Private credit in India has stopped being a niche. In the first half of FY26 alone, roughly nine billion dollars was deployed across the market, up fifty-three percent on the year before, and alternative investment fund commitments registered with the regulator now sit near fourteen lakh crore rupees. A parallel, non-bank capital market has arrived, and for the first time a mid-market company has real choice about who funds it.
That choice is the good news. The complexity that comes with it is the catch.
For most of the last decade, a growing company's financing options were simple: go to the relationship bank, ask for a larger limit or a term loan, and take what the bank was willing to do. Anything the bank would not do, whether because the asset was mid-construction, the structure was unusual, or the ticket was too large for one balance sheet, simply did not get funded, or got funded slowly and expensively. Private credit changes that. Structured debt, mezzanine, holdco financing, and stretch senior facilities are now available from funds, NBFCs and offshore pools that a CFO may never have spoken to.
The mistake we see most often is treating this new capital as if it were just another loan. It is not. Private credit is priced for structure and speed, not only for rate. The cheapest quote is rarely the best-structured one, and the fund that moves fastest is often worth more than the one that shaves twenty-five basis points. A CFO who runs a private credit process the way they run a working capital renewal will leave value, and sometimes certainty of close, on the table.
So what should a mid-market CFO actually do?
First, map your maturities early. The best refinancing happens twelve to eighteen months ahead of the wall, not into it. Distance gives you leverage; urgency takes it away.
Second, separate the bankable tranche from the non-bankable one. Take the plain senior piece to your bank, where it is cheapest, and take the structured, mezzanine or construction-stage piece to private credit, where it is possible. Trying to force the whole raise through one channel is what makes financings stall.
Third, run one process, do not shop. Spraying a teaser to thirty lenders signals weakness and invites a race to the bottom on diligence, not on terms. A single, well-run competitive process across the right lenders produces better pricing and a cleaner close.
Fourth, optimise for certainty of close, not the last few basis points. In a capex cycle, capital that arrives when the concrete needs pouring is worth more than capital that arrives cheaper and later.
Fifth, bring the whole capital structure to one table. The senior debt, the structured layer, the working capital and the eventual refinancing are not separate problems. Solved together, each one lowers the cost of the next.
The firms that win the next cycle will assemble, sequence and raise capital as fast as they build. That is a structuring problem, and structuring is exactly where a specialist earns its fee.
Sources: EY India Private Credit report; Chambers Global Practice Guide, 2026.