The Realistic Roadmap to ₹10 Crores: A Complete Masterclass by Top Fund Managers

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:21]I think this session is going to be very interesting because who doesn't want to talk about 10 lakhs to 10 crores. So let me start by talking to Manish Gwani from Bandhan because you know he's been creating a lot of 100x in the portfolio.

[00:00:37]So Manish the journey from 10 lakhs to 10 crores is effectively a 100x quest right historically that kind of alpha is harvested in the mid and small cap space. You look after one of the most popular small cap funds in the country knowing the category in and out. What is the biggest hurdle or difficulty that comes with small cap investing from the investor end? And then I would love to get your perspective from a fund manager lens as well.

[00:01:04]>> I think the investor end is relatively simple that you will get lot of blood pressure and problems in the sense that the returns will be very volatile. Uh there'll be periods where the fund may fall 20% 30%. We've seen uh calendar year 2025 itself was a a bit of tran time for investors but the beauty is of course that if you fill it shut it forget it you will make lot of money. Um the good small cap midcap funds if you see on a 20 25 year basis have delivered high teens low 20s kind of returns consistently. Um I actually used to manage Nippon growth before I joined Bundan and that fund has the highest NA in the industry. Um amazing track record since 1994.

[00:01:55]So um the point is obviously you can create wealth only if you can tolerate this up and down. So the investor side is is there's only one problem which is volatility. From the fund management side, there's a lot of pain. Um because first of all, you need to work harder to put money in small caps because companies are smaller. They are not that established.

[00:02:23]The brokerage research is not great in smaller companies. Uh the second problem is they are genuinely toa weaker companies in the sense if regulation changes if a big client leaves the business impact is higher so their business cycles are much more harder than larger companies and the third is you can't change your view view very fast they if you own HDFC bank you can sell 500 crores in a month and get out but as a as a fund which owns small caps. Let's say the Iran war started and you are owning a consumer company whose raw material is linked to oil prices easily change position because liquidity is not there. You're not able to sell it in the market. So there are multiple issues with small caps which is why you start with a very strong riskmanagement approach.

[00:03:28]you diversify your portfolio, you diversify your sectors. But but the beauty of it is this is immense fun to do. Um intellectually it's a very satisfying journey and we hope that we will be able to create lot of wealth for investors.

[00:03:47]>> Thank you for sharing that perspective Manish. Um Anupam, I'd like to bring you in here and take your opinion on the valuation side of things. At the start of the year, you had anticipated that 2026 would be a stronger year for small caps compared to the difficult 2025 that we had just exited. After a long year of cooling down, we've suddenly seen small caps surge in the last month. Do you think this re do you think this recent spike is simply a temporary bounce back after the correction or are we looking at a sustained rally?

[00:04:19]>> Okay, thank you. So, two parts to question. One is why we are positive on small caps and then valuation right so let's handle valuation part first see valuation depends on lot of things and then beyond the point it becomes very subjective so from our perspective we don't want to do valuation especially on a small cap side on a index basis because there is too much of heterogeneous population that is there in a small cap side in large cap index or in midcap index the quality is well established but that's not the case on the small cap side you know there are very good quality company there are very poor quality companies also so we should not look at at index level we should look at a stock level and we find good opportunities there so we will not brush aside everything and push right it's not the case and some companies are doing very well now coming back to why we are positive on small caps so cycle aside we are structurally very positive on small caps from a let's say next 10 to 20 year perspective and a small cap should be a 10 year time horizon for any investor.

[00:05:26]If you are investing in a small cap for less than 10 year time horizon, you are actually making a big mistake. You should not be doing it. Right? So why we are positive and I have a slightly longish answer for that.

[00:05:40]Historically there have been three major pain points for small caps. Why they used to falter or why they never used to create wealth for investor. The first problem was access to talent. The second problem was access to capital and third problem was access to customer.

[00:05:58]These were structural problem for large small cap companies in India. Right now talent brings capability. Capability brings growth. You cannot bring growth without any capability. And to build capability you need good talent. 20 years ago if I ask any fresh graduate from a good college either MB or engineer where he wants to go to work first India second MNC third big Indian companies may come nobody wanted to work in smaller companies right without talent how you bring cap capability companies were also la type company right the culture was not good so the companies have also changed now if you go to any young engineer any young MBA graduate they are very happy working for startups, new companies, smaller companies, right? They want >> aspiration of India has changed.

