New mutual funds in August 2026: 17 launches

Seventeen again

17 new schemes published their first NAV in August 2026, counting each fund's Direct plan, Growth option, matching July's 17. In August 2025 there were 21.

That takes the year to 113 new schemes from January to August, against 147 in the same months of 2025, both counted among funds still publishing a NAV in early September.

One more code that began in August is left out: an unclaimed-redemption plan of Choice Overnight Fund, which is a holding plan inside an existing fund rather than a new scheme.

The list

Active equity returns

Seven of the 17 are actively managed equity funds, the most in a month since March's nine. Five of them come from smaller fund houses filling out their range: NJ added a value fund and a momentum fund on the same day, Abakkus a large-and-mid-cap fund, The Wealth Company a mid-cap fund and AlphaGrep a flexi-cap fund. Baroda BNP Paribas's services fund and WhiteOak Capital's dividend yield fund complete the set.

AlphaGrep, which began with a multi-asset fund in July, launched two more schemes in August, a flexi-cap fund and a liquid fund-of-funds.

Two launches are new kinds of product for the year:

• DSP Financial Services Sectoral Debt Fund is a debt fund confined to one sector's borrowers, an actively managed relative of the financial-services debt index funds launched in March and April.
• Edelweiss Nifty REITs & Realty Index Fund tracks an index of real estate investment trusts and property companies.

The rest are familiar shapes: two single-ETF fund-of-funds (metal stocks and mid-cap momentum), an all-cap equity FoF from Kotak, an arbitrage fund from Zerodha, Kotak's Nifty Bank index fund, and short-term debt funds from Franklin Templeton and Edelweiss.

The first weeks

The Nifty 50 fell 3.54% between 3 August and 4 September, from 24,774.30 to 23,897.70. Of the nine new equity funds and equity index funds, five were below their first NAV on 4 September, the furthest NJ Value at 3.29%. Kotak Nifty Bank Index was down 0.72% from 26 August, in line with the Nifty Bank index's 0.72% fall.

The year so far

The gap with 2025 is mostly index funds, 26 fewer. Fund-of-funds are the one large group ahead of last year. Of 2026's 30 active equity launches, 14 are sectoral or thematic.

By fund house, Kotak Mahindra leads with nine, then Groww and SBI with seven each and Zerodha with six.

What this does not tell you

Launch counts are not demand. They measure fund houses' product plans, not how much money the new funds raised.

Survivors only. Both years are counted from funds still publishing a NAV, so schemes that closed or merged are missing from the 2025 figures.

The count leaves out ETFs and fixed maturity plans.

Where to go from here

The guide to REITs and InvITs explains what Edelweiss's new index fund holds, and the debt fund duration ladder covers the month's three debt launches. For the month before, see the new funds of July 2026, and for the market, the August 2026 market recap.