Hedge fund demographics statistics show a market that expanded substantially from 2012 through 2023, while ownership remained concentrated among non-diverse firms. The available data also describes manager size, location, age, operating breakeven points, and fee patterns, but it does not provide a complete demographic census of individual employees or investors.
Contents
- Market size and adviser counts
- Registered investment advisers
- Exempt reporting advisers
- Ownership diversity and assets
- Manager size, age, and geography
- Operating scale and fees
Market size and adviser counts
The SEC Investment Adviser Statistics, 2024 series separates hedge fund reporting into registered investment advisers (RIAs) and exempt reporting advisers (ERAs). These are different reporting populations, so their asset totals and counts should not be combined as though they represented one unduplicated market total.
For RIAs, gross assets increased from $4.555 trillion in 2012 to $10.469 trillion in 2023. The number of RIA-advised hedge funds moved from 9,712 to 11,295 over the same period. The asset series therefore grew much faster than the fund count series, although the figures do not establish why that difference occurred.
ERA-reported gross assets rose from $0.688 trillion in 2012 to $2.601 trillion in 2023. The number of ERAs reporting hedge funds increased from 1,260 to 2,179. ERAs consequently became a larger reported population in both asset value and adviser count over the period covered by the series.
| Reporting population | 2012 assets | 2023 assets | 2012 count | 2023 count |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RIA-advised hedge funds | $4.555 trillion | $10.469 trillion | 9,712 funds | 11,295 funds |
| ERAs reporting hedge funds | $0.688 trillion | $2.601 trillion | 1,260 ERAs | 2,179 ERAs |
Source: [SEC Investment Adviser Statistics, 2024] (source label supplied with the statistics). The series preserves the original measurement years and reporting categories; it should not be read as a complete count of every hedge fund worldwide.
Registered investment advisers
RIA-advised hedge fund gross assets rose in most years from 2012 through 2023, with one visible decline in 2022 before a new high in 2023. The annual figures were $4.555 trillion in 2012, $5.303 trillion in 2013, $5.929 trillion in 2014, and $5.928 trillion in 2015. Assets then reached $6.356 trillion in 2016 and $7.125 trillion in 2017.
The series recorded $7.250 trillion in 2018, $8.033 trillion in 2019, and $8.688 trillion in 2020. RIA-advised gross assets reached $9.577 trillion in 2021, declined to $9.355 trillion in 2022, and rose to $10.469 trillion in 2023. These are gross-asset figures, not performance returns or net asset flows.
The number of RIA-advised hedge funds was 9,712 in 2012 and 10,117 in 2013. It reached 10,419 in 2014 and 10,599 in 2015, followed by 10,632 in 2016. The count was 10,478 in 2017, 10,660 in 2018, and 10,606 in 2019.
The count rose to 10,718 in 2020 and 11,221 in 2021. It reached 11,671 in 2022 before falling to 11,295 in 2023. The year-to-year movement indicates that fund counts and reported gross assets did not move in lockstep.
Exempt reporting advisers
ERA-reported hedge fund gross assets were $0.688 trillion in 2012 and $0.773 trillion in 2013. They reached $0.910 trillion in 2014 and $1.039 trillion in 2015, then rose to $1.101 trillion in 2016 and $1.228 trillion in 2017.
The series recorded $1.616 trillion in 2018, followed by $1.553 trillion in 2019. Assets increased to $2.013 trillion in 2020, edged down to $1.971 trillion in 2021, and reached $2.021 trillion in 2022. The 2023 figure was $2.601 trillion.
The number of ERAs reporting hedge funds rose from 1,260 in 2012 to 1,389 in 2013 and 1,483 in 2014. It reached 1,602 in 2015, was 1,571 in 2016, and stood at 1,601 in 2017. The count then increased to 1,665 in 2018, 1,760 in 2019, and 1,837 in 2020.
There were 2,071 ERAs reporting hedge funds in 2021, 2,139 in 2022, and 2,179 in 2023. As with the RIA series, the count describes reporting entities in the cited classification and does not by itself identify the number of portfolio managers, employees, or owners.
