The Fortera Frontier Fund is managed by the house's own institutional investment desk, running a proprietary systematic strategy with institutional discipline. Around that engine sits a standard: a transparent sustainability screen that decides what the fund's capital may own — companies working on the century's hardest problems, chosen as a matter of conviction about what deserves capital, never as a forecast that they will outperform. One strategy, one screen, one reporting standard.
Returns are attributed to the systematic process — the desk's discipline, applied without sentiment — never to the themes the fund invests in. Values are a standard applied to the universe, not a property of the strategy: they tell you what we are willing to own, not why we expect to perform.
The strategy is run inside the house by Fortera's own institutional investment desk — not introduced from a third-party manager. The capability is proprietary, and it is ours to speak for: one team, one process, one line of accountability to the client.
Positions are taken by a proprietary systematic process — rules-driven, repeatable, and indifferent to narrative. The committee's role is supervision and risk control, not stock-picking by conviction. Discipline, not sentiment, is the product.
Energy, food, water, materials, cities, resilience — the fund's universe is drawn from the companies working on the century's hardest problems. That is a selection standard, held as conviction about what deserves capital. It is disclosed, screened and independently assured — and it is never offered as the reason the strategy performs.
The strategy operates today on a US large-capitalisation systematic universe; the broader, fully screened thematic universe arrives as that capability lands, and we say so. A disclosed roadmap is a strength — a hidden gap is a liability.
Eight thematic sub-funds, each mapped to one of the largest problems the world is working to solve — energy, food, mobility, materials, cities, water, and the technologies that measure and mend. The themes define what the Fortera Frontier Fund is willing to own; the desk's systematic process governs how positions are taken within them. Clients may hold the full Fortera Frontier Fund as a single blended mandate, or weight their allocation toward the sub-funds that match their conviction and time horizon, with rebalancing conducted quarterly alongside the Consortium's investment committee review. Each sub-fund is managed to its own risk budget, yet reports through one unified statement — a single asset management relationship spanning eight distinct themes.
Breakthrough renewable energy technologies — R&D, generation, distribution and storage, including grid-scale storage, next-generation solar and long-duration battery chemistries approaching commercial maturity.
Companies enabling a truly renewable food system, from transition leaders to critical farming technology — precision agriculture, soil regeneration, alternative proteins and the supply-chain infrastructure that supports them at scale.
Alternatives to high-emission materials and the technology needed to improve housing and infrastructure, spanning low-carbon cement and steel substitutes, retrofit technology and next-generation building efficiency systems.
Technologies and brands reducing the environmental impact of transport and global mobility, from electrified fleets and charging infrastructure to sustainable aviation fuels and maritime decarbonisation.
Technologies helping consumer goods and services cut environmental impact, cradle-to-cradle — recycled and recyclable materials, reuse platforms, and the reverse-logistics infrastructure that makes circularity commercially viable.
Carbon management, direct air capture, eDNA monitoring, robotics and AI for a regenerative economy — the enabling layer of instrumentation and analytics that verifies impact across every other sub-fund.
Companies helping humanity adapt as climate risk and resource scarcity accelerate — flood defence, water security, climate-resilient infrastructure and parametric risk-transfer solutions.
Investments in water treatment, desalination, watershed restoration and the natural-capital markets emerging around biodiversity credits and ecosystem-service accounting.
Indicative terms: 2% annual management fee plus 20% performance fee over a fixed 5% hurdle, with a high-water mark, quarterly dealing (last business day) and a minimum holding period, subject to final fund documentation and regulatory approval. Allocations are accepted in sterling, dollars or euros, with sub-fund weightings adjustable at each liquidity window subject to committee notice periods.
A fund-of-sub-funds, not a single blended pool — each thematic mandate is its own segregated portfolio with its own NAV, its own risk budget and its own line of underlying holdings. The master vehicle exists to aggregate subscriptions, allocate them across the eight sub-funds per the client's instruction, and consolidate reporting — it does not itself take investment views.
Hover or focus a sub-fund below for its mandate
Each sub-fund is valued independently by the fund administrator, which strikes a Net Asset Value per unit at each quarterly dealing point using independent pricing sources for listed holdings and periodic third-party valuations for private positions. Assets are held by a depositary, separate from the manager, which is responsible for safekeeping of custody assets and cash-flow monitoring — the structural separation that means the manager can never simply move client assets. An independent custodian sits beneath the depositary for the physical or electronic safekeeping of securities. Rebalancing across the eight sub-funds happens at each liquidity window, when the investment committee reviews target weightings against actual weightings and instructs subscriptions or redemptions between sub-funds to bring the blended mandate back within its stated tolerance bands, rather than through continuous secondary-market trading.
Liquidity is managed through gating: because several sub-funds hold private placements and direct co-investments that cannot be sold at short notice, redemption requests in any single dealing period are capped as a percentage of sub-fund NAV. If redemption requests exceed that cap, they are met pro-rata and the balance is carried to the following window — a mechanism that protects remaining investors from a fire-sale of illiquid positions to meet a run of redemptions, and is disclosed in full in the fund's offering documentation before any subscription is accepted.
The performance fee is not simply 20% of profit — it is paid through a waterfall. Investors first receive their capital back, then a preferred return equal to the hurdle rate before any performance fee accrues. Only above that hurdle does a catch-up tranche allow the manager to close the gap to its full 20% carry; beyond the catch-up, profit splits 80/20 in the investors' favour. A high-water mark then ensures that if a sub-fund falls in value after a performance fee has been earned, no further fee is charged until the NAV per unit has recovered above its previous peak — the manager cannot earn a fee twice on the same gain.
