Should I invest in a brand-new fund or NFO with no track record?

There is rarely a reason to hurry into one. A new fund offer has no history, so you cannot judge it on the things that actually predict a tolerable holding experience: risk-adjusted returns, how it behaved in a correction, and whether it delivered consistently across market cycles rather than in one lucky year. The ₹10 NAV that makes an NFO feel cheap is marketing, not value — a ₹10 NAV is not a discount, it only means the fund is new.

The honest exception is a genuinely new exposure you cannot already buy — a first-of-its-kind index, or an asset class missing from your portfolio entirely. A new flexi cap or small cap scheme from a new fund house is not that: dozens of established funds already do the same job, with years of NAV history you can actually examine before committing money.

If a new fund's mandate appeals to you, the low-cost move is simply to wait. Let it build three years of history, then hold it to the same standard as everything else in its category. Almost nothing is lost by waiting — and a fund that still can't beat its established peers after three years was never worth taking the early risk on.