Flight Deck Capital regained some altitude in September after suffering major turbulence in July.
The tech-focused hedge fund headed by Tiger Grandcub Jay Kahn added 7.91 percent last month and is now up 80.64 percent for the year, enabling it to remain the No. 1 Tiger-related fund and a top-performing hedge fund in general, according to an investor.
The fund was still down for the quarter, however, after losing about 25 percent in July.
Flight Deck is not the only top-performing tech fund among the handful that have reported results to add to its gains last month.
Paul Wick’s Seligman Tech Spectrum (Master) Fund tacked on 2.15 percent in September and is up 42.89 percent for the year, per a client email seen by Institutional Investor.
Many tech funds posted strong gains in the first half of the year but gave back significant performance in July, and in some cases August as well, amid the turbulence in tech stocks and in artificial intelligence–related issues specifically. Flight Deck, for example, was up 119 percent through June.
But September looks to have been a big recovery month for many of these funds.
As II previously pointed out, Flight Deck focuses on disruptive technology, with AI now accounting for a large share of its opportunities. But rather than investing in well-known names like Nvidia, Kahn targets what he describes as “AI enablers” — companies that provide the underlying tools and infrastructure powering the technology boom.
Flight Deck finds opportunities across global markets. At the end of May, nearly 93 percent of the fund’s 150 percent long portfolio — and virtually all of its net long exposure — was tied to Asia, including Japan, according to a May exposure report reviewed by II. It was 13.5 percent net short the U.S.
Flight Deck’s biggest winner in September was Kioxia Holdings, a Japanese memory chip maker benefiting from demand tied to AI. Its stock swelled more than eight and a half times in the first six months of 2026. But it lost two-thirds of its value from late June to late July, accounting for Flight Deck’s July decline. The stock has since rebounded by about 50 percent and is up 455 percent for the year.
The next-biggest gainers were Cloudflare, a U.S.-based cloud company; South Korean memory chip giants SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics; and U.S.-based Bloom Energy, which makes solid oxide fuel cells that independently produce electricity onsite for power generation in data centers.
As II recently reported, Seligman told clients in its latest letter that concerns in late June that AI spend beneficiaries were seeing an overly exuberant lift in share prices led the fund to take meaningful gains in a number of AI winners, such as Applied Materials, Lam Research, Teradyne, Semtech, Marvell Technology, Western Digital, Arista Networks, Coherent, and Advanced Energy Industries.
By the end of July, Seligman reduced net exposure to 52 percent from 59 percent in January and gross exposure to 140 percent from 161 percent.
“In early August, chip stocks and other AI spend winners began to recover, only to fade again into late August and early September,” Wick stated in the letter. “Fortunately, our holdings in software, internet, and fintech/IT services began to recover at exactly the same time the AI winners sank like a rock” — so Tech Spectrum weathered the summer storm.
Heading into September, Seligman’s largest net long industry was semiconductors, 17.7 percent net long. Other top long positions were software, electrical equipment, interactive media & services, and semiconductor materials & equipment.