[00:06:48]>> Correct.

[00:06:49]>> Secondly, large companies have created a massive talent base in last 20 years. So now people are experienced in world-class management practices etc etc. That talent is available for smaller companies to get and bring capability. That's first and in my opinion this is the most profound change that has happened for a smaller companies. There is nothing bigger than this that has happened in last 20 years that now they have better access to better talent. Right? That's number one.

[00:07:20]Then access to capital. You have capability but you need cap uh cap capital to execute your plan. Right?

[00:07:28]Between 201011 and 2020, India went through a severe capital crisis because banking system was royally screwed right NPS etc. There was no risk capital available. So we there was no capital at all. How you build businesses right now that problem is solved. The most profound change that has come in in terms of availability of risk capital right private equity funds unlisted.

[00:07:54]Pros can tell you that all his clients want to invest in his unlisted companies etc. mutual fund industry our equity aum is now 45 lakh cr if we just give 1% of this aum as growth capital to newer companies it's like 45,000 cr it's a very big number right and we are giving it every year almost 1 to2 lakh cr of QIPS are happening and we are distributing that growth capital and that is driving lot of growth for smaller companies third thing is access to customer 20 years ago when we started our career or 25 years ago we used to be told that what is the remote of a consumer company distribution you know with digital coming in access to customer has changed dramatically right even for foreign clients now given the track record that we have built in IT in pharma in engineering accessing customer has become very very easy so all these three combination are giving a very great opportunity for smaller companies and that is why structurally we are very positive on smaller companies from a next decade also and of course caveat being there it's very volatile as Manish said and it's not a short-term game you need to be highly patient because every company cannot scale up so there are a lot of failure rates it takes a lot of time to build businesses create wealth so that's on the why we are positive on a small cap >> you're so on point I think the availability of risk capital in India has definitely changed the game for startups per I would love to bring you in here many people see you as the CEO today but You actually started your journey in a classroom as a school teacher. The background usually comes with a lot of patience and a knack for simplifying the complex. And having built your own career from ground up, you have a unique perspective on what scaling looks like. If someone came to you today in from this room with 10 lakhs in their bank account and a goal of 10 crores in their eyes, what's the teacher's lesson they need to learn successfully to navigate the 100x journey?

[00:09:56]>> Oh, okay. That's a good question.

[00:10:00]Firstly, I think I'm thankfully the joint CEO. My CEO is my professional guru, Mr. Rakkesh Rahul, who's been the CEO for the last 19 years for Anandraati Wealth. Now, if somebody comes with 10 lakhs, I'm going to give you the actual life lesson when when I used to like you you alluded to me being a teacher. Yeah.

[00:10:17]I was in the comfort of my hometown called Mysaw where back then I used to teach in evening colleges uh engineering and then I was back then in 2004 was earning a lakh okay which was a reasonably large amount of money and ABN Amro bank offered me 9,300 rupees a month so I still did some mathematic calculation and then left a lak rupee in Mysore in 2004 and everybody told me that you have to visit a psychiatrist but then I came here why am I actually uh telling this is the first 1 cr has a different story. The subsequent 9 crores has a different story. The subsequent 90 crores and then the 990 crores is very very different. Okay? If you actually want to get to 10 crores, the first 1 cr is not going to come from markets. First one cr is going to come from profession.

[00:11:10]Right? I used to be going to a bank a 11:12 in the night and work till 3:00 in the morning. Once a laptop was stolen that time it was a priced possession it was alleged that I would have stolen it because I'm the only guy who comes to the bank to work so the first one cr comes from professional manut then there's a very very big important study which I did where quite a few people reached 1 cr never reached 10 crores why the simple math of 1 cr in 11 12 years gets you to 10 crores at a reasonable equity if you gave it to Manisha then it'll happen in 9 years but because 10 limit start so the point I'm trying to make is what did they do wrong two things which came out for was one of the biggest killers that 1 cr bitcoin so what you shouldn't do after you get to a for is not do anything fancy.

