Hedge fund Ardon raises investor Pulse

Ardon Capital, founded last year by Dominick Frank and Charles Woo, has found a backer in the shape of New York-based seeding firm Pulse Capital Partners.

The firm plans to launch the Pulse-Ardon Asia Fund in July. The new fund will run an Asia-focused event-driven strategy and has an office in Hong Kong with a five-strong team. It will invest chiefly in Hong Kong/China, Korea and Japan, as well as in Australia, Singapore and Taiwan.

The two principals met at Evolution Capital, where Woo managed the Korean portfolios for Evolution Capital Management from 2006 to 2009. He previously worked at hedge fund DKR Oasis.

Dominick was with Evolution Capital Management from 2006 to 2010 where he was deputy chief investment officer for their 'M' Fund. In 2005, he had been responsible for Asian proprietary trading in Morgan Stanley's special situations group. From 2003 to 2005, Frank worked on the equity derivatives prop desk at Lehman Brothers.

Also joining Ardon is another Lehman veteran, Mirza Rahman, who used to work on the operations side for Singapore-based hedge fund Artradis, before the firm shut down earlier this year.

Artradis co-founder Steve Diggle went on to set up family office Vulpes Investment Management, while his former COO, Jim Sweeney, joined hedge fund Boyer Allen as CEO.