Alix Karlan is taking advantage of the renewed appetite for old-school stock pickers.
The former technology sector head for Tom Purcell’s $3 billion hedge fund Alua Capital is planning to launch Otter Rock in the fourth quarter of this year, a person close to the firm told Business Insider. The fund’s commingled vehicle is expected to raise $300 million before launch, and there’s a chance the firm might take on additional capital via a separately managed account, the person said.
Karlan declined to comment.
The new fund will invest in stocks across different sectors, with a focus on companies undergoing technological disruption, the person said. It will be based in Stamford, the Connecticut town that is also the headquarters for Steve Cohen’s Point72 and Paul Tudor Jones’ long-running investment manager.
So far, the firm has hired Dan Beckham as chief operating officer. Beckham, according to his LinkedIn profile, has worked in various executive roles in asset management for decades, most recently as the head of investor relations and business development at private equity firm Saturn V Capital.
Karlan started as an analyst at Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global before going to Stanford Business School. He joined Purcell’s firm in 2015 and worked there until the start of 2024, when he began trading his own capital using the strategy he plans to deploy at Otter Rock.
He’s the latest addition to the extended Tiger Management family tree, which includes big-name managers known as Tiger Cubs, such as Tiger Global, Coatue, Lone Pine, and the aforementioned Viking, as well as funds started by former employees of these managers. Alua, for example, is run by Purcell, a former executive at Viking, and Marco Tablada, a onetime Lone Pine investor.
Despite Julian Robertson, the billionaire founder of the legendary firm, passing away in 2022, his firm is still active and continues his legacy of backing external managers. The Tiger Cubs, started by former analysts of Robertson’s, have spawned the next generation of stockpicking hedge funds, led by Viking in particular.
Former Viking investors who have become founders include Purcell, D1 founder Dan Sundheim, Avala Global founder Divya Nettimi, and Voyager Global founder Grant Wonders. The industry is also closely tracking the progress of former Viking executive Ning Jin’s soon-to-launch firm, Avantyr Capital.
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