New Delhi, Sept. 3 -- For investors who stay with their mutual fund SIPs through market ups and downs, time can make a significant difference to the eventual corpus. A decade of regular investing can allow returns to compound across different market cycles, although not every fund is able to sustain strong performance for that long.

An analysis of Value Research data shows that 16 schemes delivered annualised SIP returns of more than 20% over the past 10 years.

Nippon India Small Cap Fund led the pack with a 22.51% 10-year SIP return. A Rs.10,000 monthly SIP in the fund over the period would have grown to about Rs.38.8 lakh, against a total investment of Rs.12 lakh.

What stands out, however, is that the 10-year leaders were spread acro...