(Bloomberg) -- Anomaly Capital Management, the hedge fund run by the former co-chief investment officer of Viking Global Investors, raised $500 million in the past five months.     

The new cash from existing clients brings assets at Ben Jacobs’s stock-picking firm to $2.4 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. A representative for New York-based Anomaly declined to comment. 

Jacobs, 41, launched the hedge fund in October 2020 with about $600 million after a decade at Viking, where he rose to portfolio manager from analyst before being promoted to share the top job along with Ning Jin. They succeeded Dan Sundheim, who had left to start D1 Capital Partners.

Read more: New Hedge Fund From Ex-Viking Co-CIO Seeks to Gain From Sell-Off

Anomaly -- whose focus includes cyclicals, consumer, healthcare and tech, media and telecom -- gained 3% this year through August, the people said. That compares with a drop of almost 10% for the average stock-picking hedge fund, according to the Bloomberg Equity Long/Short Index. Jacobs’s firm, with roughly two dozen employees, returned about 17% in the final three months of 2020 and 4% last year, the people said. 

Anomaly recently hired consumer analyst Lucas Andreika, who previously worked at Gabe Plotkin’s Melvin Capital Management. Will Martell joined as head trader from Citadel’s Surveyor unit.

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