Vijay Kedia reveals multibagger playbook: How the superstar picks stocks using RISE strategy

Superstar investor Vijay Kedia is betting on midcaps to produce the next multibaggers for his Rs 1,400 crore listed equity portfolio, even if the headline indices go nowhere. But his search is not simply for the next fashionable sector: it is for businesses with years of growth ahead that the market is willing to sell at a discount, sometimes after a single disappointing quarter.

The veteran value investor organises his thematic bets around the RISE framework, which is an acronym for four themes: renewables and energy transition, infrastructure, security, including defence and cybersecurity, and emerging technologies such as electric vehicles and data centres.

In an exclusive interview with ET Markets, he explains the harder part: moving from a promising theme to a stock worth buying.


“If you buy in at any cost, you won't necessarily make money,” Kedia said in the interview. His process starts with the durability of the sector, moves to the company’s competitive position and balance sheet, and ends with the price. Getting the first part right does not excuse getting the last part wrong.

His investment in Neuland Laboratories offers a striking precedent for backing a business through a difficult phase. Kedia first invested in the stock in 2019 and added around Rs 250 during the March 2020 panic. The stock subsequently touched Rs 23,881 on August 18, 2026, roughly 95 times that purchase level.

The question now is where he can find the next such opportunity without paying a price that already anticipates the success.

Also Read | Exclusive | How Vijay Kedia turned a Rs 250 Neuland Labs bet into nearly 100x returns

Why Vijay Kedia is looking beyond the index

Kedia’s preference for individual stocks rests on a cautious view of the benchmarks, not on an expectation that everything in the market will rise together.

“I may be wrong, but I think there won't be much movement at the index level,” he said. “I think there will be action in individual stocks and mid-caps — there's no strength in the index, so I think that's where the multibaggers will be.”

He sees growing institutional interest in smaller businesses, with funds that were not previously active in midcaps beginning to enter the segment. His own focus remains on individual companies rather than an index-led recovery.

“Now mid-cap will become the hero of the market; it's already on that path,” he said.

That enthusiasm does not translate into buying the category indiscriminately. Across the RISE themes, his assessment repeatedly returns to the same questions: how much growth remains, which company can capture it, and how much investors are already paying for that prospect.

Also Read | 20 midcap funds, 20 multibaggers: What makes this category a wealth creation machine?

Renewables: A long runway, but no blank cheque

Kedia sees the renewable energy opportunity lasting 15-20 years, with the broader energy transition extending into wind, batteries, green hydrogen and nuclear power. But he also recognises that some stocks have already attracted substantial premiums.

His stock selection lens is therefore more specific than simply buying companies exposed to rising renewable energy demand. In solar manufacturing, for instance, he prefers businesses that make both cells and modules over those dependent on purchasing cells from other suppliers. The latter can have their economics squeezed by the companies supplying critical inputs, he said.

Integration, however, does not eliminate the risks. Kedia pointed to Chinese capacity, falling prices and the possibility of dumping, alongside Indian companies’ dependence on China for components and materials. His argument is that the opportunity must be assessed alongside the industry’s increasingly commodity-like characteristics, rather than valued solely on the excitement surrounding the transition.

“So there's no such thing as a cakewalk in the share market — everything has a catch, an if and a but,” he said.

Kedia is invested in renewable stocks like Websol Energy Systems and Advait Energy Transitions, according to public filings.

Infrastructure: Look beyond the order book

Infrastructure presents a different investment proposition. Kedia sees scope for a renewed phase of activity after a period in which some companies suffered from delayed payments on government projects. He has taken positions in one or two smaller infrastructure businesses, although he described the exposure as not particularly large.

The attraction is a combination of scale, multiyear order visibility and a reasonable purchase price. Yet he does not expect these companies to command the earnings multiples associated with technology businesses. Their investment case must work on the economics of execution and growth, rather than on the assumption that the market will award them a much higher valuation.

His example of an unnamed infrastructure investment illustrates the process. The sector’s growth opportunity remained intact, the company’s financial position had begun improving after payment-related stress, and its valuation had fallen to roughly half the level seen during the 2022–23 euphoria. The appeal was the combination — not merely the fact that the share price had declined.

Infra bets include Eimco Elecon, Elecon Engineering, Innovators Facade Systems, SPML Infra, Patel Engineering and Om Infra.

Security: Watching the shift from services to products

Within security, cybersecurity is a particular area of interest. Kedia said he has investments in three or four companies in the space, but warned that the shares are not cheap. His preference is to wait for a correction or examine a new entrant rather than pay any valuation to secure exposure.

