mandates specific to India, including RERA compliance, SEBI-regulated investment trust structures, and, increasingly, the provisions of the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act, 2026, which was enforced in May 2026. This legislation amends the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 by decriminalizing minor offenses and replacing imprisonment provisions with calibrated monetary penalties for developers and allottees, a reform designed to reduce compliance friction and attract institutional participation.

For asset management leaders, this regulatory evolution creates both opportunity and obligation. The platforms that will capture the next wave of domestic capital are those that can demonstrate institutional-grade governance, transparent reporting, and the operational depth to manage complex, multi-asset portfolios across geographies.

Hemant Prabhu's role at Greenbase exemplifies this operational imperative. The Hiranandani Group's logistics and industrial platform has pursued significant expansion, including major investments in Chennai logistics parks. While the industrial and logistics segment competes for capital alongside offices and data centers, its long-duration cash flows and infrastructure-like characteristics make it particularly attractive to domestic institutional allocators seeking stable yield.

The office sector remains the dominant magnet for institutional capital. JLL data shows that offices attracted USD 2.3 billion, the largest share of institutional investment in H1 2026. Kunal Mehra, Co-CEO and President of Table Space, operates at the intersection of this trend, managing a portfolio of over 10.5 million square feet of enterprise-managed workspaces across India. His platform illustrates how the office sector is itself undergoing a structural shift, from traditional leasing models toward managed, technology-enabled workspace solutions that align with institutional investors' preference for operational control and predictable revenue streams.

Data centers, meanwhile, have emerged as the fastest-growing institutional asset class. According to Cushman & Wakefield, data centers accounted for 40% of total institutional investments in Q2 2026, making them the second-largest recipient of capital in the quarter. This surge reflects India's accelerating digital infrastructure needs and positions data centers as a core allocation for institutional fund platforms.

How are India's capital architects building the next generation of fund platforms?

The executives shaping India's institutional real estate landscape bring distinct but complementary competencies to the market. Their collective work reveals the contours of a maturing fund management ecosystem.

Ami Momaya, appointed as Managing Director and Head of Infrastructure for India at Blackstone, is building the firm's APAC infrastructure platform. Her role signals the convergence of real estate and infrastructure capital, a theme that is reshaping how institutional investors think about asset allocation in India. The boundaries between real estate, logistics infrastructure, and digital infrastructure are becoming increasingly porous, and the fund platforms that can operate across these categories will command a structural advantage.

Nishant Pradhan, Chief AI Officer at Mirae Asset Mutual Funds in India, represents a different dimension of this transformation. His work in building AI-enabled platforms for real estate and financial asset management points to the technological infrastructure that institutional fund management increasingly requires. Portfolio optimization, risk modeling, tenant analytics, and capital allocation decisions are all areas where artificial intelligence is beginning to augment human judgment, and the platforms that integrate these capabilities will set the standard for the next decade.

The diversity of these leadership profiles, spanning logistics operations, infrastructure capital, enterprise workspace management, and AI-driven investment technology, underscores a critical insight: India's institutional real estate market is no longer a single asset class managed by generalist capital allocators. It is a complex ecosystem that demands specialized operational expertise, sector-specific knowledge, and technology-enabled decision-making.

The regulatory environment is evolving in parallel. The Draft Registration Bill, 2025, currently under review, aims to replace the Registration Act of 1908 with a fully digital framework for property registration, expanding compulsory registration requirements. The Corporate Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2026, proposes changes to fast-track merger thresholds and corporate reorganization rules that will directly impact joint ventures and acquisitions in the sector. Together, these legislative initiatives are creating a more transparent, digitally integrated regulatory architecture that favors institutional participants over informal market actors.

Can India's real estate sector sustain its institutional capital trajectory through 2032?

The projections suggest it can. According to MarkNtel Advisors, India's real estate market is projected to reach USD 1.21 trillion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 13.04% from 2026 to 2032. Cushman & Wakefield projects the sector's contribution to India's GDP will increase from 7% to 15% by 2030. These figures describe a market that is not merely growing, but fundamentally increasing its weight within the national economy.

Sustaining this trajectory, however, requires more than favorable macroeconomic conditions. It requires the continued development of institutional asset management infrastructure, the deepening of domestic capital markets, and the emergence of leadership capable of operating at the intersection of capital allocation, technology, and regulatory compliance.

The executives profiled in this analysis, Hemant Prabhu, Ami Momaya, Nishant Pradhan, and Kunal Mehra, each represent a distinct node in this emerging institutional architecture. Their platforms are collectively reshaping how capital flows into, through, and across Indian real estate, from logistics parks and office campuses to data centers and AI-enabled fund management systems.

The shift from foreign to domestic capital dominance is perhaps the most consequential structural change in Indian real estate in a generation. It means that the governance standards, operational frameworks, and technological capabilities of domestic fund platforms will increasingly determine the sector's growth trajectory. The leaders building these platforms are, in effect, constructing the institutional plumbing through which USD 1.21 trillion in projected market value will flow.

GRI Institute's India Real Estate community continues to track these developments through dedicated forums and research initiatives that bring together the senior leaders shaping institutional capital deployment in the subcontinent. The conversations within this community increasingly focus on the operational architectures, rather than merely the capital volumes, that will define the sector's next phase.

For institutional allocators evaluating India's real estate opportunity, the message is clear: the quality of asset management platforms matters as much as the quantity of capital deployed. The executives engineering these platforms are building the foundation upon which India's real estate market will scale toward its trillion-dollar potential.