Quona Capital has raised $141 million for its Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund focused on startups developing solutions for the underserved in emerging markets; investors in the $141 million funding round included Accion, MasterCard and JPMorgan Chase; other existing investors in the fund also include MetLife, TIAA Investments and the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group; current Fund investments include Coins, Konfio and Creditas. Source
VPC Specialty Lending has released its January monthly report which shows balance sheet investments increasing to 58% of the fund's net asset value; 19 of the firm's 24 platform investments are now balance sheet focused; balance sheet investments in January included Cognical and Kueski; balance sheet investments over the past twelve months have been successful with balance sheet loans returning 5.6% while marketplace loans returned -0.8%. Source
Andy Rachleff, CEO of Wealthfront, makes the case for automated advice and technology powered software; reports that Wealthfront's new system, Path, can analyze a client's spending and savings preferences through access to their accounts, creating financial plans in minutes; Wealthfront also has plans for adding artificial intelligence solutions to improve its services. Source
Sentient Technologies has been developing an AI powered hedge fund for over a decade; Co-Founder Babak Hodjat has played a significant part in developing the company's AI powered system; Hodjat has 21 patents and his experience also includes development support for Apple's virtual assistant Siri; while many firms in the hedge fund space have been utilizing AI, Sentient is one of the only firms to build their entire business around it; the firm's AI system can analyze billions of data points, spot trends and adapt as it learns; in addition to developing investment decisions the AI system also facilitates trades which helps investment opportunities to be identified and acted upon faster; according to Hodjat, the vast amounts of publicly available data in the financial industry make AI ideal for investment management; the Sentient portfolio is highly diversified with a wide range of US stocks and trades hundreds of times per day; while the firm is becoming more well known for its AI focus it has yet to publicly disclose its performance; the company has received approximately $143 million and is owned by Li Ka-shing, and the Tata Group. Source
China has developed a new Chinese village called Yuhuang Shannan which it has designed for the hedge fund community; a quiet village an hour from Shanghai offers a newly designed community tailored to the hedge fund industry with local office space, an elementary and an after work club for financiers; the number of hedge funds has been increasing in China and 1,000 hedge funds and private equity funds are registered in the village with assets under management of approximately 580 billion yuan ($84 billion); it's likely that hedge funds could become more prevalent in China and the village is receiving ongoing support from the government which currently includes a 30% tax bill subsidy. Source
Income& has developed a new real estate investment product, the Prime-Rated Individual Mortgage-Backed Obligation (PRIMO) and is one of LendIt's finalists for the 2017 Emerging Real Estate Platform award; the product allows investors to invest in secured mortgage loans and targets yields of 6% or more; it is open for investment to accredited investors and investment advisers and the firm also has plans to offer the product to all investors. Source
P2P Finance News provides details on how six of the industry's top funds have performed over the past year; their analysis includes performance for P2P Global Investments, SME Loan Fund, Ranger Direct Lending, Funding Circle SME Income Fund, VPC Specialty Lending and Honeycomb Investment Trust; performance from Ranger Direct Lending leads the group of funds with an NAV total return over the past year of 19.9%. Source
Wealth advisor Snowden Lane has partnered with Artivest to offer investors easier access to private equity and hedge fund investments; Snowden Lane is an independent wealth advisor with no proprietary product offerings; through the partnership, Artivest will now be the firm's main provider of private equity and hedge fund investments; Artivest provides a curated platform of hedge funds and private equity investments. Source
Several investment funds are reporting lower returns for 2016 including Lending Club's LC Advisors and Colchis Capital Management; both reported their lowest returns since launching in 2011; Lending Club's LC Advisors returned 1.83% in 2016, down from 5.76% in 2015 and 8.02% in 2014 reports the Wall Street Journal; Colchis's P2P Income Funds returned 6.2% in 2016; in the previous four years Colchis returned 9% to investors; higher defaults across higher risk loans have affected the performance; other publicly traded funds invested in marketplace lending have also struggled. Source
P2P Global Investments' shares fell 20.7% on the London Stock Exchange in 2016; the fund's portfolio manager Simon Champ provides some insight on the fund's performance; the underlying assets reported a lower than expected 4.1% return due to increased delinquencies from loans at the midpoint of their duration; hedging costs have also been a factor with approximately 60% of US loans in the portfolio; as the investable market expands the fund is likely to increase its investment in European loans to help diversify away from currency risks. Source