New Delhi, Sept. 6 -- India's mutual fund industry has 55 fund houses managing over 1,900 open-ended schemes, including more than 500 actively managed equity funds.

To differentiate themselves, a group of new fund houses is adopting a data-led approach rather than traditional active fund management. By allowing data and fixed rules to guide decisions, this system-driven strategy aims to eliminate fund-manager bias.

The approaches range from using factors based on back-tested market data to using a combination of factors and other data points.

Capitalmind Mutual Fund scores its investable universe on five factors-momentum, low risk, quality, profitability and value-but the weight each factor carries shifts with what it calls market-regi...