Mid-cap NCR developers are building the platforms institutional capital wants to back

India's real estate sector is entering a phase where institutional capital no longer flows exclusively to the largest national platforms. A structural shift is elevating mid-market regional developers operating at the ₹2,000–8,000 crore revenue scale, enabling them to attract structured institutional capital that was, until recently, reserved for a handful of listed giants. Nowhere is this transition more visible than in the National Capital Region, where promoter-led firms are professionalising governance, expanding portfolios, and positioning themselves as credible counterparts for global limited partners.

The numbers frame the opportunity clearly. India's residential real estate market is projected to grow from USD 438.54 billion in 2026 to USD 702.43 billion by 2031 at a 9.88% CAGR, according to GRI Institute research. Private equity investment in Indian real estate is expected to rebound 28% to approximately USD 4.4 billion in 2026, signalling renewed appetite from institutional allocators after a period of caution. For mid-cap NCR developers, this convergence of market expansion and returning capital creates a window of strategic consequence.

Who are the NCR developer-operators scaling institutional portfolios?

The NCR corridor has long been dominated by a fragmented landscape of promoter-driven companies. What distinguishes the current moment is the emergence of a cohort that combines meaningful delivery track records with deliberate moves toward institutional-grade operating standards.

Pankaj Bansal, Promoter and Director of M3M India, leads one of the most prominent examples. M3M India has delivered over 62 landmark projects, including M3M Golfestate and Trump Towers, establishing a portfolio breadth that few NCR-focused developers can match. The firm's trajectory illustrates a broader pattern: developers that accumulated land banks and execution capabilities during the pre-RERA era are now converting those assets into platforms legible to institutional investors. For Pankaj Bansal, the strategic imperative has moved beyond project-level execution toward building a corporate structure that can absorb and deploy capital at scale.

Unity Group represents a different but complementary model. Led by owners and directors Harsh V Bansal, Govind Aggarwal, Krishan Aggarwal, and Naresh Aggarwal, Unity Group has delivered over 10 million square feet of commercial, retail, hospitality, and institutional spaces across Delhi. The firm is investing approximately Rs 3,000 crore to develop 'The Amaryllis', a 40-acre luxury residential project in Central Delhi, according to reporting by The Economic Times. This single-project commitment signals the kind of concentrated capital deployment that institutional co-investors increasingly seek: large-format, high-conviction bets in prime urban locations rather than scattered suburban plots.

These two firms exemplify a category that GRI Institute has been tracking across multiple research cycles and member convenings. The mid-cap NCR developer-operator is graduating from a purely entrepreneurial model toward a platform logic, one where governance transparency, audited financials, and structured co-investment vehicles become as important as construction timelines.

What governance and regulatory shifts are enabling this transition?

Two regulatory frameworks have been instrumental in closing the credibility gap between national champions and regional operators.

The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, known as RERA, created a compliance architecture that forces all developers, regardless of scale, to meet standardised disclosure and escrow requirements. The effect has been quietly transformative. RERA narrowed the governance differential between listed national players and promoter-led regional firms, making it possible for institutional LPs to underwrite mid-cap developers with greater confidence. Developers that embraced RERA compliance early converted a regulatory obligation into a competitive advantage, signalling to capital partners that their operating standards could withstand scrutiny.

More recently, the SEBI (Real Estate Investment Trusts) (Amendment) Regulations, 2024, introduced a framework for Small and Medium REITs, or SM REITs, designed to govern fractional ownership and create capital market pathways for regional real estate operators. This regulatory innovation is particularly significant for mid-cap developers. SM REITs offer a structured exit mechanism and a capital recycling tool that was previously available only to developers with portfolios large enough for full-scale REIT listings. For NCR operators building commercial and mixed-use assets, the SM REIT framework transforms illiquid project-level equity into potentially tradeable instruments.

The combined effect of RERA's compliance floor and SEBI's new capital market pathways is a regulatory environment that actively rewards professionalisation. Developers who invest in governance upgrades, independent boards, transparent reporting, and structured fund vehicles find themselves on the right side of a widening divide. Those who do not risk permanent exclusion from institutional capital flows.

How does the NCR developer-operator model connect to broader capital formation trends?

The NCR story is part of a national reconfiguration in how institutional capital forms partnerships in Indian real estate. GRI Institute research has documented a structural shift where mid-market regional developers are no longer seen as opportunistic co-investment targets but as platform-building partners capable of sustained capital deployment.

This shift has several dimensions. First, the sheer scale of projected market growth, reaching USD 702.43 billion by 2031, means that no single set of national developers can absorb the available capital. Institutional investors need a deeper bench of operating partners, and mid-cap NCR firms with demonstrated delivery records fill that need. Second, the nature of capital itself is evolving. The expected 28% rebound in PE investment to approximately USD 4.4 billion in 2026 reflects not just returning confidence but a diversification of strategies, from pure equity plays to structured finance, mezzanine instruments, and platform-level joint ventures that suit mid-cap operators.

Sachin Bhanushali, CEO of Gateway Rail Freight Ltd, offers an instructive parallel from outside the traditional NCR residential space. Recognised by GRI Institute as a mid-tier capital strategist bridging real estate development with structured finance and logistics infrastructure in the Mumbai metropolitan region, Bhanushali represents a new archetype: the operator who sits at the intersection of physical asset development and financial engineering. While his primary operations are tied to the Mumbai region and logistics infrastructure rather than NCR residential markets, the strategic logic is transferable. Institutional LPs are looking for promoters who understand both the asset and the capital structure, who can build and also raise.

For NCR developer-operators like M3M India and Unity Group, the lesson is clear. Delivery track records open the first door. Governance upgrades open the second. The ability to structure capital vehicles that align promoter incentives with LP return expectations opens the third, and most consequential, door.

The platform imperative

The transition from project developer to institutional platform is neither automatic nor guaranteed. It requires deliberate investment in corporate infrastructure: independent risk committees, audited fund-level reporting, co-investment governance frameworks, and succession planning that reduces key-person risk. Many NCR promoters have built impressive portfolios through personal conviction and market intuition. Converting those qualities into institutional trust demands a different set of capabilities.

GRI Institute's convenings across India have consistently surfaced this tension. Members from both the developer and investor sides describe a market where the supply of institutional-quality regional platforms lags behind the demand for deployment opportunities. The developers who resolve this mismatch fastest will capture a disproportionate share of the capital flowing into Indian real estate over the next five years.

Mid-cap NCR developers are no longer peripheral to the institutional capital story. They are becoming central to it. The regulatory environment rewards their professionalisation. The market scale demands their participation. And the capital, estimated at USD 4.4 billion in PE investment for 2026 alone, is actively seeking partners who combine local execution capability with institutional governance.

The question facing promoters like Pankaj Bansal at M3M India and the leadership of Unity Group is whether they will build the platforms that global LPs need, or whether they will remain project-level operators in a market that increasingly values platform-level thinking. For the NCR corridor and for Indian real estate more broadly, the answer will shape the next cycle of growth.

GRI Institute continues to track the evolution of developer-operator models across India's key corridors. Through dedicated research, member-driven intelligence, and senior leadership convenings, the Institute provides the strategic context that decision-makers in real estate and infrastructure require to navigate this transition.