Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) refer to government owned investment vehicles that mostly invest abroad to meet some pre-determined macroeconomic objectives. Over the past few years, the number of SWFs and their assets have multiplied. In India too, SWFs have taken several big stakes during the Covid-19 pandemic and become the fourth largest category of foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) among thirty-two categories of FPIs investing in India. They have also expanded their footprint into debt and real estate markets. Despite this, not much is known about their investment activities, primarily owing to lack of data. By analysing multiple resources and databases, this paper seeks to give an overview of SWFs, their evolution, investment activities and associated challenges. We find that commodity exporting nations have been the pioneer of these funds and almost all SWFs have a strong preference for investing in real estate and finance, especially in high-income developed countries. We also discuss the characteristics of Indian SWF, NIIF and how it is different from conventional SWFs. Our paper concludes with a brief discussion on the presence of foreign SWFs in India and the need to further explore the issue in detail.