[00:12:16]Most people do derivatives and fancy foromo stuff which brings them back to 60 50 lakhs and that's like the last nail in the coffin. So I'll tell you my story. I started with minus 1 cr. My dad gave me a loan which I had to settle. So from there first 1 cr was full manath.

[00:12:35]The subsequent 10 crores was full diligence. So till 2015 when I got to 10 crores every week I used to update my balance sheet. After 10 crores you stop looking at money start investing on yourself. So when Anandrati was almost formed as a separate company I put whatever I had earned from Anundraati and I bought 10 crores of Anandra share again I bought 10 crores of Anandra share during covid I took a loan and bought invested in myself.

[00:13:02]So after 10 crores you invest in yourself. If you really want to become 100 crores, so for let alone 10 crores, find a good company to work for, take that company 100x and be a part of it, uh is also a good thing to do. But this whole whole uh belief that you can start with 10 and get to 10 crores, it has to come from profession. That's sorry to break the bubble to you. The first one cr will not come from the market as easily.

[00:13:30]>> Absolutely. I think the key takeaway is to not get carried away by FOMO.

[00:13:35]Yes, he deserves it for sure.

[00:13:39]Now, let me bring in Manish because he's known for condensing the timeline that it takes to get to 10 crores. So, Manish, there's also a silent risk in any high performing portfolio, right? It can become too successful to change uh it in 2000, real estate in 2007, PSU banks in 2024, an investor might actually become emotionally attached to the theme that they that they built their wealth in which is now cooling off. How shall one mentally approach these cases where moving on from a stock or holding is nothing but critical to sustain wealth in growth in the long term?

[00:14:13]So my thinking has also evolved when I started life as a investor.

[00:14:19]Usually what happens is you read Warren Buffet who says hold companies eternally. And mid90s when I started my investing career there used to be that thought process that buy a good consumer company hold it for 30 years you'll always make money.

[00:14:38]And maybe the markets were inefficient.

[00:14:40]So it used to work like that.

[00:14:43]Over time, it's been almost 30 years. I must admit I actually don't believe in buy and hold investing now. I am more like Howard Mark says, everything is a cycle. You don't need to own anything forever because partially because markets are so efficient now that whatever return has to come comes very fast and then when the cycle breaks you lose lot of money so I don't see any investment in my portfolio honestly with a view that in fact one data point which keeps me very grounded is this key US there was a big study done that if you bought every company at that point at which it went to IPO and held it forever till today how many percentage of companies actually do better than bank FD like there it is Treasury bond yield or whatever but basically risk-free rate US may if you bought every company when it IPOed and you held it till today the percentage of companies that beat a bank FD is just 4%.

[00:16:10]Every other company goes up and down and destroys value in the end and if you miss those 4% of companies you would have basically made zero money in the stock market. So 4% identify 4% obviously as professional fund managers we try to identify what is good but the lesson from that number 4% is key every So that is how my thinking has evolved.

[00:16:55]Actually >> I want to with full humility contradict one thing which Manisha said with some data. Market is not efficient. Okay that's the claim I'm making. Market has been told to be efficient. efficient information.

[00:17:17]There are quite a few pieces of information which everybody doesn't have. Let me give you an example. The most popular index in India is Nifty.

[00:17:25]The second most popular is NSE 500 because sir has to follow NSE small cap 250 which is a subset of NSE 500. Now how many people uh I will ask a question if somebody knows NSE 500. If you went to NSE's website just now and Googled it'll say these are the top 500 companies of India as per market cap from a chosen set quote unquote this is what is written there are the smallest company there is 5,238 crores as of Friday CE soft some company like that CE tech there are 256 companies bigger than that company not a part of NC 500 but NC website says These are the top 500 companies. There are 256 companies greater than that market cap 5,238 not a part of n500.

[00:18:16]Nobody will know the reason why.

[00:18:19]If this is not inefficiency of information then what is no fellows what I meant was in mid '90s you could have bought HDFC bank sat on it for 20 years it would consistently broadly give you 20% peranom. My thesis today is the equivalent of HDFC Bank if it was there today would go to 10 times book in one year and then you'll not make money for the next years.

