5 years of FS Exponential Technologies Fund: Successful tech investments beyond big tech

The FS Exponential Technologies Fund of FERI (Schweiz) AG celebrated its fifth anniversary in July. On its anniversary (as at 01.07.2024), the fund posted an impressive year-to-date performance of +15.71% and a performance since inception of +84%. Since its launch in 2019, the fund's investment volume has consistently exceeded EUR 100 million. It currently stands at around EUR 130 million.

FS Exponential Technologies invests worldwide in companies that specialize in exponential technologies. These are key drivers of advancing digitalization and include future areas such as artificial intelligence, cyber security, robotics, virtual reality, autonomous driving and the Internet of Things, all of which offer enormous growth potential. A special feature of the equity fund is that the portfolio management team specializes in the analysis and selection of companies from the second tier of the technology sector. "We deliberately avoid big tech, as most investors already have this in their portfolio. Instead, we look for tech companies that are ideally positioned to advance the major technological topics of tomorrow," says Philipp Bolliger, portfolio manager of the fund. FS Exponential Technologies is therefore an ideal complement to existing technology investments, but can also be used as a stand-alone solution without any problems. The fund is very popular with professional investors who are looking for an investment in the global technology markets outside the mainstream. It is crucial for the selection of individual stocks that the companies are pioneers of exponentially applicable technology, have network effects and have decreasing marginal costs.

Stability, performance and security thanks to the 3-pillar principle

The equity fund is based on three pillars: The first pillar comprises stable and established companies as the core investment, in which half of the portfolio is invested. The second pillar consists of smaller companies with high growth potential, which also make up 50% of the portfolio as an opportunistic investment. The third pillar is a tactical hedge in difficult market phases, which helps to minimize potential losses. This three-pillar principle gives the portfolio stability and significantly reduces volatility compared to the broad market, while at the same time maintaining a high return potential.

"FERI (Schweiz) AG, with its focus on individual stocks in thematic investments, represents an important building block in our multi-asset investment approach, which will be further expanded within the Group in the future. The Exponential Technologies fund concept shows how investment management from Switzerland enables all FERI Group clients to successfully benefit from the future trend of technology within our investment process, even beyond the well-known market heavyweights," says Dr. Marcel V. Lähn, Member of the Management Board and Chief Investment Officer at FERI AG.

Peter Wittich, CEO of FERI (Schweiz) AG, adds: "I am very pleased that with our single stock-focused expertise in Switzerland we are a central element in the integral investment process of the entire FERI Group and that with Exponential Technologies we have already been able to successfully make the future trend of technology investable for our clients over the last five years."