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Humankind Investments
Katz, a mathematician by training, launched Humankind after a career building quantitative strategies at firms including Bridgewater Associates.
Humankind Investments
Katz, a mathematician by training, launched Humankind after a career building quantitative strategies at firms including Bridgewater Associates. The firm operates from New York as a registered investment adviser, offering a concentrated portfolio of public equities selected through a proprietary framework the firm calls 'Health Adjusted Value.' Rather than screening out so-called sin stocks, the model systematically adjusts every company's valuation by estimating the dollar value of its net effect on human lifespan and quality of life, measured in quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). The strategy is expressed through a single ETF, the Humankind US Stock ETF (HKND), that tracks an index constructed from the Health Adjusted Value methodology. The fund held roughly $115 million in assets as of early 2026, drawing capital from retail and institutional allocators seeking a health-aware beta-plus approach to US large-cap equities. The portfolio overweights health-positive sectors — pharmaceutical firms, medical device makers, and grocery chains with broad food-access footprints — while underweighting companies with measurable negative health externalities, including certain processed-food manufacturers and fossil-fuel extractors. Top holdings have included Johnson & Johnson, Kroger, and UnitedHealth Group. Humankind is lean. The firm lists fewer than a dozen investment professionals, with Natalia Schäfer serving as co-lead of research alongside Katz. The research process draws on public-health datasets, epidemiological studies, and meta-analyses to estimate the per-capita health impact of a company's products and operations. In 2022 the firm refined its methodology to incorporate a 'Health Damages' framework, assigning a dollar cost to negative health outcomes and subtracting it from each company's calculated net worth, producing a health-adjusted book value that drives the ETF's tilts. What separates Humankind from the broader ESG crowd is the absence of moral judgment. The model doesn't exclude tobacco or oil — it owns both when the price compensates for the estimated health cost. This makes HKND a pure expression of the thesis that health impact is a material factor markets misprice, not a values screen. Katz has positioned the firm as a one-product engine, betting that a single vehicle with a transparent, repeatable algorithm will attract the sort of sticky, thesis-aligned capital that generic ESG funds lose to fad rotation.
General information
Firm type
Wealth Manager
Year founded
2019
AUM
$100M-$300M (Altss estimate)
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
New York
Corporate office
New York, NY, United States
Principals
James Katz
Founder, CEO & Portfolio Manager
Natalia Schäfer
Portfolio Manager & Co-Lead of Research
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
What does Humankind Investments actually invest in?
The firm runs a single product: the Humankind US Stock ETF (ticker HKND), a liquid, long-only public-equity fund. It tracks a proprietary index that weights roughly 2,000 US stocks not by market capitalization but by a 'Health Adjusted Value' — the company's fundamental value adjusted up or down by the estimated dollar impact of its products and operations on human lifespan. The ETF is available to any brokerage account and represents substantially all of the firm's assets under management.
How does the Health Adjusted Value model work?
The model starts with a company's book value, then adds or subtracts an estimate of the economic value of the net health consequences its business creates. Health impact is measured in quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), which are converted to dollars using a standard value-per-statistical-life figure. A pharmaceutical company whose drugs demonstrably extend life receives a positive adjustment; a food company whose products contribute to obesity-related disease receives a negative one. The firm sources estimates from published epidemiological meta-analyses and public-health data.
Who runs investment decisions at Humankind?
Founder and CEO James Katz sets the investment methodology and serves as portfolio manager. Katz previously worked as a quantitative researcher and strategist at Bridgewater Associates before founding Humankind in 2019. Natalia Schäfer serves as co-lead of research, overseeing the team that maintains the health-impact estimates that feed the model. Investment decisions are rules-based once the methodology is set — the firm does not employ traditional stock-pickers.
How is Humankind's strategy different from ESG or impact investing?
Humankind does not screen out stocks based on ethical criteria. The model can and does hold tobacco companies, oil majors, and junk-food producers — it simply requires that the market price compensates for the estimated health cost those companies impose. This distinguishes it from exclusionary ESG approaches that refuse to own certain sectors and from thematic impact funds that only hold companies solving a specific problem. The firm's bet is that health impact is a quantifiable, mispriced financial factor, not a values statement.
Is Humankind structured as a family office or a traditional asset manager?
Humankind is a traditional asset manager, structured as a registered investment adviser. It is not a family office. It operates a single ETF available to the public and reports its holdings daily. The lean team and single-product focus do sometimes give it the feel of a high-conviction boutique, but it is open to outside capital and subject to the Investment Company Act of 1940 through its ETF structure.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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