In an exclusive interaction with Finance Outlook India, Ram Medury, Founder and CEO of Maxiom Wealth, shares his vision for revolutionizing portfolio management through innovative strategies like JEWEL, SPARK, CORAL, GEM, and EMERALD. He highlights the growing sophistication of Indian investors and the firm's mission to democratize access to institutional-quality financial solutions, providing a glimpse into the future of technology-driven wealth creation.
What do JEWEL, SPARK, CORAL, GEM, and EMERALD represent in the context of investment?
JEWEL, SPARK, CORAL, GEM, and EMERALD are strategies of distinct Portfolio Management Service (PMS) according to different investment goals. JEWEL targets quality-growth by the largest 350 firms in market capitalization and is well diversified in large, middle, and small companies. SPARK focuses on the small-cap companies with sound ground, but that are less known to individuals by being 351 to 1000 places by the market capitalization.
GEM selects quality-momentum stocks of all market capitalizations characterized by price trends and growth trends. CORAL uses AI-based approach that deploys both sector-rotating investing in the 12 core sectors and factor fundamental investing in the 18 ETFs to carry out complex approaches such as momentum, quality, and low volatility investing.
EMERALD calls two ways, EMERALD-E is the means of diversifying investments in equity mutual funds, and EMERALD-NE is the means of systematic gearing at the mutual funds level in an effort to achieve long-term growth by diversifying assets. Combined, these are the strategies that can form a strong framework of effective wealth creation.
What initiated the creation or launch of these diversified products in India?
The establishment of such products was started through a vision of democratizing a complex investment strategy through technology and data science. The initiative was started in 2016 by Ram Medury and Manoj Trivedi, who identified opportunities to apply its scientific, process-driven approach to investing in the Indian wealth management middle market because retail investors and institutional investors had not been exposed to scientific process-driven approaches to investing. These innovative products were developed based on the great experience of the founders with 25 years of experience in various fields in technology and finance with management positions held at Infosys Finserv Business, ICICI Group and Poonawalla Fincorp.
These strategies were developed by the growing sophistication of Indian investors and due to the need of having transparent and low-cost investment solutions available. The evolution of their products is systematic in nature: beginning with JEWEL in 2019 in the area of equity advisory, followed by SPARK in 2021, bringing them to PMS model in 2023 and recently launched CORAL in 2025, all in line with the investor needs whilst adhering to the same core investment philosophy of Roots & Wings. In this case, Roots represent the power of balance sheets and Wings evolve as developing financial lines.
How do these models support smart investing for retail and institutional investors?
These models assist the smart investing by having an in-built structured and technology-powered solution that rules out emotional errors by offering retail investors with institutional research of quality. The philosophy used by proprietary Roots & Wings powered by Machines incorporates both the elemental analysis with progressive machine learning algorithms to filter growth-potential companies of good quality.
To retail investors, the models provide professional investment management of their portfolio, without insistence on huge minimum investments, display of open transparent prices with no entrance barriers or exit loads (to provide flexibility). The technology platform allows it to be implemented smoothly due to the integration of several brokers, mobile and web access, and the monitor up-to-date of a portfolio.
Further, to institutional investors, the strategies offer advancement in risk management that contains optimal diversification, low-drawdown optimization, and accelerated recovery. The ML machine learning algorithms are designed to process data, repeat billions of simulations and tuning portfolios to different macro-economic environments to continue to optimize portfolios under specific macro-economic conditions.
These strategies become appropriate even to a conservative as well as an aggressive investment objective since regular rebalancing of the portfolios, according to algorithmic knowledge and the scientific rendition will keep the portfolios efficient and the human bias in the investment process is also minimized.
What asset classes are these strategies disclosed to (e.g., equities, fixed income, gold, REITs)?
The strategies cut across a broad spectrum of asset classes with a view to offering risk management and diversification.
The equity-oriented (JEWEL, SPARK, GEM) products are high on listed equities of large, mid and small-cap companies; and have scope to also invest in well-liquid mutual funds, money markets and fixed deposit as well as listed derivatives.
