What iQuant Fund built
iQuant Fund Ltd made AI-assisted software that helped institutions research shares and trade them systematically. Systematic here means decisions follow rules worked out from data, rather than calls made trade by trade.
Its models combined Modern Portfolio Theory with machine learning. That theory, a standard part of finance, looks at expected return and risk across a whole portfolio and treats diversification as a way to manage risk. The Sharpe ratio, which weighs return against volatility, belongs to the same family of ideas.
The software produced three kinds of output:
- Momentum signals. These pick up shares whose price trend has persisted. The idea behind momentum is that trends can carry on for a time before they fade.
- Market regimes. These class conditions as trending, ranging or volatile. Regimes matter because an approach that suits a trending market can struggle when prices move sideways.
- Portfolio diagnostics. These test how a set of holdings is put together and how it behaves.
The software tracked roughly 5,000 equities listed on over 20 exchanges. Early work centred on the Australian Securities Exchange, before adding Hong Kong, NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange. Campbell's note on trending, ranging and volatile markets explains the regime idea in plain terms.
Why institutions use systematic tools
A rules-based process lets a team apply the same method to thousands of shares at once, rather than reading each chart by hand. It can be tested against past data before any money is committed. It also makes a strategy easier to explain and review, because the rules are written down.
Those are general features of systematic investing. They are not claims about iQuant's own results.
How iQuant Fund started
The business grew from a group of traders keen to automate strategies they already ran by hand. Speaking to Kanebridge News in 2024, Campbell described the routine they wanted to escape:
"We often found ourselves juggling multiple screens, analyzing vast amounts of data, and spending countless hours away from our families."
The answer was to give that routine to software. Campbell's interest in the approach went back to Alan Masters, a subscription product offering technical analysis of crypto trading pairs, which he ran with Hong Kong partners in 2016 and 2017. That work first got him thinking about software, not people, making trading decisions.
Adrian Campbell's role at iQuant Fund
Campbell co-founded iQuant Fund Ltd alongside Jason Noorman and other partners in February 2021. He served as the company's Chairman, heading its board, and Kanebridge interviewed him in that role.
Campbell is not a programmer. His own background is in sales, capital raising and property investment. Much of his recent work centres on software that saves people manual effort, and iQuant applied that idea to markets. Noorman is also one of his co-founders at the property marketplace Kinnara.
Where iQuant fits in his career
iQuant is one of three ventures of his that lean on software. Alan Masters came before it. Kinnara started in the same year and lets buyers search 76 property portals at once. The common thread is using data to cut the manual work behind a decision. His other companies are listed on the companies page.
AWS Activate and Nvidia Inception
iQuant Fund was enrolled in two programmes run by large technology companies:
- AWS Activate, the start-up programme of Amazon Web Services
- Nvidia Inception, Nvidia's programme for AI start-ups
Through them, the company gained access to cloud computing and GPU resources for training its models. Training machine-learning models takes a great deal of computing power, and that is the kind of support these programmes give start-ups.
iQuant Fund Series A
In August 2024, iQuant Fund said it had closed a Series A funding round. It did not say how much was raised. Coverage of the announcement ran in The AI Insider and The Globe and Mail.
The release described the product, and the goal behind it, in these words:
"Our AI trading product is a sophisticated tool that provides financial institutions with the ability to make highly informed trading decisions."
"Our vision is to redefine institutional trading through the power of AI."
The Kanebridge Quarterly feature
Kanebridge News published its interview with Campbell on 4 June 2024, titled "The Evolution of iQuant.fund: A Quantum AI Powerhouse in Financial Markets". The piece also appeared in print in Kanebridge Quarterly.
In the same interview, Campbell offered this view:
"My advice would be to focus on innovation and never stop learning... embrace new ideas, and be willing to adapt your strategies as needed."
The feature and other coverage are listed on the news page.
Who iQuant Fund served
iQuant worked for institutions only. Its clients were funds, allocators, proprietary trading teams and family offices. It did not sell its products to retail investors or members of the public.
This page makes no claims about performance, returns or valuation. The company's own site is iquant.fund, and the rest of Campbell's career is covered in his full profile.
Nothing on this page is financial advice.