[00:18:54]for diversified active equity funds for real wealth generation. Can you elaborate more on what you really meant to convey?

[00:19:02]>> See, I personally believe at Anandrati uh because I come from a treasury mindset uh not a wealth management mindset. Every answer is there in data as long as you don't massage it to say the wrong thing to you and data can actually lie to you. Share data. Now coming back to why don't I like index funds is because there are 924 funds approximately every day the number changes but there are 924 active not active active and passive equity funds in India the best and the worst have a difference every year best and the worst have a difference of 35% peranom every year can you believe it panties percent zind or moth difference so if I go If I say that I'll do index that means I'm not acknowledging this difference between Manish sir and somebody else pen% difference and I see some clients tell me so we put we put 20 people to do a research we tried to evolve the model over 13 years from June 2020 to 2013 and if I've beaten NSE 500 by 133%.

[00:20:23]That's 133% more than your capital.3.

[00:20:51]Babaud if I've beaten Nifty by 198% and 133% and I'm not the best guy on the street. Why would I take 133% less in 12 years? Most people are young. They have 30 years. If you could get 2% more than NE 500, you will get seven times the capital in the next 30 years. If you are sitting on 10 crores, you will get 70 crores more than N500. So I will not go with a cost. cost and value cost value that's my >> definitely a lot to think about for all investors in the room because that is the traditional advice right index funds and forget everything else but um Anup I'm coming to you in the last one year banking stocks have been on a roller coaster and we noticed that you have been trimming your exposure in banking stocks across your large value multicap and even in your BFSI fund for that matter compared to March 2025 Do you think that the sector has corrected enough for now or is there more scope to wait and watch?

[00:21:49]>> Okay. So, can I add something on the this active versus passive debate?

[00:21:53]Right. Some data points. So, why passive evolved in US the way they evolved?

[00:21:58]There is a reason for it. 25 30 years ago in US there used to be roughly 8,000 listed companies. Now there are only 3,500.

[00:22:08]So imagine a country the largest GDP country in the world with largest saving largest equity market the amount getting into equity increased dramatically but the universe shrank right from 8,000 to 3,500 it's like more than half right secondly in last 30 years US economy value creation or let's say incremental capital employed significantly narrowed down to innovation like tech, internet, now AI or biotech etc. Most of the traditional industries didn't do well in US because a lot of things shifted to China and outsourcing happened right and healthcare went into a lot of problem etc because so for any fund manager the space to play got narrowed and narrowed and that is why most of the traditional fund managers are historical fund managers who believed in diversification etc started underperforming and that is why this concept came that you do passive similarly During the same time lot of problem happened in terms of allocation that there are a large pension fund etc. How they allocate right it became question mark you allocated to a fund manager he underperformed for one year it became agency problem. So everybody started doing passive nobody can be blamed right and that is what happened and that made passive funds very very popular in US in India we still have a increasing universe our universe is expanding so we have lot to add value in terms of active fund management which was not there in US universe was shrinking right that's one thing and secondly I am still to see one index fund which can beat index I have not seen anyone right at least 30 40 50% of fund managers beat index.

[00:23:58]Right? There are zero index funds who beat the index. So mathematics is with the active fund managers. Now coming to banking. So last one year we realized that in terms of valuation and incremental earning growth. So we are kind of overweight on financials. So it's not that we are cutting down weight on financials but we have cut on banks and we have increased in capital market NBFCs etc across our portfolio because that is where valuation and uh expected return trade-off was better. So that's what we have done that's the reason it's banking seems to be coming down >> but you know most funds have a huge exposure to banking stocks right specifically private sector banks. So do you think people should still hold on to it and wait for the story to turn around? No, I think there is still uh reasonable growth to happen. Of course, we can see some kind of because asset quality is amazingly pristine in banks right now. Sometime we also don't we we have like internal disbelief right the kind of balance sheet and the kind of asset quality we see in banks across the board that is private or public. So that's one risk that may play out in cycle etc. And generally the current valuation is not perfectly pricing that out. So that's one risk but otherwise it's okay. Growth is coming back. Credit growth has been good. So I think from that perspective it's not bad. It's just a relative call that we have taken.

