Alternative Investment Funds
Private credit, private equity, infrastructure and concentrated listed strategies, in fund structures that can do things a mutual fund cannot: hold unlisted companies, lend directly, and use leverage.
Every fund the desk can place is listed below with its structure, its minimum and its terms. Zenith does not rank them.
SEBI sets the floor for an Alternative Investment Fund at ₹1 crore, and no manager can accept less from an ordinary investor. That is the floor rather than the price of entry: four of the funds on this page ask more, up to a ₹3 crore commitment.
The distinct minimums on the shelf today. The highest is ₹3.00 Cr.
There is one route below the floor. An accredited investor, verified by a SEBI-recognised accreditation agency against income or net-worth tests, can commit less. Accreditation takes paperwork and has to be renewed, so it is worth raising early rather than at signing.
If a crore is not where you are today, portfolio management services start at ₹50 lakh, and mutual funds start at a few hundred rupees.
SEBI puts every alternative fund into one of three categories. They are not tiers of quality, they are different kinds of thing, and the row that matters most is the last but one.
| Category I | Category II | Category III | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it invests in | Start-ups, social ventures, infrastructure and SME funds. Sectors the government wants capital to reach. | Private equity, private credit, real estate and infrastructure. Anything not in Category I or III. | Listed equity and debt, traded actively, sometimes with hedging and leverage. |
| Typical structure | Close ended. | Close ended, with capital drawn down in tranches rather than at once. | Mostly open ended, some close ended. |
| Getting out | No exit before the fund term ends. | No exit before the fund term ends. There is no redemption window to wait for. | Redemption is usually available, subject to an exit load and any lock-in. |
| How long the money is committed | Typically 7 to 10 years. | 6 to 10 years on this shelf, with extension options the manager can exercise. | Open ended funds have no term. Close ended ones run to their stated date. |
| How it is taxedThe row that changes the arithmetic | Pass-through. Gains are taxed in your own hands at your own rates, and the fund issues a Form 64C. | Pass-through, the same way. Business income, if any, is taxed inside the fund. | Taxed inside the fund at the maximum marginal rate, before anything reaches you. No Form 64C, and no pass-through. |
| On Zenith's shelf | No. The desk does not place Category I funds. | Yes, three funds. | Yes, twelve funds. |
Introduces you to the funds on this page and services the relationship. Zenith never holds your money or your units, and does not choose a fund for you.
The distribution route. Zenith reaches these funds as a Motilal Oswal franchise partner, and onboarding runs through them.
Holds the SEBI registration, runs the fund, makes every investment decision and answers for the outcome. Twelve different firms appear on this page.
Several of these funds are managed by Motilal Oswal group companies and most are not. Each fund is a separate SEBI-registered scheme with its own private placement memorandum, its own manager and its own terms.
A close-ended fund does not take your money at once. You commit a sum, the manager draws part of it at first close, and the rest arrives by notice over the following years as deals are done. Most people meet this mechanic for the first time when the second notice arrives.
Agastya Capital India Growth Fund
Private equity, mid market
Motilal Oswal Alternates India Credit Excellence Fund I
Private credit
Neo Infra Income Opportunities Fund II
Infrastructure and real assets
The gold portion is what the manager takes at first close. The empty portion inside the outline is money you have already committed and must keep available, on a schedule the manager controls, for as long as the fund takes to deploy it.
The contribution agreement records the whole amount, not the amount you pay today. From that moment it is a legal obligation rather than an intention.
Between 10% and 30% on the three funds here, sometimes with an equalisation payment if you join a later close than the first investors did.
On the manager's schedule and not yours. A notice arrives, and the money is usually due within a couple of weeks.
Not on a fixed calendar. A fund can be several years in before it returns anything at all.
Six to ten years here, and the manager can usually extend by a year and then another. The end date you are shown is the earliest one, not the latest.
Category III funds do not work this way. The money goes in at once, most of them are open ended, and redemption is available subject to an exit load. If you have only ever held a Category III AIF, none of the above will match your experience.
This is every AIF the desk can place, listed in full. It is not a selection from a longer list, it is not ordered by preference, and Zenith does not rank these or tell you which to choose.
Why some cards show a return and others do not
Unlike listed funds and PMS strategies, AIFs have no single public register of performance. Some managers publish on their own site and most do not, which is why a figure appears on some funds here and not others. Nothing is being withheld by Zenith: where a number is public it is shown and linked, and where it is not, the card says so.
As on 31 Jul 2026 · Fund terms as reported by each investment manager
Category III
The closest thing India has to a hedge fund. Money goes in at once, most of these are open ended, and you can usually redeem subject to an exit load. Taxed inside the fund at the maximum marginal rate.
