The Axa World Funds Framlington Robotech fund has both retail and institutional share classes.
It is registered for distribution in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands and the UK.
Registration is expected for Switzerland in coming months.
Robotics and automation
Managed by Tom Riley and Jeremy Gleeson at Axa IM Framlington Equities, the fund aims to invest in global growth companies spanning robotics and automation applications across various areas; including the industrial, technology, manufacturing, healthcare and transportation sectors.
Riley said: “We are at the early stages of the robotics revolution, the robotics market is expected to grow by 10% a year until 2025. While this is an emerging multi-decade theme, it is already an investible area from which we aim to select 40 to 60 fast growth companies to build a global portfolio diversified across market cap and sectors.
“Robotics will continue to have a significant impact on society for years to come and an increasing number of new listed small and mid-cap companies will become investment opportunities over time.”
Japan
The fund launch follows the success of a dedicated global robotics mandate for the Japanese retail market that Axa IM launched in December 2015.
Mark Beveridge, global head of Framlington Equities, added: “We fundamentally believe you need an active manager to access new growth areas such as robotics – there is no broadly used standard robotics benchmark that you can try to replicate.
“We have great momentum in an uncrowded space; demand for our robotics strategy has been incredible from clients in Japan and we are excited that we can now offer this strategy more widely.”