[00:25:20]>> Thank you for sharing that perspective.

[00:25:21]And this question is open to all. You know Nasim Talev one of my favorite authors talks about the Lindy effect that suggests that the longer a non-p perishable thing is survived the longer it is further likely to survive. But a lot of us are lured by the story of chasing the next disruptor and like a new age AI firm or an EV venture. Since the 100x journey is also a game of survival, should an investor look for 10 cr risk betting on the freshest disruptor or place their bet amongst the good old survivors. This is the classic consistent compounders question. Do we still hold on to them?

[00:25:57]>> Well, I think I've been pretty clear that you need to play the cycle. you know need to play new trends, new technologies. I mean if a company was making fax machines and was listed would you ever own it right? You wouldn't right? So you need to uh move with the times and you need to keep changing your portfolio to make sure that you are where the capital is going.

[00:26:22]>> Yeah. Uh now that we let me give you a little more conventional answer on the 100x uh than the more philosophical uh to get 100x if you analyze any stock which has done 100x it needs to list at the right time very crucial the base effect has to be in the investor's favor.

[00:26:41]What do I mean by that is key market cap company that that kind of size will have to be the listing price. You cannot buy a company at 1 lakh cr market cap and look at 100x.

[00:26:55]So base effect is very important right.

[00:26:58]So some of my clients who bought an anundati unlisted for example okay I'm giving the example because this close proximity to my heart right they bought it at 1,000 cr valuation now it is 30,000 cr valuation now if it triples from here then it becomes 100x but somebody who bought it now it becomes only 3x.

[00:27:16]Do you understand the base effect?

[00:27:21]3x 100x 3x 100x so the base effect is what I'm trying to highlight. So I if you really are interested in a company which can become 100x don't buy the price don't buy the professional listen to their earnings call listen to it twice once for the content second for the confidence whether he's lying that's one thing you should look at second thing if you want a company to become 100x one thing which is very unique in listed companies or not there in listed companies is they don't give consistent results to when we got listed we are saying company as to a shareholder.

[00:28:07]HDFC is one of the few companies which grew 20% for long periods of time.

[00:28:13]You know, after we got listed, I tracked this data. It is uh sad for me to say that out of the NSE 500 which we are a part of there are only three companies only three companies for the last 18 quarters I've been listed maybe let me say four because if I would have missed it by by chance there are let's assume four companies which have given a 20% quarteron quarter y growth and Anandrati wealth was one of them so it was so rare that consistently business compound.

[00:28:47]So you look for arrange all the companies in the descending order of standard deviation volatility in their results is one thing which is common to companies which became 100x that is one commonality. If you list down all the companies which went 100x to see consistency of quarterly results anam.

[00:29:11]>> Yeah. So for me stock market is a multiffactor complex evolving system.

[00:29:18]Now these three words are very important. Multiffactor means there is no one factor which works all the time.

[00:29:24]It's a very complex kind of situation means these factors don't have defined relationship and it's a evolving thing means the economy evolves, the country evolves, the market evolves. So you can own something for 20 years but you should question every day should I own it or not or is there something better available right? So not questioning that hypothesis. See whenever we buy as a fund manager any stock we make a hypothesis that this is how this company will behave and this is how the valuation should behave and this is what will create money for us. Now we question that hypothesis almost every week that whether we are going right on that hypothesis or not and we also compare relatively that is there something better available. So I think if you really want to compound on a consistent basis you have to keep on questioning your sizing your positioning etc because market evolves and the factors are very complex way related to each other. You should not simplification is good but it's not so simplified.

[00:30:29]So that's that would be the appropriate strategy.

[00:30:32]>> Absolutely. And you know I can't wrap up this session without asking about gold and silver. So equity funds can now carry up to 35% in gold and silver. Does the recent gold rally and now this regulatory change indicate a changing asset allocation dynamic and behavior in the market?

