Samantha D’Amore, the founder and chief investment officer of Cymer Capital, has embarked on building a funds management business that diverges from traditional asset management models. After a successful 20-year career on Wall Street, D’Amore launched Cymer Capital to focus on identifying companies addressing major global challenges rather than adhering to conventional sector or geographic investment constraints.
Cymer, a Welsh term meaning “confluence,” reflects D’Amore’s personal background as a first-generation university graduate from working-class Wales, as well as her investment philosophy of seeking the meeting point of problem-solving and capital allocation. The fund’s approach centers on addressing persistent global issues such as aging populations and care capacity, climate adaptation, digital complexity, food security, and infrastructure resilience. From an initial universe of roughly 800 non-U.S. companies valued above $10 billion, Cymer narrows down to about 300 for detailed fundamental analysis before selecting 30 to 45 of its highest-conviction holdings.
D’Amore emphasizes a broad and inclusive search for opportunities, often outside the U.S. market. She notes that recent years have seen many investors become heavily concentrated in U.S. equities, particularly technology giants, at a time when global policy coherence is weakening and diversification across international markets is becoming increasingly valuable. Cymer’s portfolio is benchmarked against the MSCI ACWI ex-US index, with an active share of around 90 percent, reflecting its distinct departure from index composition.
The fund operates under strict risk management guidelines, prohibiting leverage, short selling, derivatives, currency hedging, and limiting individual positions to no more than 15 percent of the portfolio. Currently, Cymer manages only D’Amore’s personal capital and is not yet open to external investors.
D’Amore’s investment process is influenced by her background in physics and experience during the 2008 global financial crisis, which instilled a rigorous focus on downside risk assessment. She dedicates much of her research to analyzing companies’ three- to five-year fundamentals, including competitive advantages, management quality, and financial strength. Valuation is used primarily for timing rather than as the primary investment thesis.
Her career includes significant experience at Jennison Associates and Trillium Asset Management, where she built expertise across industrial, materials, and infrastructure sectors and learned to integrate non-financial data as crucial indicators of company sustainability and cash flow durability. Although Cymer takes a problem-focused approach, D’Amore is clear that the fund is neither a thematic strategy nor an impact fund; environmental, social, and governance factors are components of fundamental analysis rather than defining objectives.
Cymer is notable for being fully woman-owned and founder-led in an industry where female managers oversee less than 2 percent of assets. D’Amore underscores the importance of diversity of thought over demographic background and values curiosity and critical feedback within her team, prioritizing intellectual rigor over formal finance credentials.
Looking forward, D’Amore identifies global policy shifts and the uneven adoption of artificial intelligence as key drivers of both opportunity and risk in the markets. She acknowledges significant uncertainty around which companies will successfully navigate these changes, presenting both challenges and potential for durable growth.