Echiquier Artificial Intelligence

• ECHIQUIER is the first French management company, the 2nd in Europe, to launch a fund dedicated to artificial intelligence (AI). Why do you think AI is a good investment theme?
The timing is right, the boom in AI is just beginning, and the sources of growth are staggering. The economy has always been driven by innovation. Today, black gold is Big Data. From the largest to the most recent, companies are now able to use data to create added value. AI is a technological revolution that will quickly impact all sectors of the economy. The spread of AI has accelerated as a result of the development of neural networks which endow it with self-learning capabilities. And the AI ​​applications that are proliferating today set this buoyant theme in motion, from autonomous cars to predictive algorithms, including e-health, drones, art and even intelligent agriculture.
• Can you quickly introduce us to Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
Artificial Intelligence is a fund invested worldwide in growth stocks that develop or adopt artificial intelligence (AI). We use semantic algorithms¹ to build a comprehensive international investment universe, then target four profiles of companies within this universe of around 150 companies with market capitalization above 1 billion euros:
AI Vendors : those that change their business model or create new business activities using AI ( like English BLUE PRISM, leader in digital robots) AI Users : those who adopt it to benefit from it without changing their business model (like NETFLIX, leader in streaming, takes advantage of this technology to opyimize productivity) Infrastructure : those who develop physical or digital infrastructure (such as 5G providers, data centers…) AI Enablers : those that facilitate it by providing it with a “brain” and senses (like the graphics cards of the American NVIDIA).
• How do you select the values?
Our conviction management is oriented towards high growth companies. Faithful to the historic stock-picking of ECHIQUIER, which is based on in-depth knowledge of companies, I travel the world to meet entrepreneurs, whether in China, Japan or Silicon Valley to detect those whose growth potential is particularly strong.        
• What investor profile does this fund target?
Artificial Intelligence is intended for all individual and professional investors who wish to diversify their investment universe and invest in a theme of the future and is aimed at those who wish to expose themselves to global growth and innovation.
• Why invest in this Fund?
Artificial Intelligence bets on the companies could invent the tomorrow’s world. The era of AI is just beginning and its contribution to the global economy is estimated, by PwC, at 15.7 trillion dollars by 2030. We are entering another dimension. ECHIQUIER are very happy to allow our customers and partners to expose themselves to this dynamic of pure innovation! Echiquier Artificial Intelligence has a cumulative performance of + 27.4% since its creation on June 20, 2018 (10.8% for its benchmark index, the MSCI World NR EUR) and maximum YTD performance of + 22.3% (17 Feb 2020) share class K ISIN LU1819479939 versus 6.9% index.
The prospects remain promising: under the effect of the proliferation of AI in the global economy, our investment universe is constantly expanding. AI is a universal technology that knows no boundaries, as evidenced by the accelerated development of AI applications in emerging countries. Our investments in Asia Pacific and Latin America have thus increased significantly in recent months. The digital transformation of the economy, of which AI remains the keystone, continues to support the growth of portfolio companies.
• What are the YTD Top Performers?
PING AN HEALTHCARE, a Chinese company whose Good Doctor telemedicine application is the most used in the world with more than 300 million users and more than 656,000 consultations daily! Since the beginning of the coronavirus epidemic, the title has greatly appreciated, reflecting the anticipation of the success of this application by the market and whose use was multiplied by ten during this epidemic. Thanks to its AI and human doctors, this company provides a necessary solution in a country where the average waiting time in the emergency room is 3 hours for an average consultation of 8 minutes.
ALTERYX, first weight in the portfolio, marks our best performance since the start of the year. The American company provides a platform for data preparation, analysis and visualization. This very intuitive platform allows its users to develop their own analysis models, a democratization of data very important for the digital transformation of companies.
¹Algorithm that studies the relationship between signifiers—like words, phrases, signs, and symbols—and what they stand for in reality, their denotation.