Why Anna, the fastest growing crypto fund in the Nordics, uses K33 as an on and off-ramp to Bitcoin

Anna Fund has created headlines across the Norwegian press recently, and for good reasons. Their long/short quant strategy, rooted in behavioral finance, has proven resilient to Bitcoin’s volatility and generated some astronomical returns. 11 months after the launch of the fund investors have seen more than 150% return. Anna Fund is up 118% YTD, and is currently the best-performing crypto hedge fund in 2024 on the VisionTrack index covering +300 funds globally.   

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Anna was founded by Ole Nordviste, Martin Helgheim, and Ole Christian Wendel in 2022. The founders are all childhood friends who studied quantitative finance and AI together at NTNU. Due to their shared interest in trading, programming, and behavioral finance, they decided to take their skills and see if they could build a successful algorithmic trading strategy. After 2 years of testing, calibrating, and optimizing, they were finally ready to launch Anna fund.

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In the meantime, it has become evident that the hard work of testing, calibrating, and optimizing paid off. What started as a relatively small fund now has AUM of 220 MNOK, and has succeeded in attracting leading Norwegian investors such as Arne Blystad. 

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A key to Anna’s success is their diligent focus on details. Every little detail has been optimized to the greatest extent possible. Naturally, the main focus lies on the algorithms, related parameters, and risk management, but the team knows that optimizing only your core is not sufficient, and this is where K33 comes in. 

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K33 is a cryptocurrency broker, based in Norway and serving the European market, optimized for deep liquidity, superior pricing and FX flexibility. 

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Better exchange rates with K33

Anna fund is currently set up as a Norwegian fund, receiving subscriptions in Norwegian Kroner (NOK). However, its strategies are based on Bitcoin and Bitcoin derivatives. Therefore, Anna needed an optimal path for converting NOK into BTC and was faced with two main challenges. 

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1. Exchanging from NOK to BTC efficiently would in most cases include a foreign exchange from NOK to USD first. This extra conversion would increase the cost substantially and represent a loss to the investors, even before the money is put to work. 
2. As a fund, Anna receives new subscriptions in bulk and needs a solution that allows them to easily trade for up to 100m NOK and more per trade without getting crushed by slippage.

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K33 solves both of these problems. 

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At K33, users have full FX flexibility and can trade crypto directly from their preferred FIAT currency (NOK, SEK, DKK, USD, EUR, CHF, GBP) to save on expensive FX surcharges. In addition, K33 offers deep liquidity and a fully automated OTC desk, minimizing the slippage for small and large trades alike, giving users full price control by leveraging a request-for-quote order system.

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Anna further benefits from their unified account setup, giving multiple users access to the same trading account, as well as direct access to K33’s premium customer support.

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Working with K33 has been a great experience so far. The team is highly professional and always available when we need assistance. The possibility for us to do large trades directly from NOK to BTC 24/7 and without worrying about liquidity saves us both time and money. - Ole Christian Wendel, CEO Anna Asset Management

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I'm very happy to have Anna as a client. Knowing that some of  the brightest minds in our industry put their trust in us is not only rewarding, but also a necessity for K33’s long term success. - Torbjørn Bull Jenssen, CEO K33

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