The largest listed companies, held in a fund structure rather than directly.
Sohum
Returns
The figures sit in the fund's private placement memorandum, which the desk can walk you through.
Smaller listed companies. More growth on offer and deeper falls along the way.
Ikigai
Returns
The figures sit in the fund's private placement memorandum, which the desk can walk you through.
Motilal Oswal AMC
Returns
The figures sit in the fund's private placement memorandum, which the desk can walk you through.
The smaller end of the listed market, concentrated and volatile.
Clarus
Returns
The figures sit in the fund's private placement memorandum, which the desk can walk you through.
The smallest listed companies, and in one case unlisted holdings alongside them. The least liquid equity on this page.
Alchemy
Returns
The figures sit in the fund's private placement memorandum, which the desk can walk you through.
The manager moves across market caps as they see fit.
Motilal Oswal AMC
Returns
The figures sit in the fund's private placement memorandum, which the desk can walk you through.
No market-cap constraint. The outcome depends most on the manager.
Abakkus
Returns
The figures sit in the fund's private placement memorandum, which the desk can walk you through.
Abakkus
Returns
The figures sit in the fund's private placement memorandum, which the desk can walk you through.
Motilal Oswal AMC
Returns
The figures sit in the fund's private placement memorandum, which the desk can walk you through.
Motilal Oswal AMC
Returns
The figures sit in the fund's private placement memorandum, which the desk can walk you through.
Renaissance
Returns
The figures sit in the fund's private placement memorandum, which the desk can walk you through.
Lending rather than owning. The credit quality of what it lends to is on the card, and it matters more than anything else here.
Vivriti
Returns
The figures sit in the fund's private placement memorandum, which the desk can walk you through.
Category II
A different product from everything above, sharing only a regulatory label. Your money is called in tranches, the term runs six to ten years, and there is no redemption at any point. Pass-through taxed, so gains reach your own return at your own rates.
Affirma Capital
Private equity, mid market
Close ended, with no exit option for the life of the fund. This fund is years from a realised result, so no return is shown: a forecast is not a return, and the manager’s own projections belong in the private placement memorandum rather than on a distributor’s page.
Motilal Oswal Alternates
Private credit
Close ended, with no exit option for the life of the fund. This fund is years from a realised result, so no return is shown: a forecast is not a return, and the manager’s own projections belong in the private placement memorandum rather than on a distributor’s page.
Neo
Infrastructure and real assets
Close ended, with no exit option for the life of the fund. This fund is years from a realised result, so no return is shown: a forecast is not a return, and the manager’s own projections belong in the private placement memorandum rather than on a distributor’s page.
The single biggest difference between the two halves of this page, and the one most often missed when the two are compared on returns alone.
The fund is not taxed on capital gains. Each gain keeps its character, long term or short term, and is taxed in your hands at the rate that applies to you. The fund issues a Form 64C each year setting out your share. Business income, if the fund has any, is taxed inside the fund instead.
Tax is paid inside the fund, at the maximum marginal rate, before any value reaches you. Two consequences follow and both matter. The figure you are shown is already after tax, so it is not comparable with a pre-tax number from a mutual fund or a PMS. And a loss inside the fund cannot be set against gains elsewhere in your own return, because it never reaches your return.
Withholding applies on distributions and the rate depends on your country of residence and the treaty between it and India. Several funds also restrict US and Canada persons entirely.
This is general information about how these structures are taxed and not tax advice. Zenith is a distributor. Your own position depends on facts this page does not know, so take advice from someone who does.
Charged annually. On a Category II fund it is often charged on the committed amount rather than the drawn amount, so you pay on money the fund is still holding in your bank account.
The manager takes a share of the gain above a hurdle rate. A catch-up clause then lets the manager take a larger share of the next slice until the overall split reaches the agreed ratio. On a fund returning just above its hurdle, the catch-up is where most of the fee comes from, and it is the term least often explained.
Fund formation, legal and placement costs come out of the commitment. On a close-ended fund these are typically amortised over the first few years, which means the early net asset value can sit below what you put in for reasons that have nothing to do with the investments.
Category III funds charge an exit load, usually in the first year or two. Category II funds have no exit at all, so there is no load because there is nothing to load.
Zenith is paid by the investment manager out of the fees above, as a share of the distribution commission, and never by you directly. Nothing on this page costs you more for having come through Zenith. How Zenith is paid.
These are funds the desk has placed that are now closed to new money. They are listed because a reader asking what Zenith has actually done deserves an answer rather than a brochure. No performance figures are shown for them: a distributor publishing the past returns of funds it placed is making a claim about itself, which is a different thing from listing what is available.
A close-ended AIF has no exit. Not a penalty, not a window, none. If your circumstances change in year three of a ten year fund, the answer is that the money stays where it is.
