new delhi equity mutual funds witnessed an addition of over eight lakh investor accounts or folios in the first four months of the ongoing financial year primarily on account of strong participation from retail investors this is on top of an addition of 43 lakh folios in 201516 and 25 lakh in 201415 in the past two years investor accounts increased mainly due to robust contribution from smaller towns folios are numbers designated for individual investor accounts though one investor can have multiple accounts according to the securities and exchange board of india sebi data on investor accounts with 42 fund houses the number of equity folios jumped to 36846743 at the end of july from 36025062 at the end of last fiscal a gain of 821 lakh overall the industrys folios rose to an alltime high of 492 crore growing participation from retail investors and huge inflows in equity schemes have helped in increasing the folio counts experts said mutual funds have reported net inflows of close to rs 12000 crore in equity schemes in the first four months apriljuly period of the current fiscal the inflow is in line with bses benchmark sensex surging 37 per cent during the period under review the latest inflow has pushed the assets under management aum of equity mutual fund to a record high of rs 45 lakh crore at the end of july from rs 428 lakh crore in juneend mutual funds are investment vehicles made up of a pool of funds collected from a large number of investors the funds are invested in stocks bonds and money market instruments among others