Swiss fintech Nectar said it is hiring two executives for an in-house investment team. The firm also unveiled a partnership with Fundbase, a hedge fund platform.

The Altendorf-based company said it has hired Steven Kaufmann, formerly the investment chief of Axa Winterthur's pension fund, and Andreas Gilgen, previously an investment chief at a fund-of-hedge fund.

Both will become partners in Nectar, which is about to launch a wealth management platform; Kaufmann as CIO and Gilgen as head of alternative intelligence.

 The two will lead the team to support Nectar’s clients to improve investment results where possible, for the benefit of their end-clients. Kaufmann is a mathematician who managed 3.3 billion Swiss francs at Axa Winterthur's pension fund and co-managed 90 billion francs in insurance assets.

Rapid Expansion

«He has a proven track record in implementing an institutional asset management concept and forming a world class investor out of a large pension fund,» Nectar co-founder and CEO Michael Appenzeller said in a statement.

Gilgen was head of research and CIO at GL Funds, managing 2 billion in multi-manager products. He will lead Nectar's portfolio assessment and work closely with Fundbase, an alternative investment platform.

Nectar is adding staff at a rapid pace: two weeks ago, it won a co-founder of Swiss asset manager Partners Group as an investor, and the family office which manages the founders' assets of the Partners Group signed up as a customer. The firm also hired a former UBS banker for its strategic expansion in June, before its rebranding as Nectar.