Who Is the Richest Person in Karnataka- Full List of the Top 10 Billionaires

What does it take to build a $12 billion empire? Or to disrupt India’s financial markets and create an $8 billion brokerage from scratch? Karnataka’s richest persons list in 2026 tells a story far bigger than wealth.  

Let’s read about the top 10 richest persons in Karnataka this year.

Top 10 Richest Persons in Karnataka – 2026

From marble magnates to manufacturing tycoons, Rajasthan has its own wealth champions. Dive into the Top 10 Richest Persons in Rajasthan now.

Top 10 Richest Men in Karnataka (2026)

When you examine the top 10 richest persons in Karnataka closely, the answers reveal something deeper than a net worth figure. They reveal how Karnataka became a magnet for technology founders, financial innovators, infrastructure builders, healthcare magnates, and global exporters. 

1. Azim Premji | $12.2 Billion | Software Services 

Wipro, where Premji holds roughly 72.9% stake, employs over 240,000 people across 66 countries. His family office, Premji Invest, manages a portfolio of 119 companies and made investments as recently as February 2026. 

A fun fact unknown: his father was known as the “Rice King of Burma” before partition, and it was this family business that eventually became Wipro. 

He was named in TIME’s inaugural 100 Most Influential Philanthropists list in 2025, and his foundation targets 2,50,000 girls’ scholarships annually by 2025-26.

2. Nithin & Nikhil Kamath | $8.4 Billion | Financial Services 

Zerodha, built without a single rupee of outside capital, derives its name from the Sanskrit word “rodha” meaning barrier, and now has 7.5 million active NSE customers. 

Regulatory headwinds, including higher STT on options, caused a 40% YoY drop in brokerage revenue in Q1 FY26, pushing Nithin to reconsider the zero brokerage model. 

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Nikhil co-founded Gruhas, a climate tech and PropTech fund, and picked up a 5% stake in Shah Rukh Khan’s D’yavol Spirits. 

The notable controversy: Nikhil was banned by Chess.com for using computer assistance during a charity match against Viswanathan Anand in 2021, though the ban was reversed within 24 hours at Anand’s own request.

3. Irfan Razack | $6 Billion | Real Estate 

Prestige Group started as a tailoring shop on Bengaluru’s Commercial Street in 1956, founded by Razack’s father. In 2025, the group reported total revenue of ₹58,734 crore, with residential contributing ₹47,733 crore. 

Prestige is now targeting ₹3,200 crore in rental income by FY28 through a ₹12,000 crore office expansion and is in talks for a REIT listing of its office portfolio. Razack has publicly warned of oversupply in Hyderabad’s office market and cooling residential demand, a rare candid note from a developer of his scale. He received the Rajyotsava Award, Karnataka’s second-highest civilian honour, in 2024.

4. N R Narayana Murthy | $5.3 Billion | Software Services 

Murthy co-founded Infosys in 1981 with six others and Rs 10,000 in seed capital provided by his wife, Sudha Murty. 

A lesser-known fact: a 1974 arrest at a communist-era Yugoslavia-Bulgaria border crossing, where he was detained and expelled, is what he credits for turning him from a “confused leftist” into a “compassionate capitalist.” 

His investment arm, Catamaran Ventures, backs startups across media and tech. His 2023 call for 70-hour workweeks sparked significant national debate. Infosys promoters, including his family, chose not to participate in the company’s Rs 18,000 crore share buyback in September 2025.

5. Senapathy Gopalakrishnan | $4.35 Billion | Software Services 

One of Infosys’s original seven co-founders, Kris Gopalakrishnan, served as CEO from 2007 to 2011. He pursued and completed a PhD in computer science from IIT Madras while working at Infosys, an unusual achievement for someone already running a billion-dollar company. 

Post-Infosys, he co-founded Axilor Ventures, an early-stage startup accelerator, and channels significant funding into neuroscience research at IISc Bengaluru through the Pratiksha Trust. He has served as president of both Nasscom and CII and remains an active voice on India’s deep-tech and semiconductor policy.

6. G M Rao | $3.99 Billion | Infrastructure 

Rao failed his Class 10 exams before completing Mechanical Engineering from Andhra University and founding GMR Group in 1978 with a single jute mill. He pivoted to infrastructure after liberalisation in 1994, and GMR now operates the Delhi, Hyderabad, and Goa airports in India, plus international airports in the Philippines. 

In December 2025, GMR Airports acquired an additional 49.9% stake in Delhi Duty Free Services, raising its holding to 66.93%. The group also secured Rs 6,300 crore in debt funding from Abu Dhabi’s ADIA to reduce promoter group debt. He also co-owns the IPL franchise Delhi Capitals.

7. Nandan Nilekani | $3.63 Billion | Software Services 

Beyond co-founding Infosys, Nilekani architected Aadhaar, the biometric identity system covering over a billion Indians, and has since championed digital public infrastructure as a replicable model for emerging economies.

 He returned to Infosys as Non-Executive Chairman in 2017 to stabilise the company during a governance crisis. Like Murthy, he has been a repeated target of deepfake scams, with fabricated reports falsely crediting him with an $892 million investment in trading platforms. Infosys promoters, including Nilekani’s family, opted out of the Rs 18,000 crore buyback in September 2025. His wife, Rohini Nilekani, runs Arghyam, a philanthropy focused on water and sanitation.

8. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw | $3.6 Billion | Biopharmaceuticals 

Mazumdar-Shaw started Biocon in 1978 in her rented Bengaluru garage with Rs 10,000 after gender bias blocked her from working as a brewmaster, the field in which she originally trained in. Biocon is today India’s largest biopharmaceutical company, and its contract research arm Syngene carries a market cap of around ₹23,000 crore. 

In 2025, false media reports claimed she had pledged personal funds to repair 15 Bengaluru roads, which she publicly denied, calling it a fabricated story twisted from a journalist’s question to the deputy CM. She remains on Infosys’s board as an independent director and was named in TIME’s 2025 list of 100 most influential philanthropists.

9. Ranjan Pai | ~$2.8 Billion | Healthcare & Education 

Pai is a medical doctor by training, a detail easy to miss given how prominent a dealmaker he has become. His grandfather, T M A Pai, founded Kasturba Medical College in 1953, India’s first private self-financed medical college. Temasek raised its stake in Manipal Hospitals to over 50% in 2023 in a deal valuing the chain at $5 billion, making it India’s second-largest hospital network. 

In 2025, Manipal submitted an expression of interest in the Byju’s insolvency proceedings, signalling interest in the edtech firm’s assets. His angel portfolio spans fintech, healthtech, and consumer brands.

10. Rajesh Mehta | ~$1.57 Billion | Gold & Jewellery Exports 

Rajesh Exports operates almost invisibly relative to its scale, consistently ranking among the highest revenue-generating companies on the BSE despite being far less profiled than its peers. Its refining arm, Valcambi, is one of the top gold refiners globally, and the company processes a significant chunk of India’s total annual gold imports. 

It also owns the Shubh Jewellers retail chain and has been expanding into branded jewellery. Analysts and investors have repeatedly flagged the company’s thin operating margins relative to headline revenues, a structural feature of the gold trading and processing business. The stock remains closely watched but under-discussed in mainstream financial media.

Disclaimer– The rankings and figures in this article have been compiled from multiple verified reports, credible news sources, and public financial data available as of 2026.

All values are approximate and may vary with newer updates, revisions, or changes in official records.

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