Renaissance Technologies, the hedge fund firm run by James Simons, has raised over $8.5bn (€6.4bn) for its latest fund which could potentially become the largest hedge fund in the world.

Financial News reported Simons' plans to launch the fund back in June 2005. According to an industry source, Renaissance has been aggressively marketing its Institutional Equities Fund particularly to pension plans, foundations and endowments since its inception last August. The fund has a capacity of $100bn but launched with $1.5bn in assets under management. In recent months, the firm has nearly doubled the fund's assets.