[00:30:52]>> Okay. See uh I personally think like dynamic gold and silver gold and silver both are not behaving like their own characteristic currently because they are a gamma trade. The reason why I'm using a word they are a they are a short gamma trade. If you want to understand this today in the world of AI somebody will explain it or the AI will explain it far simpler than I can. Silver gold gamma trade 5,600 January short gamma squeeze is what Infosys one night overnight went ADR went up 38%.

[00:31:44]Oracle on 11th September 2025 incidentally I was in the US went up 33% on one result a $600 billion company became 1 billion 600 billion became 1 trillion over the same day so billion market gap these are not normal this is a g short gamma squeeze gold normal if you want to understand gold and its behavior today you have to go to Chicago merchant trial exchange and understand what's the gamma on it in that exchange. So it's a derivative lingo but fortunately it'll be further simplified by AI. Uh so gold I think you should only stagger and invest. If you love debt you're better off loving gold.

[00:32:28]Gold on a three-year rolling basis.

[00:32:29]Always look at assets returns on a rolling basis not pointtooint. That's when you massage the data in your favor.

[00:32:35]Look at it rolling three-year rolling data of gold any time you bought it is 9.3%. So it'll beat debt. It won't beat equity. The difference between equity and gold is gold 22.

[00:32:49]Equity nifty share.

[00:32:56]So comparing equity and gold is an apple and some other not even fruit some vegetable because equity return equity second decimal. So please understand this difference before you simplify goldear equity right one of my client has made 20.7% last year last year I saw another portfolio which fell 32% last year on a portfolio balance sheet level so equity is very divergent gold is a singular asset so when you buy gold I personally think half your debt money can be in gold but not at $4,600 or $7,000 the gamma needs to calm down for it to behave like gold otherwise There is no explanation. Nobody in India would have predicted that war crude oil.

[00:33:50]January when gold was 52,800 crores. When gold tripled investment was 80 cr when it came down 18% investment was 2,400 crores.

[00:34:05]That is called recency bias. So please be careful till gold acquires its characteristic back again. It's not gold. It is in the hands of a gama squeeze.

[00:34:15]>> Manisha and Anupam just quick thoughts on gold and silver.

[00:34:19]>> Look, I like gold as a standalone asset at this point. Obviously not as much as equities but simple governmentally whether it's US, India, Europe, Japan money printing money printing risk asset my simple view and simple.

[00:34:46]>> Yeah. So I I will just convert this question into a broader thing that how you need to think about asset classes right because etc like that. So two-part answer one for people who really don't understand markets and finance well I think some bit of diversification with some guidance is okay but not over diversification because every diversification is a hedge every hedge has a cost nothing is free but if you really want to make great returns great money then you should understand that you cannot make money by identifying best performing asset class. No, it never happens. You will never know X ent which asset class is going to perform the best. You will create great return by developing deep conviction in any one asset class and it can be anything. It can be as simple as real estate or even some crop. I have seen people making great money, great return by just trading agriculture commodities. They don't even touch gold or equities because great money is made by having deep conviction in any one of the things that you can do with lot of conviction right and for example we are fund managers all our whole life we have done equities do you think that how many stocks we really have deep conviction in not more than 30 if you ask me my deep conviction my deep capability would be maximum in 30 stocks beyond that my understanding my conviction is very average, pretty average and we are still okay to live our life as fund manager, we still retain our job right we get paid for it. So any asset class either you develop deep conviction invest in it master yourself you will make great returns if you cannot if you are working somewhere you don't have time just average it out do some allocation do some you know asset allocation kind of thing and it will work work out for you that's why >> that's a good closing note man thank you for sharing that ladies and gentlemen a round of applause for these gentlemen >> may we all see 100 x's in our portfolio thank you so Thank you and please take the center stage for a photo op. We also have a token of appreciation for our insightful panelists who gave us their valuable time and shared their learnings with all of us.

[00:37:33]One more big round of applause for all three of our panelists and our moderator.

[00:37:41]That jump from 10 lakhs to 10 crores is as much about the vehicle as it is the destination.

[00:38:00]Investment in securities market are subject to market risks. Read all the related documents carefully before investing. Please read the risk disclosure documents carefully before investing in equity shares, derivatives, mutual fund and all other instruments traded on the stock exchanges.