| Empirica Capital | |
| Type: | Hedge fund |
| Industry: | Investment |
| Founder: | Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
| Fate: | Closed |
| Hq Location City: | Greenwich, Connecticut |
| Hq Location Country: | United States |
Empirica Capital LLC was a hedge fund founded in 1999 by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in partnership with Mark Spitznagel, that used Taleb's black swan strategy.[1] [2] The firm closed in 2005.[3] [2]
The investment strategy of the fund has been explained in a New Yorker article.[4] One of Empirica's funds, Empirica Kurtosis LLC, was reported to have made a 56.86% return in 2000 followed by returns of -8.39% in 2001, -13.81% in 2002, and -3.92% in 2003, according to an investor letter.[5] [6]
Taleb has stated that he shut down Empirica LLC, in 2005 to become a "writer and a scholar".[7] At the time he also "feared he might have a recurrence of throat cancer."[8]
In 2007 Spitznagel founded the firm Universa Investments L.P. with Taleb as an adviser using black swan portfolio hedging strategies similar to Empirica's.