Why we built our home in GIFT City

Most companies wait for a new city to prove itself before they commit. We chose to move before it had. This is why we made that bet on GIFT City early, and what the city looks like from the inside.

What is GIFT City?

GIFT City, short for Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, is a planned business district on the banks of the Sabarmati river in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. It is about 20 minutes from Ahmedabad airport.¹

It is home to India's first International Financial Services Centre (IFSC), where banks, funds, insurers and exchanges serve global markets under one regulator, the IFSCA. The city covers close to 1,000 acres today, with plans to grow to more than 3,300 acres.¹ Alongside the IFSC sits a domestic business zone, where companies like ours build offices for teams that serve clients in India and abroad.

Why we moved to GIFT City early

The infrastructure came first

GIFT City was planned from scratch as a smart city, with its infrastructure laid before the towers went up. Power is designed for 99.999% reliability, about five minutes of outage a year. Offices are cooled by a district cooling system that uses about 30% less energy than conventional air conditioning. Power, water and data run through a 17 km underground utility tunnel.¹

For a firm whose clients in Australia, the UK and the US expect us online through their working day, that reliability isn't a nice-to-have. It's the job.

The talent is right here

Ahmedabad alone has more than 1.7 million professionals.¹ Our people in GIFT City, Ahmedabad and Chennai are the engine behind thousands of accounting firms abroad. GIFT City lets us offer them a world-class workplace without asking them to leave Gujarat.

Owning, not renting

Renting would have been easier. But owning our corporate house is a statement to our team and our clients: we are building something permanent, here, for the long term.

We believed in the vision for GIFT City, and in the vision for India. Our part is proving that Indian talent can power the world's finance teams, and helping make India a developed nation by 2047.

Satyam Kanabar, Partner, Befree Global

GIFT City today: the numbers

The bet is paying off for the city as a whole.

• 10xGrowth in IFSC registrations, from 110 in March 2021 to 1,193 in March 2026²
• $100bn+Banking assets held by 38 banking units¹
• 20 of 25Years of tax holiday for IFSC units under the Finance Act 2026⁴
• July 2023When GIFT Nifty began trading from GIFT City⁵

Companies in GIFT City

Global banks including JP Morgan, HSBC, Citibank and Bank of America have IFSC offices here, and Google has set up a global fintech operations centre.⁵ Indian groups such as Sun Pharma, Zydus and Bharti Airtel are now setting up treasury centres in GIFT City too.³

What GIFT City means for our people

Our first teams have already moved into our corporate house, and more will follow in the next phases. Each move brings more of our people into a workplace we built for the long term.

For many of them, GIFT City is the first time a global career hasn't meant moving to Mumbai, Bengaluru or overseas. That is the part of this story I care about most, and it is at the heart of our mission: proof that Indian talent can power the world's finance teams.

What GIFT City still needs

GIFT City isn't finished, and pretending otherwise would be a disservice. It needs more homes, more places to eat and meet after work, and faster links to Ahmedabad.⁶ The metro extension into the city and the airport link are the next big steps.⁵

That is exactly why early movers matter. Every company that commits here makes the case easier for the next one. It's also why my brother Aditya and I built Bliss Horse Riding Club right by GIFT City: a city needs places to live well, not just places to work.

GIFT City FAQ