NYSE Group Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. led a group of investors that agreed to buy 20% of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd., tapping the world’s second-fastest-growing major economy.

The National exchange will receive $115 million from NYSE Group for a 5% stake in a transaction that values India’s largest equity market at $2.3 billion. Goldman, General Atlantic LLC, and Softbank Asian Infrastructure Fund will buy 5% each, the closely held NSE said without disclosing a price.

NYSE Group, operator of the world’s biggest stock exchange, is making its first investment in Asia through a market where the combined worth of equities rose 50% in the past two years to $820 billion. The Indian government lifted a ban on foreign ownership three weeks ago as markets race to make acquisitions and expand internationally into trading multiple securities.

“Goldman and NYSE are clearly investing in India’s long- term growth story,” a manager of Birla Sunlife Asset Management Co. in Mumbai, which oversees the equivalent of $4 billion of Indian stocks and bonds, Navneet Munot, said. “For NSE, a tie-up with the NYSE would mean technology, visibility and access to new financial products.”

India’s government on December 22 allowed international investors to buy as much as a combined 49% in any of the nation’s 22 stock exchanges. The limit for a single investor was set at 5% by the Securities and Exchange Board of India.

The Mumbai-based National Stock Exchange, home to companies such as Reliance Industries Ltd. and Infosys Technologies Ltd., handled a daily average of 72.3 billion rupees ($1.6 billion) in the past six months. That’s more than twice the value of its closest competitor, the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The 14-year-old National exchange also dominates trading in equity-based futures contracts and owns stakes in India’s National Commodity Derivatives Exchange and the Multi-Commodity Exchange.

India’s gross domestic product grew 9.2% in the three months through September, second only to China among the world’s major economies. India may overtake China in growth this year, Credit Suisse Group economists estimated in December.

The investment may help the NYSE draw the listing of Indian companies, said NYSE Group chief financial officer, Nelson Chai. It currently lists 10 Indian companies.

“We are going to be on the ground with them, meeting people both at the corporate level and also within the regulatory and government level,” Mr. Chai told reports in a conference call from Delhi. “We are neither in a control position nor in a position to capture cost synergies. But we do believe there are long-term growth prospects here, and we’re closer to participating in that growth.”

Chief Executive Officer John Thain said the NYSE Group was looking to invest in Japan, China, or India after shareholders approved its $14.6 billion purchase of Euronext NV. Mr. Thain has extend the exchange’s reach overseas and beyond equities trading since transforming the 214-year-old market into a publicly traded company.