The development he is watching is the move from services to proprietary products. He sees an opportunity in companies using their existing businesses and resources to build products of their own, potentially with outside collaboration.

Cybersecurity stocks in his publicly disclosed portfolio are TechD Cybersecurity, Sattrix Information Security and TAC Infosec.

Emerging technologies: Conviction without buying everything

Electric vehicles, artificial intelligence and data centres feature in Kedia’s broader assessment of emerging opportunities. On electric mobility, he sees the effort to reduce dependence on imported oil as an important driver, alongside the alignment of government and industry behind the transition.

His own exposure is more selective than that broad list might suggest. Kedia said he does not have much specifically invested in AI or data centres, although he has invested in an AI-focused company in which he is the largest shareholder. Identifying a theme as important, in other words, is not the same as committing substantial capital to every part of it.

Atul Auto is his biggest bet in the theme, where he owned around a 20.9% stake valued at nearly Rs 260 crore. Others are Affordable Robotic & Automation, Precision Camshafts and Exato Technologies.

The five-year test before the valuation test

The distinction between finding an attractive industry and finding an attractive investment runs through Kedia’s process.

His first question is whether the underlying sectoral opportunity will still exist five years from now. Only then does he examine the individual company: can it participate in that growth, outperform competitors and support its ambitions with a sufficiently strong balance sheet?

“Will this company outperform the sector or not — that's what I look at next,” he said.

Valuation comes after those business checks. In the infrastructure example, Kedia looked at the reduction from earlier valuations alongside the company’s improving condition. A lower price mattered because he believed the business opportunity remained — not because a previous high automatically made the stock cheap.

That emphasis is consistent with his older SMILE philosophy, which stands for small in size, medium in experience, large in aspiration and extra-large in market potential.

Read together, the frameworks address different parts of the investment decision: RISE identifies the areas he wants to investigate, while SMILE describes the kind of business and management he seeks within a large opportunity. Neither removes the need for valuation discipline.

Kedia sees opportunity in a market that reacts quickly, sometimes too quickly, to quarterly results.

He described companies reporting strong year-on-year first-quarter numbers but being punished because those results looked weaker than the preceding fourth quarter. Investors, he said, may overlook a company’s historical seasonality or the tendency for sales to be pushed through towards the financial year-end.

He has seen stocks fall 30% in such circumstances and has bought some companies where he judged the apparent deterioration to be part of an established pattern. The opportunity lies in understanding what the quarterly comparison does and does not reveal about the business.

That is not an argument for dismissing every disappointing result. Kedia acknowledged that weakness can be genuine and that even businesses in attractive areas such as contract development and manufacturing will not necessarily deliver strong numbers every quarter. The task is to distinguish a temporary setback from something more consequential.

His description of the required temperament is characteristically vivid: “buy like a bull, sit like a bear, and watch like an eagle.”

The watching matters as much as the waiting. Patience does not mean ignoring a business; it means avoiding a decision driven solely by the latest price reaction.

Why he would rather miss a rally than chase it

The other side of buying into disappointment is refusing to follow a stock when its valuation moves beyond his comfort zone.

Kedia offered a simple illustration: suppose he likes a share at Rs 500 but cannot buy it before the price moves to Rs 700–800. He will not automatically raise his purchase price simply because the investment story has gained wider acceptance. He would rather look for another company in the sector or move to a different sector altogether.

“If I get it at my price, I get it; if I don't, I don't — I leave it, we look at another one, then we sit,” he said.

Mutual funds and family offices are bringing more money and experienced investors into the search for emerging businesses. Kedia said family offices are no longer confined to the largest industrial groups; smaller business groups are also hiring professionals to manage family capital. With more investors pursuing the same themes, valuations can expand rapidly. The consequence, in his account, is a market where enthusiasm concentrates in particular businesses and then cools when one or two quarters fail to meet expectations.

Kedia’s response is not to win every race. Managing his own money means he needs fewer opportunities than an investor trying to deploy capital across hundreds of stocks.

His search also extends into smaller and unlisted businesses. Kedia said he has invested in six or seven SME companies and has participated in pre-IPO investments. Asked about his more constructive view after earlier scepticism towards SMEs, he pointed to improved valuations while stressing that many companies still did not merit investment. He also said he has invested in about 25 startups in total, with unlisted startups accounting for roughly 10% of his portfolio.

For Kedia, the hunt for the next multibagger ultimately comes back to the scale of the opportunity at home.

“India has such a big opportunity in its own market — why should we even think about the rest?” he said.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)