CORAL presents the most advanced exposure to an asset class with its duality by launching sector specific ETFs based on the IT, Banks, FMCG, Healthcare, Finance, Infrastructure, Capital Goods, Consumer Durables, Crude Oil, Metals, Realty, and Automobile sectors and second are factor based ETFs that include momentum strategies (Nifty alpha 50, Nifty500 Momentum 50), low volatility, quality and value strategies (Nifty100 Quality 30, Nifty50 Value
EMERALD-E is diversified in equity mutual funds, REITs, InvITs, gold ETFs, debt mutual funds and bonds. EMERALD-NE is capital preservation by investing in debt instruments such as debt mutual funds, bonds, and REITs, InvITs, and Gold ETFs.
DIAMOND is designed towards retirement requirement and therefore has the largest exposure in asset classes such as debt mutual funds, equity funds, bonds, REITs, InvITs, Gold ETFs, equities, money market instrument applied with conservative, moderate, or aggressive risk preferences.
How does technology support decision-making, rebalancing, or risk alerts?
Technology forms the backbone of the investment process through the proprietary "powered by Machines" approach. Machine learning algorithms continuously analyze thousands of data points from financial statements, mapping business parameters and stock patterns through powerful neural networks. The system simulates millions of scenarios to optimize portfolio construction and tests for low drawdowns with faster recovery mechanisms.
CORAL's factor-based approach exemplifies technology implementation through its comprehensive factor-based investing toolkit that measures and manages market fluctuations (volatility factors), targets stocks with consistent dividend payouts (dividend factors), categorizes by market capitalization (cap segments), captures strong upward price trends (momentum factors), focuses on financial health (quality factors), aims for market outperformance (alpha strategies), and allocates equal weight to optimize portfolio balance.
Risk profiling technology automatically categorizes investors into conservative (low risk, capital preservation with large-cap focus and bonds), moderate (balanced risk-return with large & mid-cap focus), or aggressive (high risk-return with multi-cap and flexi-cap focus) profiles. Rebalancing occurs systematically through algorithmic optimization that continuously learns and adapts, with quarterly rebalancing aligned to corporate and economic cycles, utilizing confidence scores and probability models for dynamic allocation adjustments.
Real-time monitoring capabilities include proprietary fragility scoring systems, early risk indicator detection, portfolio beta measurement, maximum drawdown assessment, and dividend yield optimization, ensuring investors receive automated alerts for portfolio optimization opportunities while maintaining scientific rigor in the investment process.
How do you see the future of smart, diversified investing evolving in India over the next 5 years?
The future of smart, diversified investing in India will be characterized by the mainstream adoption of factor-based investing and sophisticated algorithmic strategies similar to CORAL's framework. Democratization of factor investing wherein retail investors will have access to momentum strategies, low volatility strategies, quality-based investing, and, alpha generating strategies which was otherwise limited to institutional investors.
AI assisted portfolio optimization will become the norm; intra-day sector rotation with respect to economic cycles, dynamic risk profiling where the particular client is mapped onto a conservative, moderate or aggressive approach, and dynamic rebalancing via confidence scores and probability models. Factor based investing and ETF will see explosive growth as traders realize the advantages of cheaper expense ratios, greater liquidity and better risk adjusted performance, with many combinations such as momentum quality and low volatility strategies becoming household name investments.
Technology allows individual investment strategies to become a reality in terms of automatically changing portfolio beta, target volatility, expected returns, and maximum drawdown parameters to reflect individual risk profiles and life stage situations. Innovation will be provided by regulation, which will also allow protecting the investors and is likely to result in the introduction of new factor-based products and new asset classes. These diversification efforts will be achieved through technology platforms, where all these assets are integrated in a seamless way, way more than retail investors have been able to do before.
Fintech and wealth management will merge to build hyper-personalized investing environments through which AI algorithms optimize portfolios dynamically over many factors, sectors, and asset classes so that institutional-level factor investing becomes available to all Indian investors and drives optimal level of transparency, cost-effective and high-alpha returns.
About the Author
Ram Medury is the Founder and CEO of Maxiom Wealth, a premier wealth management firm known for its tech-driven, research-led financial solutions. With over 25 years of experience across finance and technology, Ram has held leadership roles at Infosys, ICICI Group, and Poonawalla Fincorp. An MBA from IIM Bangalore and a recognized thought leader, he has twice been named among India’s Best CIOs. At Maxiom Wealth, he combines AI-powered insights with a client-first approach to deliver personalized wealth-building strategies. Outside work, he’s passionate about yoga, Advaita philosophy, and Himalayan trekking.
