Brad Gerstner, the founder of Altimeter Capital, has built his reputation on bold, technology-driven investments that anticipate long-term trends. His approach blends deep fundamental research with crossover strategies that straddle both private and public markets, making Altimeter a high-profile player in the tech investing world.
In the second quarter of 2025, Altimeter reported a portfolio valued at $6.93 billion across 18 holdings, maintaining its strong concentration in software, semiconductors, and next-generation internet platforms. This quarter’s filing revealed decisive moves into semiconductors and artificial intelligence. The fund doubled its stake in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) and significantly boosted its NVIDIA (NVDA) position, underscoring Gerstner’s conviction that chipmakers and AI leaders will be at the core of the next wave of technology growth.
Beyond these headline shifts, Altimeter added aggressively to Samsara, Coupang, MercadoLibre, and Arm Holdings, while introducing a new stake in Datadog. At the same time, it exited major positions in QQQ, Alibaba, and Flutter Entertainment, showing a clear willingness to reallocate capital toward higher-conviction opportunities.
In the sections ahead, we will break down Altimeter’s Q2 2025 changes, examine its top holdings, and highlight how Gerstner’s technology-first philosophy is shaping one of the most concentrated and forward-looking hedge fund portfolios on the market today.
Who Is Brad Gerstner?
Brad Gerstner is a hedge fund manager, venture investor, and the founder of Altimeter Capital, which he launched in 2008. The firm is best known for its crossover investment strategy, backing fast-growing private technology companies ahead of their IPOs and holding them through their public expansion.
Gerstner built his reputation by making early, high-conviction investments in transformative companies such as Uber, Snowflake, and Airbnb, while also maintaining long-term public market stakes in leaders like Meta, Microsoft, and NVIDIA. His approach combines venture-style foresight with public market discipline, allowing Altimeter to capture growth at multiple stages of a company’s lifecycle.
Unlike short-term-oriented funds, Gerstner demonstrates patience in compounding growth. The average holding period in Altimeter’s portfolio is around eight quarters, with core positions such as Meta and Microsoft held for over 30 quarters. At the same time, he is pragmatic and willing to pivot, trimming or exiting lower-priority holdings when conditions change.
Over the past decade, Gerstner has become one of the most closely followed technology investors, with Altimeter frequently cited as a bellwether for long-term conviction in software, cloud infrastructure, and artificial intelligence.
Investment Philosophy
Brad Gerstner’s investment philosophy is shaped by a technology-first worldview and a belief that innovation cycles in software, cloud, and artificial intelligence will continue to drive outsized equity returns. Altimeter Capital is structured around a crossover model, enabling the firm to back high-growth companies in their private stages and hold them into public markets, bridging the gap between venture capital and hedge fund investing.
At the core of his approach are three principles:
- High-Conviction Concentration – Gerstner prefers to build large, focused positions in companies he believes have enduring competitive advantages, rather than spreading capital too thin across many names. This conviction has led to multi-billion-dollar stakes in firms like Meta, Microsoft, and Snowflake.
- Long-Term Compounding – While trading activity is a tool, Gerstner emphasizes patience. Core holdings are often kept for years, allowing secular growth trends in cloud infrastructure, data, and AI to compound over time.
- Adaptability and Opportunism – Despite his long-term orientation, Gerstner is not rigid. He reallocates aggressively when the opportunity set shifts, as seen in Altimeter’s willingness to exit positions in Alibaba, Flutter, and Invesco QQQ while redeploying into NVIDIA, Taiwan Semiconductor, and Datadog in 2025.
This combination of patience and flexibility reflects Gerstner’s broader belief that the best returns come from holding the right companies through innovation cycles, while still keeping discipline to rotate away from lower-priority or overvalued positions.
Q2 2025 Trades: Brad Gerstner’s Altimeter Capital
Altimeter Capital’s Q2 2025 filing revealed a period of active repositioning, with over $1.4 billion in capital reallocated. The firm doubled down on AI, semiconductors, and cloud platforms while exiting several legacy positions.
1. Major Additions
- Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM): Position doubled with a $160.6M buy, now representing one of the fund’s largest semiconductor bets.
