The little tiny hedge funds managing tens of billions
Hedge fund SurgoCap Partners made the news recently for its assets under management (AuM) reaching $6bn. The most remarkable part of its story, however, is how few people it reached that point with.
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SurgoCap, which was founded by Mala Gaonkar – a rare female hedge fund chief – employed just 24 people, according to its latest form ADV, a US regulatory disclosure. It’s a remarkably efficient firm, and it’s a rare example of a lean hedge fund in an industry generally pushing towards institutionalisation.
Egerton Capital is another. The London-based fund, which was founded in 1994, has around $19.1bn in AuM, and proudly says on its website that it also only has a 13-person investment team. Public disclosures from its subsidiary that appears to employ most people, Egerton Capital Limited, showed 20 total employees for the year ending March 2025.
The Children’s Investment (TCI) Fund Management is another big (pun intended) one. With some $70bn in assets under management, the London-based fund, which was founded and is still run by spiritualist Chris Hohn, has just fifty employees in total, according to its most recent public filings.
The funds above have over $100bn in total assets under management, with a collective 100 or so employees, averaging $1bn in managed assets per employee. It’s vastly more than their multi-strategy rivals, the biggest of which, Millennium and Citadel, employed more than 6,000 and 3,000 employees respectively to manage smaller assets. The two firms averaged around $13m and $20m in assets per employee across 2025.
Working for one of these tiny hedge funds brings benefits. Being so small, you're likely in the same room as someone making massive investment decisions on a daily basis - something likely to be a much rarer occurrence in a Millennium- or Citadel-sized fund. Mentorship and networking are easy access. And not to mention that a smaller team means there are less mouths to feed - and more bonus money to go around.
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