The Mutual Fund market in India is set to witness a boom in the near future with the arrival of new players. This article looks at the new players and what they are expected to provide to investors, as per publicly available details.

Nithin Kamath’s Zerodha AMC

Founder and CEO of Zerodha on Friday (August 11) said that they have received the final approval from SEBI for Zeroda AMC. Zerodha AMC is being built in partnership with SmallCase. The new AMC will focus on simple and passive products such as index funds and ETFs.

Sharing the motivation behind the Zeordha AMC on social media, Kamath shared two reasons.

“The first was that the biggest challenge and opportunity for Indian markets is the shallow participation. Even after all the growth over the last 3 years, we only have maybe 6-8 crore unique mutual fund and equity investors put together,” said Kamath.

“The second was that if we had to bring in the next ten million investors, they needed simple products they could understand, and mutual funds were a perfect instrument,” he added.

According to Kamath, Zerodha AMC will aim to be index-only and create simple funds and ETFs that all investors can understand and invest in for all their goals. The AMC will be run by CEO Vishal Jain.

Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Financials

Mukesh Ambani’s Jio Financial Services (JFSL) recently joined hands with BlackRock, one of the world’s largest asset managers. It is expected that JFSL will take the $540 billion mutual fund industry in India by storm, starting with low-cost passive products. However, exact details of what Jio BlackRock plans to do are still not available.

In India, there is massive scope for passive mutual fund offerings. Unlike many other markets where passive funds are more popular than active funds, ETFs in India have only a 12% share in the total assets under management. Also, it is less than 2% of the equity AUM.

Jio BlackRock has said it aims to transform the asset management industry in India by offering affordable and innovative investment solutions to investors in India.

Samir Arora’s Helios Capital

Samir Arora’s Helios Capital has received Sebi’s approval to launch a mutual fund business. Founded by Arora, Helios Capital Management PTE Ltd, which is the business of portfolio management services, had applied for a mutual fund licence with Sebi in February 2021.

“I am very happy to announce that Sebi has granted approval to Helios Mutual Fund…We need your wishes and support to make this new venture a success,” Arora posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday.

Other players in the Town

Apart from Zerodha and Helios, there are several new players seeking SEBI’s approval for mutual fund business. These include Old Bridge Capital Management Pvt Ltd, which is awaiting SEBI’s final nod for a mutual fund licence.

As per a report by news agency PTI, applications of three companies – Unifi Capital Pvt Ltd, Alpha Alternatives Fund Advisors LLP and Wizemarkets Analytics Pvt Ltd – are also under SEBI’s consideration as of June 2023.