There’s a new category on the investment menu: SIF, or Specialised Investment Funds. What is SIF, in one line? SEBI’s answer to the gap between a mutual fund and PMS — more flexibility than a fund, without needing PMS-level capital.
Where SIF sits — the shared cab
If a mutual fund is a bus and PMS is a taxi, SIF is like a shared cab — more flexible than the bus, still a few people sharing the ride, but not a private taxi built just for you. SEBI introduced SIF in 2025 specifically to bridge that gap: mutual-fund-style pooling, with more room to manoeuvre than a standard fund allows.
Why SEBI created this now
India’s investor base has grown a lot more sophisticated over the past decade, and SEBI noticed a real gap: plenty of investors had outgrown what a plain mutual fund could offer, but weren’t anywhere close to PMS’s ₹50 lakh entry point either. SIF was built specifically to fill that middle ground — a regulated, mutual-fund-adjacent option for people who want more flexibility than a standard fund, at a fraction of PMS’s minimum.
What is SIF, actually
An SIF isn’t a completely new type of company the way PMS or AIF are — it’s launched by an existing mutual fund AMC, once SEBI has approved it to run one. That matters: SIF sits inside the same regulatory house as mutual funds, not a separate structure. What changes is the strategy — SIF strategies get more flexibility in how they invest than a standard mutual fund does, within SEBI’s rules.
The minimum, and how it’s counted
The minimum investment is ₹10 lakh, but it’s counted across all of an AMC’s SIF strategies combined, at the PAN level — not ₹10 lakh per individual scheme. SIPs, SWPs, and STPs are all allowed, as long as your total stays above that ₹10 lakh line. That’s meaningfully more flexible than PMS or AIF, neither of which offer that kind of drip-feed access.
Equity, debt, or a mix — same building blocks, again
SEBI’s framework groups SIF strategies into three equity-oriented types, two debt-oriented, and two hybrid — the same equity vs debt building blocks we covered earlier, just combined with more room to manoeuvre than a standard mutual fund allows. There are limits built in too — no strategy can put more than 10% of its assets into a single company’s shares, and the fund can’t own more than 15% of any one company’s voting capital.
Who this is actually for
SIF sits in a specific niche: investors who’ve outgrown what a standard mutual fund can do for them, but aren’t yet at the scale where PMS starts to make sense, or don’t want a fully custom, concentrated portfolio built just for them. If that’s not you yet, a well-chosen mutual fund — the bus, not the shared cab — is very likely still doing everything you need. Asking what is SIF actually for is really asking whether you’ve outgrown the bus without needing your own taxi yet — a real middle ground, not a marketing label.
Where things stand for us
Distributing SIF requires its own certification, separate from the mutual fund ARN. We’re currently working through that — until it’s complete, this page is educational only, not something we can facilitate directly yet.
This post is general education, not a recommendation of any specific product. Our own AMFI registration (ARN 185676) covers mutual funds; SIF certification is in progress. See our Investment Options page for the full breakdown, or get in touch to discuss your investment goals.
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