NewAlpha 4 Genesis has completed its first closing of $150 million raised from French and Swiss institutional investors. NewAlpha Asset Management is considering a final closing in late July 2011 with an asset target of $250 million.

The fund aims to invest in hedge funds offered by early stage hedge fund managers and structure with those a strategic partnership through an income sharing scheme on one side and support in risk control and fund raising on the other side.

Antoine Rolland, CEO of NewAlpha Asset Management, "despite the cautious attitude of institutional investors towards alternatives, this first achievement confirms the interest of institutional investors for hedge fund seeding. It is also a strong sign of trust for NewAlpha's business model and team because all of our investors of the three previous vintages will be present in NewAlpha Genesis 4. I’m particularly convinced that the recent market developments are reshaping deeply our industry where talented and under-researched investment talents are emerging globally. NewAlpha Asset Management is extremely well positioned to participate to this cycle and to offer its clients an access to this pool of talents through commingled or dedicated portfolios.”

NewAlpha's portfolio research team, which handled more than 300 seeding proposals in 2010, has already identified, selected and entered into preliminary negotiations with several managers offering attractive features, both in terms of future performance and in business development. NewAlpha Genesis 4 will start to deploy capital in Q2 2011.