For a long time, the Decalia Future Society fund was one of the many thematic growth funds that the 2022 rate shock left behind. This year, the tide has turned. In its Morningstar category of some 2,500 funds, it ranks in the top 10 percent year to date, over one year, and 13th percentile over three years. «Automatically, that brings interest,» says Quirien Lemey, who has run the fund since its launch in late 2021.

Since inception, however, the fund still trails the MSCI World. Lemey does not dodge the reason. «Given that we are investing in innovation and disruption, we automatically have a bias toward growth. It is just a simple fact.» Add a technology bias and a deliberate tilt toward mid-caps, «always had, always will have», and 2022 became a perfect storm: «You had one of the steepest and fastest rate increases we have ever seen. Everything where your growth is in the future gets hurt: small caps, technology, growth.»

Overweight in Smaller Companies

About a third of the assets sit in companies with a market capitalization below $40 billion, «a lot more than the index». For almost four years, that was a drag on performance. «It is only since this year that small and mid-caps are working.» Lemey remembers the mood vividly. «I will never forget that technology at one point was a bad word. You could not speak to clients about technology. Big tech was dead.» He even had to go before his own board to argue the opposite. «2022 was a very depressing year, let’s be clear.»

The verdict on the full record, he says, should wait until the end of November, when the fund turns five and receives its five-year Morningstar rating. Against its 16 closest peers distributed in Switzerland, Future Society ranks first since inception, according to Lemey.

Mid- and small-caps and healthcare: where Future Society deviates from the index (source: Decalia, as of September 22, 2026)

Not Just Another Growth Fund

A glance at the top ten holdings suggests a conventional global growth fund. Lemey concedes the point: «If you look at our top ten, you’ll think, oh, it’s just another fund like any other. I fully agree.» The explanation is the benchmark. «I am still being paid to beat a benchmark. If I am positive on Nvidia, I need at least 5 percent Nvidia. Otherwise, I’m actually underweight Nvidia.»

Conviction still decides what goes in: «We’ve never owned Meta. We should have. We never owned Tesla. Should have. We don’t own SpaceX. We have almost no Apple, and we’re equal weight Microsoft.» Below the top ten, where the tenth position weighs about 1.7 percent, follows a long tail of some 70 companies, many of them smaller, highly innovative, and expensive. «Valuation is one of the main reasons that determines the weight in the fund. Typically, the lower the valuation, the higher the weight.»

An AI Sell-off That «Went Really Fast»

The summer brought a sharp AI sell-off. «AI momentum was anywhere between minus 30 and minus 50 percent, in just a couple of weeks.» Lemey had already trimmed richly valued names beforehand: cybersecurity stocks such as CrowdStrike, Cloudflare, and Palo Alto Networks, and smaller AI suppliers such as SiTime and Lattice. «It went really fast. We thought, okay, this is getting out of hand.»

After the correction, the team went back into AI, but not at the front of the line. «We decided to go back into names that are exposed to AI, but that are not at the forefront and that are not at the highest valuations.» Instead of CrowdStrike and Cloudflare, it bought Okta; instead of SiTime, GlobalFoundries, «trading at 18 times earnings». And: «We actually bought some more Nvidia, trading at 14 times earnings.»

Renewables: Not Easy to Find Good Business Models

Not every move is about AI. The purchase of Nordex reflects a contrarian view on renewables: «We think we are at peak bearishness in renewable energy. The only issue is that it’s not easy to find good business models.» On the sell side, Netflix, a holding for more than a decade, had to go. «I just think the old growth story of the last ten years is gone.»

AI infrastructure accounts for about 35 percent of the portfolio. Is that too heavy? Lemey turns the question around: «Give me another theme that is working and that is shaping the future of society. Give me another one.»

AI as the next long innovation wave (source: Decalia; illustrative)

Structural Sub-Themes

He argues that the exposure is diversified through structural sub-themes, such as high-voltage data centers, optical connectivity, and compound semiconductors, which should keep growing regardless of capex. But he is candid about the limits of that argument: «If AI capex suddenly goes down, probably they will all go down, because the market will not make any differentiation.»