- NVIDIA (NVDA): Increased stake by $138.6M, reaffirming conviction in AI infrastructure.
- Samsara (IOT): Expanded exposure by $123.6M, strengthening its data and IoT positioning.
- Coupang (CPNG): Added $102.3M, reflecting long-term confidence in South Korea’s leading e-commerce platform.
- MercadoLibre (MELI): Significant expansion with a $101.0M buy, increasing exposure to Latin American digital commerce.
- Arm Holdings (ARM): Boosted stake by $94.0M, betting on semiconductor design leadership.
➡️ In total, Altimeter added over $720M across high-growth technology and platform companies.
2. New Buy
- Datadog (DDOG): Initiated a $97.6M position in cloud monitoring and observability, a new area of focus within its tech-heavy portfolio.
3. Reductions
- CoreWeave (CRVW): Cut position by 78%, trimming $216.7M while keeping a smaller stake.
- Snowflake (SNOW): Reduced by $22.0M, though it remains a significant holding.
➡️ Reductions freed capital for higher-conviction bets in semiconductors and cloud infrastructure.
4. Exits
Altimeter fully exited five positions, releasing nearly $940M in capital:
- Invesco QQQ ETF (QQQ): Sold $491.4M, shifting away from broad Nasdaq exposure.
- Flutter Entertainment (FLUT): Exited $139.5M stake in online gaming.
- Astera Labs (ALAB): Sold $77.6M position in connectivity chips.
- Rubrik (RBRK): Exited $65.8M cybersecurity SaaS holding.
- Alibaba (BABA): Closed $64.0M position, reducing exposure to China.
➡️ Exits provided liquidity that fueled aggressive reallocation into AI, semiconductors, and cloud leaders.
Top 10 Holdings: Q2 2025
Rank | Company | Market Value | % of Portfolio | Shares Held | Holding Period | Notes |
1 | Meta Platforms (META) | $1.39B | 19.99% | 1.88M | 30 Quarters | Longest-held core bet, AI & data leader |
2 | NVIDIA (NVDA) | $1.30B | 18.81% | 8.25M | 11 Quarters | Expanded in Q2 (+$138.6M), AI infrastructure |
3 | Snowflake (SNOW) | $632M | 9.12% | 2.83M | 20 Quarters | Trimmed slightly, still a core software bet |
4 | Uber (UBER) | $555M | 8.01% | 5.95M | 25 Quarters | Long-term winner, held since IPO era |
5 | Microsoft (MSFT) | $526M | 7.59% | 1.06M | 30 Quarters | Another anchor compounder |
6 | Confluent (CFLT) | $388M | 5.59% | 15.55M | 17 Quarters | Expanded in Q2, data streaming exposure |
7 | Coupang (CPNG) | $343M | 4.94% | 11.43M | 6 Quarters | High-conviction e-commerce play |
8 | Amazon (AMZN) | $321M | 4.64% | 1.46M | 9 Quarters | Expanded 40% in Q2, AWS + retail |
9 | Robinhood (HOOD) | $304M | 4.38% | 3.25M | 2 Quarters | Newer fintech bet, already top 10 |
10 | Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) | $196M | 2.83% | 867K | 4 Quarters | Doubled in Q2 with $160.6M add |
Conclusion
Altimeter Capital’s Q2 2025 filing highlights a portfolio built on conviction and adaptability:
- Reinforcing AI bets: Major additions to NVIDIA ($138.7M) and TSMC ($160.7M), alongside a new $97.6M stake in Datadog, underscore a focus on AI and cloud infrastructure.
- Selective trimming: Reductions in CoreWeave (-$216.7M) and Snowflake (-$22M) show a reallocation away from stretched positions while maintaining core exposure.
- Strategic exits: Full divestments from Alibaba, Invesco QQQ, Flutter Entertainment, Astera Labs, and Rubrik, freeing nearly $1 billion for redeployment.
- Core conviction maintained: Long-term positions in Meta, Microsoft, Uber, and Snowflake remain central to the strategy, reflecting Gerstner’s patience in compounding growth.
Bottom line: Brad Gerstner continues to balance long-term conviction with tactical repositioning, leaning harder into AI, data, and cloud platforms — the technologies he sees driving the next decade of growth.
