SIP vs lump sum: How 15-plus-year-old flexi-cap funds performed over investment periods of up to 32 years

Reports coming in for today mention that A mutual fund investment held for 15, 20 or even 30 years can look very different from one fund to another.

Take some of India’s long-running flexi-cap funds. A Rs 1 lakh lump-sum investment in HDFC Flexi Cap Fund at inception would be worth around Rs 1.98 crore today. The same amount invested in Aditya Birla Sun Life Flexi Cap Fund at inception would have grown to around Rs 1.89 crore, while in Franklin India Flexi Cap Fund it would be around Rs 1.52 crore.

Moneycontrol looked at 13 flexi-cap funds with a track record of more than 15 years, comparing what a Rs 1 lakh lump-sum investment at inception and a Rs 10,000 monthly SIP from inception would be worth today.

The SIP numbers show another side of long-term compounding. A Rs 10,000 monthly SIP in HDFC Flexi Cap Fund since inception would have involved a total investment of Rs 38.1 lakh and grown to around Rs 21.57 crore as of September 28, 2026, according to ACE MF data.

In Franklin India Flexi Cap Fund, Rs 38.5 lakh invested through monthly SIPs would be worth around Rs 16.07 crore. In Aditya Birla Sun Life Flexi Cap Fund, Rs 33.8 lakh invested through SIPs would have grown to around Rs 7.11 crore.

DSP Flexi Cap Fund and UTI Flexi Cap Fund were not included because comparable Expansion-option data was not available in the dataset; only IDCW-option figures were available.

More years do not automatically mean a bigger corpus

The final amount should not be viewed simply as a ranking of funds.

Each scheme started at a different time, so an older fund has had more time to compound than one rolled out 15 or 18 years ago. But time alone does not explain the differences.

Taurus Flexi Cap, for instance, dates back to 1994. A Rs 1 lakh lump sum at inception would be worth around Rs 23.87 lakh today at a CAGR of 10.19%. Aditya Birla SL Flexi Cap started more than four years later, but the same Rs 1 lakh would be worth around Rs 1.89 crore, with a since-inception CAGR of around 20.49%.

So, how long money stays invested matters, but so does the return earned over those years.

Why SIP and lump-sum returns can look different

The SIP numbers tell a slightly different story from the lump-sum numbers.

A lump-sum CAGR measures the return on money invested on one particular starting date. An SIP, on the other hand, keeps investing every month across different market marks.

That is why a fund’s SIP XIRR need not mirror its lump-sum CAGR. HDFC Flexi Cap, for example, reveals a lump-sum CAGR of 18.12% but a SIP XIRR of 20.05%. Franklin India Flexi Cap reveals a 17% lump-sum CAGR compared with an 18.45% SIP XIRR.

The figures are historical and do not indicate what these funds will deliver in future. Since the schemes additionally have different inception dates, their final corpuses should be read as an illustration of their individual long-term journeys rather than as a like-for-like performance ranking.