You are committed to the full amount and the manager decides when to call it. Money earmarked for a future drawdown has to stay liquid for years, which quietly lowers the return on the whole commitment.
These funds hold twenty to forty positions, and a private equity or infrastructure fund may hold fewer than twenty. One failure moves the whole result.
Category III funds are permitted to borrow and to use derivatives, within SEBI's limits. That amplifies both directions, and the fund documents rather than this page are where the actual limits are stated.
Unlisted holdings are marked by a valuer, not by a market. An interim figure is an estimate of what something might fetch, and the number that counts is the one at exit.
Managers circulate target IRRs. They are forecasts on illiquid, unrated, unlisted assets, they are not commitments, and this page does not publish them for that reason. Treat one you see elsewhere as a statement of intent rather than of expectation.
The first question is what else the money could be needed for over the next seven to ten years. If there is a plausible answer, a close-ended fund is the wrong instrument regardless of how good it looks.
SEBI requires every manager to give you theirs before any commitment. It carries the fee schedule, the drawdown mechanics, the risk factors and the conflicts. It is long and it is the document that actually governs your money.
Where you commit the amount. Read the drawdown and default clauses specifically, because they are the ones people sign without reading and the ones that bite.
PAN, Aadhaar, bank proof, and for a non-resident the additional documentation the manager requires.
Money moves from your own bank account to the fund. Subsequent calls arrive by notice with a stated due date.
Periodic reporting from the manager, plus the annual tax statement for a Category I or II fund. Category III funds issue no Form 64C, because tax has already been paid inside the fund.
Zenith never holds your money or your units at any point. Funds move between your own bank account and the fund, and the units are registered in your name.
₹1 crore, set by SEBI, and that is a floor rather than a typical figure. Four of the fifteen funds Zenith can place ask more, up to a ₹3 crore commitment. An accredited investor verified by a SEBI-recognised agency can commit less.
Almost everything. Category III holds listed equity or debt, is usually open ended and can be redeemed subject to an exit load. Category II holds private equity, private credit or infrastructure, is close ended for six to ten years with no exit at all, and draws your money in tranches rather than at once. They are different products that share a regulatory label.
In a PMS you own the shares directly in your own demat account and the minimum is ₹50 lakh. In an AIF you own units in a pooled fund, the minimum is ₹1 crore, and the fund can do things a PMS cannot, including holding unlisted companies, lending privately and using leverage.
It depends on the category and the difference is large. Category I and II are pass-through: gains are taxed in your own hands at your own rates and you receive a Form 64C. Category III is taxed inside the fund at the maximum marginal rate before anything reaches you, so the figure you see is already net of tax and cannot be offset against losses elsewhere in your return.
A notice from the manager asking for part of the amount you committed. Close-ended funds draw money in tranches as they find deals rather than taking it all upfront, typically 10% to 30% at first close and the rest over the following years. The timing is the manager's decision, and the uncalled part still has to be available.
From most Category III funds, yes, subject to an exit load and any lock-in. From a Category II fund, no. There is no redemption mechanism at all, and transferring your stake privately needs the manager's consent and a willing buyer.
The fund documents set out the consequences and they are serious. Depending on the terms, a defaulting investor can face interest, forced transfer of their stake at a discount, or forfeiture of part of what they already contributed. This is the clause worth reading before you sign anything.
An investor verified by a SEBI-recognised accreditation agency against income or net-worth thresholds. Accreditation allows a commitment below the ₹1 crore floor and access to some funds offered only to accredited investors. It requires documentation and periodic renewal.
Because there is no public register of AIF performance the way there is for PMS. Some managers publish trailing returns on their own site and most do not, and the figures otherwise sit in the private placement memorandum. Where a number is public it is shown and linked here; where it is not, the card says so rather than leaving a gap you cannot interpret.
No. Zenith is an AMFI-registered distributor and is not registered with SEBI as an investment adviser, so it publishes no ranking, no shortlist and no recommendation. Every fund the desk can place is listed here, alphabetically inside its group, so you can see the whole shelf.
Generally yes, through an NRE or NRO account, though individual funds set their own rules and several exclude US and Canada persons. Withholding on distributions depends on your country of residence and the applicable treaty, so raise it at the first conversation.
Yes, and in different ways rather than just in degree. These funds are more concentrated, can hold unlisted assets valued by an appraiser rather than a market, can use leverage, and in Category II cannot be exited at all for the fund's life. The ₹1 crore floor exists because the regulator treats them as suitable for a narrower group of investors.
An enquiry, not an application
The second question below is the one that matters most. A close-ended fund is the wrong instrument for money that might be needed, however good the fund is, and it is better to find that out now than at the third drawdown.
