When start-up investor Frank Thelen launched his fund for private investors, he promised high profits. However, the interim balance after one year is quite disappointing.
The announcement was optimistic, the result so far sobering. At the beginning of September last year, the investor Frank Thelen launched an equity fund for private investors - with the somewhat awkward name "10xDNA Capital Partners - Disruptive Technologies". The interim balance after one year: The fund has lost around 36 percent in value.
At the start, Thelen promised that in "four to eight years the money would have roughly tripled". To achieve this, Thelen's investment firm invests in tech companies that she believes will grow exponentially. It's about the Teslas and Bitcoins of tomorrow, according to Thelen. Future topics include quantum computers, 3D printing, artificial intelligence and blockchain. But so far nothing has come of the hoped-for profits.
"The start was unfortunate in terms of timing. We are all not happy that we are going through times like this," said Thelen in an interview with "Capital". The whole market has come down massively. But he believes more than ever "in the core of these companies - i.e. that they can develop exponentially".
Price losses on the stock exchanges are currently not the exception, but rather the rule. In the past few months, tech stocks in particular have plummeted after a long high. But Thelen's fund developed even worse than the market.
The world's leading index, the Nasdaq 100, which contains the most important US tech stocks, has lost around 19 percent since September last year. The Nasdaq Next Generation Index, which includes the following 100 companies, fell by almost 27 percent. Those are big losses, but they are smaller than "10xDNA Capital Partners - Disruptive Technologies".
So anyone who invested in corresponding ETFs that stubbornly map an index did better than with Thelen. In addition, the fees for automated ETFs are much lower than for actively managed funds. Although not all providers have to pay an issue surcharge for the Thelen fund, there is still an annual management fee of 1.8 percent - no matter how good or bad the performance is.
