Small Hedge Funds Get Dating Service

(May 23, 2012)  —  A hedge fund seeding firm has created a forum for start-up funds to tap institutional investors who have been increasingly favouring larger players in the sector.

The IMQ Capital Introduction Network has been created by IMQubator, a platform that directs start-up capital to fledgling hedge funds. Funding of €250 million for that initial project was injected by Dutch pension investor APG in 2009.

Jeroen Tielman, CEO and Founder of IMQubator, said: “In introducing the global institutional industry to the new generation of hedge funds, IMQ has taken the inventive step of creating a proprietary, online intermediary network, whereby chosen agents can promote our underlying managers to their respective investor contacts.”

The platform will ‘host’ new funds and connect them with potential institutional investors through a network of advisers.

Tielman said the structure of the network would ensure streamlining and transparency throughout the process and a number of “best-of-breed agents” were already on board.

Although inflows have strengthened to the hedge fund sector, small companies have struggled since the financial crisis, with new investor money mainly heading to larger firms.

In the first quarter of this year $18.3 billion was allocated to firms managing over $5 billion while firms managing less than $5 billion saw almost a combined $2 billion in outflows, Hedge Fund Review said last month.

The IMQ Capital Introduction Network will also act as a physical office for these new firms. Fund managers will share headquarters in Amsterdam, interact and be monitored by the ‘incubator’ and their peers.