Tech-focused Whale Rock to reopen fund after gaining 51% in 2024, source says

Celestica

05/12/2024 12:44

By Carolina Mandl
       NEW YORK, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Tech-focused hedge fund
Whale Rock Capital Management is planning to reopen its flagship
fund early next year for between $200 million and $300 million
in new money after a strong performance in 2024, a source
familiar with the matter said.
    The fund, which has roughly $9 billion in assets, seeks to
attract fresh capital as it sees opportunities to invest in
smaller semiconductor and supply chain companies with exposure
to artificial intelligence, the source said. 
    It has been closed to new investments since 2021.
    Whale Rock's flagship fund is up 51% this year through
November, compared to a nearly 28% gain for the S&P 500. 
    The fund posted a 32% gain in 2023. With that, the fund has
largely recovered from back-to-back losses in 2021 and 2022,
when it fell 9% and by more than 40%, respectively.
    The firm, which has placed early bets on how impactful
artificial intelligence could be on technology, was founded in
2006 by Alexander Sacerdote, a veteran investor in semiconductor
and hardware firms and a former tech portfolio manager at
Fidelity Investments. 
    Whale Rock’s winners this year include long positions in
some of the so-called Magnificent Seven stocks, such as Nvidia
 NVDA.O  and Amazon  AMZN.O , as well as electronic equipment
company Celestica  CLS.TO , mobile gaming ad platform AppLovin
 APP.O , education tech company Duolingo  DUOL.O  and AI-server
maker Super Micro Computer  SMCI.O .
    In November, the hedge fund was up 8.3%, while its long-only
fund gained 10.6% last month and is up 52% on the year.
    Several multibillion-dollar hedge funds gained in November,
riding the volatility of the U.S. presidential election despite
tight polling that made positioning more challenging for
portfolio managers, Reuters reported earlier.

 (Reporting by Carolina Mandl in New York; editing by Ira
Iosebashvili and Jason Neely)
 ((carolina.mandl@thomsonreuters.com; +1 (917) 891-4931;))