Fasanara Capital’s Open Quant fund continued its strong start to 2026, delivering an estimated net return of 1.5% in May and taking year-to-date gains to 6.7%.
Since inception, the strategy has generated annualised net returns of 10.8%. Last month saw $52m added to the fund, taking the AuM to $150m.
The fund’s performance comes as investor demand for quantitative and multi-manager strategies continues to grow amid heightened uncertainty around interest rates, geopolitics and equity market valuations.
A different approach to multi-manager investing
Unlike traditional multi-strategy hedge funds that allocate capital to large, established portfolio managers, Fasanara Open Quant focuses exclusively on emerging quantitative trading teams. The fund currently allocates risk across 30 independent managers globally, spanning arbitrage, volatility, equity market neutral, quant macro and tactical strategies.
The firm’s investment philosophy is built around the belief that capacity-constrained emerging managers can outperform larger, more established competitors. By identifying specialist teams early and combining their strategies into a single portfolio, Fasanara aims to capture a broader range of uncorrelated alpha streams while avoiding the capacity pressures that can dilute returns at larger firms.
This differs from the model employed by many of the industry’s largest pod shops, which often concentrate capital among larger teams operating within a centralised platform structure. Instead, Fasanara seeks diversification through manager selection and strategy variety, creating a portfolio designed to remain resilient across different market environments.
Growing investor demand
Investor appetite for the strategy appears to be accelerating. The Open Quant fund received its largest monthly inflow on record in May, attracting $52m of new capital. The proceeds were deployed across existing trading teams, while the firm is preparing to add two new managers covering options arbitrage and volatility/global macro strategies.
The strategy forms part of Fasanara Capital’s broader alternatives platform. The London-based firm manages approximately $5.7bn across its businesses, including digital asset strategies and open finance initiatives.
As institutional investors increasingly seek diversification away from traditional equity and bond markets, Fasanara believes its combination of emerging manager selection, quantitative research and low-correlation trading strategies offers a differentiated route to generating returns. With positive performance, growing inflows and a continually evolving manager roster, the firm is positioning Open Quant as an alternative to both traditional hedge funds and the industry’s largest multi-manager platforms.