How do you start your own hedge fund?

Answer - Hedge Hogging

Assuming you don't already have connection to seed capital, according to many of the wisest, and most successful hedge fund managers in the world, the fastest, and most realistic way, is to first start your own business, make enough seed money (25M) minimum to start your on proprietary fund (many legal ways to easily create the actual hedge fund) implement your particular investment objective (macro, arbitrage, long/short, etc.), string together a 5 year market beating track history, and the money will find you.

Pick up a copy of Hedge Hogging by Barton Biggs and Inside the House of Money by Steven Drobny for recent accounts of the inside goings on and the challenges of raising money without "connections"

Hedge Fund Seed Capital

Hedge Fund Seed capital is the money a hedge fund tries to raise to launch or within it's first year of operating to try to "get it off the ground" and hopefully raise enough assets to appear respectable to initial investors and provide initial momentum towards breaking even as a business. Hedge fund seed capital is in high demand, there are literally hundreds of investment groups looking for it right now and only three or four handfuls will receive any significant amount of it. Some hedge funds are seeded with as little as $500,00 while others receive up to $350M. From my experience I would guess that 68% of first year hedge fund seed capital levels range from $3M to $25M.

Hedge Fund Seed Capital Sources

• Hedge Fund Seed Capital Source #1: High Net Worth individuals (accredited investors) who are familiar with your trading skills, past portfolio management experience, or clearly understand your competitive advantage in the marketplace.
  
• Hedge Fund Seed Capital Source #2: Family & Friends who are accredited investors.
  
• Hedge Fund Seed Capital Source #3: Private Equity Firms. Many private equity funds have jumped into the space of seeding hedge funds and many will in turn work on raising assets for your fund once it will benefit both your fund and themselves.
• Hedge Fund Seed Capital Source #3: Hedge Funds. Some hedge funds have huge amounts of free cash flow and are looking for ways to re-invest it within strategies they understand and do not directly compete with products that they plan to create on their own.

First answer by ID1199961125. Last edit by RichardWilsonHedgeFundBlog. Contributor trust: 12 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 31 [recommend question]