As for the bubble talk and the circular financing around Nvidia: «We are very vigilant. At one point, capex will go down. But so far, we see literally zero data points that would indicate that. There is nothing out there, literally nothing.» Visibility extends 12 to 18 months. «I have an opinion on three or four years from now, but I don’t know. Whereas I am quite certain, based on lots of data points, that next year is not going to be an issue.»

Bullish After the Valuation Reset

Derailing that would take something external, «for instance, AI doing something crazy and causing a mass casualty event». Barring geopolitical and macro shocks, Lemey is bullish after the valuation reset and the guidance from Nvidia and Broadcom: «I think we are set for a rally in AI.»

The biggest shift this year happened outside technology. Within a few months, healthcare exposure rose from 11 percent to more than 18 percent. Like software, the sector suffered a «Covid hangover» and faces a patent cliff, Lemey says. Yet historically, «the one sector that came after technology on performance in the long term is healthcare». Early this year, «we saw in corporate results things improving, and so we decided to go all the way».

Healthcare: Negative Correlation With Technology

Diversification mattered just as much: this year, the sector’s correlation with technology and AI turned clearly negative. «We finally had conviction in something that is not related to AI, and that is exactly what we want to find in our fund.»

Iana Perova, the team’s healthcare specialist, rejects the notion that the sector has run out of steam. «It’s not for the reason that there’s no innovation. There are a lot of new drug approvals, novel drugs that are treating diseases that we couldn’t treat before.» Switzerland, she says, is «one of the best-positioned markets in Europe», and the fund probably holds more Swiss healthcare than the average global fund.

Larger healthcare bet on life sciences

Perova names Galderma; Sandoz, the market leader in biosimilars, which should benefit when big pharma hits its patent cliff, offering «the same innovative drugs, but at a lower cost»; and Lonza, the largest contract development and manufacturing organization, which produces next-generation cancer drugs known as antibody-drug conjugates and recently acquired a plant in the US, «for anyone who wants to manufacture in the US in light of Trump’s requirements».

The largest healthcare bet, however, is life sciences: the suppliers of drug manufacturing equipment and lab research tools. After the Covid overstocking, «normalization took longer than anyone expected. It took four years.» Now two tailwinds are kicking in. One is US reshoring: «All these drug plants will need to be filled with drug manufacturing equipment.» The other is AI-driven drug discovery, which requires high-quality laboratory data to train models. «We’re seeing increased activity in laboratory experiments.»

A Goal of 200 Million in Assets

The commercial goal is to cross 200 million in assets «as soon as possible, because it opens up different clients». The performance ambition is higher still: «Are we happy with the top 10 percent? I prefer to be in the first percentile.» At his previous employer, Lemey says, he was first percentile over one, two, three, and five years.

Why did he move from Degroof Petercam in Brussels to Geneva in 2021? «Let’s not hide behind anything. There’s definitely the financial part. Salaries are just multiples higher than in Belgium.» The second reason is Decalia’s entrepreneurial culture and the chance «to participate in any potential success in a more direct way».

Genvea: «Unbeatable in Summer»

Regrets? «If I regretted it, I would not be here.» Geneva in summer, he says, is unbeatable: «It’s the only place I know where at noon we go out, jump in the river, or in the lake for that matter, and at two we’re back.» Within Decalia, Future Society is one of the most promising funds in institutional asset management, the group’s third-largest business.

Quirien Lemey is the lead portfolio manager of Decalia Future Society and Senior Fund Manager Global Equities at Decalia in Geneva, which he joined in 2021. Previously, he spent eleven years at Degroof Petercam in Brussels, from 2015 as Fund Manager Global Equities and before that as a buy-side analyst covering telecom, media, and technology.

Iana Perova has been a fund manager at Decalia since March 2026 and co-manages Future Society with a focus on healthcare. She joined Decalia in 2020 and worked as an equity analyst covering global healthcare from 2022.