- Fundraising for Tiger’s three hedge funds has slowed considerably after a year of massive inflows.
- The firm is focusing on creating returns on its existing capital, a strategy that may be paying off.
- At the same time the company continues to raise money for its latest venture capital fund.
For years, Tiger Global, Chase Coleman’s $50 billion investment fund, went on a fundraising tear, raising billions of dollars in fresh capital and dominating the venture ecosystem in the process. Now the firm is pulling back on fundraising for its hedge fund business and focusing on returns, according to SEC filings and a person familiar with the matter.
A spate of recent filings show that three of Tiger’s investment funds have slowed considerably on raising new capital following a year of massive inflows. This includes the firm’s flagship hedge fund as well its crossover fund, created in 2021, which combines Tiger’s public and private investments into a single strategy.
Between July 2022 and July 2023 the Tiger Global fund, the Tiger Global Crossover fund, and the Tiger Global Long Opportunities fund, through their US and Cayman Islands feeder funds, raised about $53 million in total. The same funds raised more than $4 billion over the same period a year earlier.
In one striking example, Tiger’s Crossover fund raised nearly $18 million in new capital since last July for a 0.58% increase year over year. The same fund raised $1.4 billion over the same period a year earlier for a 226% increase.
In another instance, The Tiger Global flagship hedge fund raised just about $13 million since last July, a 0.1% increase, following a blow out fundraising year in which it saw more than $2 billion of inflows, a 19% increase.
After double-digit returns in 2020, Tiger’s hedge fund saw a 56% loss in 2022. Its long-only fund posted a loss of 67%.
A spokesperson for Tiger Global declined to comment for this story.
Tiger is far from the only investment fund that has seen fundraising slow in recent months. Private equity giants Apollo, TPG, and Carlyle have all been forced to moderate fundraising goals. Meanwhile, VC firms Insight Partners and TCV have struggled to hit targets.
Tiger’s three hedge funds are open ended, meaning that they raise capital on a rolling basis and don’t have explicit fundraising targets. However, a person familiar with the matter says that the firm is not actively raising capital for these funds, instead focusing on creating returns on its existing capital.
That strategy may be paying off. After a year of heavy losses, Tiger posted a gain of 15.5% for the first five months of 2023.
The firm is, however, actively fundraising for its 16th dedicated venture capital fund, which recently fell more than $3 billion short of a fundraising target on its first close. Even so, the fund’s $2.7 billion in cash accounted for nearly a quarter of all the venture fundraising that occurred in the first quarter of 2023 and was one of only two billion dollar funds raised in the quarter, according to data from PitchBook.
In addition to its hedge fund business, Tiger Global has been the single biggest investor in venture capital over the past two years, deploying around $20 billion in the space since 2021. The firm pulled back in some of its startup investing but has made it clear that it still intends to back startups going forward. Even so, Tiger has reportedly explored selling off some of its more attractive startup assets on the secondary market in a bid to generate liquidity. Though attractive buyers for those assets appear to be in short supply.
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