Green Portfolio is expanding India’s nascent Shariah investment landscape with a focus on small and mid-capitalized equities, Karan Arora, senior manager for advisory shared with IFN Investor.
“One thing we learned is that there’s a dearth of options when it comes to Shariah compliant funds in India. The Shariah space is asking for more funds to be made because frankly, there are only four to five mutual funds in the whole country operating under this ethical regime,” said Karan.
In tapping the lower-cap equities segment, this Gurgaon, Haryana-based firm, founded in 2018, is working towards the June 2025 launch of an Islamic alternative investment fund – as other mutual funds typically focus on heavyweights.
Green Portfolio Co-Founder Divam Sharma explained: “A lot of companies in the broader markets are not covered by any ethical product in India… and niche companies are not covered by the one or two mutual funds in the market.”
Divam said the alternative fund is a natural progression from the portfolio management service (PMS) that the firm began almost six years ago, where investors devote a minimum ticket size of around INR5 million (US$58,900).
The PMS is a bespoke investment strategy for clients, who had graduated from retail trading on the Green Portfolio smallcase fund platform – where entry-level investors manage their own portfolios.
Based on feedback from these retail investors, Islamic compliance filters were offered after partnering with Islamicly, a subsidiary of Data Ratings Intelligence that provides Shariah screening for major indices and Middle Eastern banks.
Since the launch of these Shariah filters with the smallcase, Divam said approximately 25-30% of this segment’s 2,500-strong retail clients had shifted to the newer Islamic offering.
The company started expanding its Shariah strategy to high-net-worth PMS clients in August 2024 and Divam said about 10% are now investing using wholly Islamic filters.
Next in line is the alternate fund – which will have both conventional and Islamic options to invest in both listed and pre-IPO equities, offering investors access to a broader range of opportunities, Divam said.
“In the PMS, we invest only in listed equities; in the smallcase, we invest only in listed equities. But in the alternate fund, we will be investing in pre-IPO as well as listed equities,” he noted.
To shatter the notion that Halal investments are only for Muslims, Green Portfolio is making its Shariah compliant products available to all in the country – even foreigners living in India and non-resident Indians abroad.