Conviction should never cost you the choice. Every client is underwritten with the same institutional discipline — the same research, the same committee, the same risk budgeting. What differs is only whether the sustainability screen is applied.
Every position held to a disclosed, independently assured screening standard — the companies working on the problems we believe deserve capital. This is where the house's own conviction sits, and the mandate most of our clients choose, because they share our view of what their capital should own. The screen sets the standard; the desk's systematic process delivers the returns.
For clients who would rather invest without the values constraint, Fortera runs an unconstrained conventional mandate (provisional — structure and terms subject to confirmation). The same desk, the same systematic discipline and risk framework — simply without the sustainability screen. No standard is forced on you; the choice, and the reporting, are always yours.
Most clients blend the two — a screened core in the Fortera Frontier Fund, an unconstrained sleeve alongside it. Our house view is plain: the screen expresses what we believe capital should own, and it is where our own conviction sits — it is a standard we hold, not a prediction of relative performance. Capital at risk; the value of investments can fall as well as rise.
Fortera Nova
A disciplined, repeatable process — every candidate assessed on financial merit and screened against the fund's disclosed sustainability standard before a single pound is committed. The same seven stages apply whether the opportunity is a listed equity, a private placement or an infrastructure co-investment, so the standard of scrutiny never bends to the size or speed of the deal.
Screen public and private markets for companies and instruments aligned with the Frontier's transition themes, drawing on proprietary sector mapping and the Consortium's own network of operators and founders.
Score every candidate against the fund's minimum screening threshold, verified against third-party data rather than issuer self-disclosure wherever an independent source exists.
Qualitative and quantitative analysis feeding a risk-adjusted returns model specific to each thematic strategy, stress-tested against downside scenarios before any position is sized.
Independent sign-off before any capital is committed or strategy deployed, with a standing right of challenge on any position that concentrates risk beyond mandate limits.
Execution via listed strategy for public markets, and direct allocation for private opportunities, with position sizing calibrated to the liquidity profile of the underlying sub-fund.
Financial performance, screening disclosures and the underlying company narratives, delivered together, every quarter — the same cadence and format across every sub-fund, so performance is always legible.
Positions are re-scored against the Real ESG threshold on a rolling basis; any holding that drifts below the minimum is flagged to committee for divestment review.
Photography — Basile Morin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The principles below are not marketing language — they are the operating constraints written into the fund's own governance documents, binding on the investment committee regardless of market conditions.
No self-certification. Every holding is scored against our Real ESG threshold by process, not by press release, using independent data providers wherever an issuer's own disclosures cannot be corroborated.
Independent committee sign-off before a pound moves — the same rigour a pension fund would demand of its managers, with a documented dissent process should any member object to a proposed allocation.
Return and consequence, side by side, every quarter. If a number cannot be shown, it is not claimed — the same standard of evidence applies to a return figure as to any screening claim.
No single position may exceed a defined share of any sub-fund's net asset value, regardless of conviction — a structural limit on the damage any one thesis can do if it proves wrong.
Clients define how much of their portfolio sits inside the sustainability screen — and can recalibrate that position as conviction, or liquidity needs, evolve. The classification below follows the SFDR framework used by European regulators, giving clients a common, auditable language for how their capital is screened. It describes what a portfolio is willing to own; it says nothing about how any tier will perform.
Assets held outside the values screen, with sustainability risk integrated into the investment decision and disclosed — excluded only for what they fail to avoid, not for what they actively contribute.
SFDR — Article 6Assets inside the screen, promoting environmental or social characteristics with the proportion of the portfolio meeting them disclosed holding by holding. This is the posture the screen, as operated today, most naturally supports.
SFDR — Article 8Assets where sustainable investment is the stated objective of the investment itself — a materially higher bar. Fortera treats this classification as aspirational, pending compliance review; no holding is labelled Article 9 until it clears that review.
SFDR — Article 9 (aspirational)Most client portfolios sit across the spectrum rather than in a single tier — a core of Article 6 holdings for stability and liquidity, with a majority weighting in Article 8 strategies. Any Article 9 classification is treated as aspirational pending compliance review; the exact label is a compliance decision, not a marketing one.
Under the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, Article 6, 8 and 9 are not marketing labels a manager chooses freely — each carries binding pre-contractual disclosure obligations. An Article 6 product simply discloses how sustainability risks are integrated into the investment decision, without promoting any environmental or social characteristic. An Article 8 product must promote such characteristics and disclose, holding by holding, the proportion of the portfolio meeting them. An Article 9 product must have sustainable investment as its objective — a materially higher bar, requiring every holding to qualify as a "sustainable investment" under the regulation's own three-part test: it contributes to an environmental or social objective, it does no significant harm to any other objective, and the investee company follows good governance practice.
The test that separates genuine Article 9 conviction from adjacent Article 8 exposure is additionality — whether the investment causes an outcome that would not otherwise have occurred, whether by financing a company or project that could not otherwise access capital on the same terms, or by exercising active ownership to change behaviour that would not have changed regardless. A profitable, already-well-capitalised renewables developer earning revenue from assets built a decade ago demonstrates alignment with the transition, but not necessarily additionality; a growth-stage direct air capture business unable to reach commercial scale without this capital demonstrates both. Sub-funds weighted toward private placements and early-stage co-investment — Impact Technologies and Mitigation & Adaptation among them — are structurally better placed to evidence additionality than listed-equity strategies, which is why no classification is assumed uniformly across the whole fund, and why the higher label is not claimed before compliance confirms it.
Reporting against Principal Adverse Impact indicators — the mandatory SFDR metrics covering carbon footprint, biodiversity, water, waste and social factors — is produced for every sub-fund regardless of its Article classification, so a client can see not only what a holding aims to achieve but what it costs across the indicators it does not target.