Pictet-Human’s global thematic equities strategy centres on adaptive services in the areas of demographics and technological change. These could be adapting to more transient work; starting families later and living longer; online entertainment, and exercise and dating, the firm said.

The fund is currently registered in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the UK.

It will be led by Alice de Lamaze, supported by investment manager Marien-Baptiste Pouyat and product specialist Gillian Diesen. In line with Pictet AM’s 12 other thematic strategies, the team will adopt an active management process for Pictet-Human, constructing a high-conviction portfolio of companies with high thematic purity.

Head of thematic equities at the Geneva-based bank, Hans Peter Portner, said research of megatrends at the firm has been “pivotal” in identifying long-term investment themes. “Powerful trends of technological progress and commercialisation have contributed towards a repositioning of ‘discretionary’ purchases such as after-school tutoring, content streaming as essential services,” he said.

Mintos
In a Crowdcube campaign that has blown the lights out, peer-to-peer lending platform Mintos has raised €7.2 million attracting more than 7,000 investors and breaking European crowdsourcing records.

The firm has attracted more than 350,000 investors from 90 countries since launching its peer-to-peer lending platform in 2015. the platform allows retail investors to access loans as an alternative investment from selected lending companies with a minimum investment of €10 and low fees. The European loan investing market has grown to around €6.6 billion in the last five years, with fintech accounting for roughly half of the European market.

Mintos CEO and co-founder Martin Sulte said that the campaign was "beyond all our expectations. While we did anticipate our community to engage actively in the campaign, little did we know that we would start breaking records right out of the gate.”

The group said that the majority of the investors came from Germany, Spain, and the Czech Republic, with a significant number from the UK, even though Mintos, based in Latvia's captial Riga, has yet to be launched in the UK. Before the offering, the firm raised €7 million from angel investors, while funding most of its growth through revenues.

Mintos decided to launch a crowdfunding campaign to give platform users a chance of limited ownership, saying that it would continue raising funds through venture capital firms early next year to develop new products.