Unifi Asset Management, the hedge fund launched by former One William Street partner Omer Gundogdu, has surpassed $1bn in assets under management less than a year after beginning to trade, marking a rare fundraising success for a newly established manager, according to a report by Bloomberg.
The New York-based firm, which began trading in February 2025 with approximately $400m, has more than doubled its assets to around $1.1bn, according to people familiar with the matter. One of Unifi’s cornerstone investors is the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board, alongside New Holland Capital.
The milestone places Unifi among a small cohort of hedge funds launched over the past year that have managed to exceed the $1bn threshold, despite a challenging capital-raising environment. Pension funds and endowments have generally been cautious in backing new managers, with most large allocations directed toward established mult-istrategy platforms.
Instead, many portfolio managers have opted to run capital within multi-manager “pod shop” structures. Against that backdrop, Unifi’s rapid asset growth highlights continued investor appetite for specialist strategies with experienced leadership teams.
The firm runs a relative-value credit strategy focused on trading dislocations between credit derivatives. Since inception, the fund is understood to be up around 10 per cent, the people said.
Unifi’s growth mirrors that of a handful of other recently launched hedge funds that have reached scale quickly. These include Harvey Capital Partners, founded by King Street Capital Management alumnus Paul Goldschmid, which raised $1.8bn, and Avantyr Capital Partners, led by former Viking Global Investors CIO Ning Jin, which has gathered approximately $1.5bn.
Gundogdu spent more than 16 years at One William Street, where he helped build the firm’s $1.4bn relative-value credit derivatives business and became a partner. One William Street is known for its focus on asset-backed and structured credit strategies.
Unifi currently employs around 30 staff and is headquartered in New York.
