Last updated 4 September 2026 · vs July 2026 · How the score is calculated
Mid-cap mutual funds invest in companies ranked roughly 101-250 by market capitalisation. Think of the next tier of Indian corporate success stories after the Reliance-HDFC-Infosys top 100: the persistent mid-sized lenders, the specialty-chemicals exporters, the consumer-facing companies that are big enough to be institutional but small enough to still grow at 20-25% a year. Historically, this is the segment of the Indian market that has compounded the fastest over 10-15 year windows. The trade-off is volatility. A pure mid-cap fund will give back 30-40% in a bad year. In the March 2020 crash, mid-caps fell 42% peak to trough. In the 2008 crash, they fell 65%. A mid-cap fund is not a complete portfolio, it is the growth sleeve of one. The standard use is 20-30% of total equity allocation, sitting next to a large-cap or flexi-cap core. How to read this table. The 5-year column is the only one that matters for mid-caps. Manager skill shows up over a full cycle; any single-year number in mid-caps is a function of which theme the manager was positioned in. Funds with consistently above-category 5-year returns and a drawdown that is meaningfully smaller than the BSE Midcap index in the worst 3-month windows are the keepers. Funds with a 1Y return more than 8-10 points above the category median are doing something risky; watch the 3Y column to see if it is repeatable.
Each Mid Cap fund in the table is scored on a blend of five factors: 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year returns, the 3-year Sharpe ratio, and the 3-year maximum drawdown. The 5-year return carries the heaviest weight; the 1-year return carries the lightest, because a single year is mostly noise. Funds with less than three years of history are kept out of the 3Y / 5Y windows but are still listed if they have a 1-year track record.
The underlying NAV data is sourced nightly from the AMFI daily NAV file and the AMC factsheets. The score is re-run every month after the latest upload. Two funds with a score within 5 points of each other are essentially interchangeable for retail purposes; pick from the top 3-5 names in the list, not just the top 1. The full formula, weights, and edge cases are in the rankings methodology post.
| Rank | Scheme | Score |
|---|---|---|
1 | HDFC Mid Cap Fund - Regular Plan - Growth Option HDFC Mutual Fund · Regular | 66.4 |
2 | Sundaram Mid Cap Fund - Regular Plan - GROWTH Sundaram Mutual Fund · Regular | 62.1 |
3 | Aditya Birla Sun Life Midcap Fund - Regular Plan - GROWTH Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund · Regular | 56.2 |
4 | Baroda BNP Paribas Mid Cap Fund - Regular Plan - Growth Option Baroda BNP Paribas Mutual Fund · Regular | 51.2 |
5 | LIC MF Mid Cap Fund - Regular Plan - Growth LIC Mutual Fund · Regular | 47.7 |
Rankings based on data up to 4 September 2026. Direct plans and regular plans are scored separately; this table shows the regular plan of each fund. For educational purposes only, not investment advice. Mutual fund investments are subject to market risks. Read the full disclaimer.
Mid-cap funds split into growth (Chola, Motilal Oswal), value (SBI Magnum, HDFC) and quality (Axis, Kotak) styles. The 5-year return gap between the best and worst top-10 names is usually 6-8 percentage points a year. The difference is the manager's willingness to hold illiquid, off-benchmark mid-caps through drawdowns.
FinvestR Research Desk
Research team, FinvestR
The FinvestR research desk produces the monthly fund rankings and the underlying scoring engine. The team includes AMFI-registered distributors (ARN-142502) and NISM-Series-V-A certified research analysts. Plain English, no product pitches, full methodology on every page.
AMFI-registered Mutual Fund Distributor · ARN-142502 · NISM-Series-V-A: Mutual Fund Distributors
Last updated 4 September 2026. The full ranking methodology and the data sources are published in the July 2026 rankings post. Past performance does not indicate future results.
Mutual fund investments are subject to market risks. Read all scheme-related documents carefully before investing. FinvestR Capital is registered with AMFI as a Mutual Fund Distributor (ARN-142502). The rankings on this page are research output and not personalised investment advice. Consult a SEBI- registered investment advisor for advice tailored to your situation.