Ownership diversity and assets
Knight Foundation’s Diversity of Asset Managers Research Series: Industry 2021 provides a different view of hedge fund demographics. Its asset-manager diversity sample covered $82.24 trillion of assets under management, and only 1.4% of total sampled U.S.-based AUM was managed by diverse-owned firms as of September 2021.
Within the same study, hedge funds represented 1.1% of total sampled AUM. Across the full sample, 89.8% was non-diverse-owned. For hedge-fund firms specifically, 9.3% were minority-owned and 3.9% were women-owned.
The hedge-fund AUM shares were 0.4% for minority-owned firms and 0.6% for women-owned firms. These ownership shares and AUM shares measure different things: the first describes the share of firms in the hedge-fund sample, while the second describes the share of hedge-fund assets attributed to those ownership categories.
Knight reported hedge-fund AUM growth CAGRs from 2011 to 2020 of 8.5% for women-owned firms, 6.6% for minority-owned firms, and 0.1% for non-diverse firms. A CAGR describes the average annualized growth rate over that historical interval; it does not forecast future growth.
The study set diversity benchmarks at 38.4% minorities and 50.8% female using the 2020 U.S. Census. Those benchmarks are reference points based on the U.S. population, not estimates of hedge-fund ownership or workforce composition. The study’s sample and its September 2021 measurement date should remain attached to every comparison.
Manager size, age, and geography
AIMA’s Hedge Fund Manager Survey 2018 covered 155 respondent managers with $402 billion in total AUM. The median AUM was $235 million. Sixty-five percent of respondents were emerging managers with less than $500 million in AUM.
Half of the AIMA respondent managers had been established for more than five years, while 11% described themselves as start-ups. None of the respondents calling themselves start-ups managed more than $70 million. These figures describe the survey respondents and should not be generalized to all hedge funds.
The geographic distribution of respondents was 36% in the UK, 22% in North America, 23% in Asia-Pacific, 14% in Europe excluding the UK, and 6% in the rest of the world. The categories add to the full respondent distribution reported by AIMA, but they describe manager headquarters or survey classification rather than investor domicile.
| AIMA respondent characteristic | Reported statistic |
|---|---|
| Total respondent managers | 155 |
| Total respondent AUM | $402 billion |
| Median respondent AUM | $235 million |
| Emerging managers under $500 million | 65% |
| Managers established over five years | 50% |
| Managers identifying as start-ups | 11% |
| Start-ups managing more than $70 million | 0% |
Source: [AIMA Hedge Fund Manager Survey 2018] (source label supplied with the statistics). The survey is a 2018 respondent sample, not a current market census.
Operating scale and fees
AIMA reported an average breakeven point of $85 million for start-up and emerging managers. For firms managing $500 million to $1 billion, the average breakeven point was $176 million. The two figures show how the reported operating scale associated with breakeven varied by manager category in that survey.
Average management fees differed by respondent geography. Europe excluding the UK recorded 1.50%, the UK 1.42%, the rest of the world 1.39%, Asia-Pacific 1.27%, and North America 1.25%. These are survey averages, not universal fee schedules or current fee quotations.
Among emerging managers, AIMA reported average performance fees of 17.1% for equity long/short managers, 15.7% for event-driven managers, and 16.7% for fixed income/credit managers. Multi-strategy managers averaged 18.1%, CTA/futures managers 16.3%, and global macro managers 19.0%.
| Emerging-manager strategy | Average performance fee |
|---|---|
| Global macro | 19.0% |
| Multi-strategy | 18.1% |
| Equity long/short | 17.1% |
| Fixed income/credit | 16.7% |
| CTA/futures | 16.3% |
| Event-driven | 15.7% |
The fee results are part of AIMA’s 2018 survey context, alongside its respondent mix, regional categories, and manager-size definitions. They should not be treated as evidence that every strategy or region uses the same terms.