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ProShare Advisors
ProShare Advisors, co-founded by Michael Sapir in 2006, pioneered U.S. leveraged and inverse ETFs and launched the first Bitcoin-linked ETF in 2021.
ProShare Advisors
Michael Sapir, a former mutual-fund attorney, and Louis Mayberg, founder of National Capital Management, co-founded ProShare Advisors in 2006 to pioneer a category of exchange-traded products that had been legally possible since the 1980s but never commercially executed at scale. The Bethesda, Maryland-based firm launched the first U.S.-listed inverse and leveraged ETFs, structuring them as open-end funds under the Investment Company Act of 1940 rather than as exchange-traded notes, which gave them distinct tax and credit-risk profiles. This legal architecture — Sapir's professional background before the ETF era — became the firm's moat, and ProShares remains the largest U.S. issuer of geared ETFs by number of offerings. The firm's strategy centers on rules-based indexing rather than discretionary stock-picking, with its leveraged and inverse equity ETFs tracking daily rebalanced multiples of widely followed benchmarks. The flagship ProShares UltraPro QQQ (TQQQ), which seeks 3x daily leveraged exposure to the Nasdaq-100, has amassed over $22 billion in assets as of early 2025 (per public record). Beyond equity leverage, ProShares systematically expanded into other asset classes, introducing the first U.S. bitcoin-linked ETF in October 2021 — the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO), which launched with the highest natural first-day volume of any ETF on record (per the firm, October 2021). The firm also operates a suite of dividend-growth ETFs and a volatility-linked product line built around the S&P 500 VIX futures curve. ProShare Advisors serves as the sponsor and investment advisor to the ProShares ETF complex, which grew to over 90 funds. In December 2023, the firm launched the ProShares Short Ether Strategy ETF (SETH), expanding its crypto-linked product line into ether futures shortly after BITO's structural success (per Bloomberg, December 2023). The firm's affiliate, ProFunds, applies similar leveraged and inverse indexing strategies to the mutual-fund wrapper, offering the same daily-geared exposures for 401(k) platforms that cannot hold ETFs directly. While the firm does not publicly disclose firm-wide AUM, its dual-structure approach — '40 Act ETFs for taxable accounts, ProFunds mutual funds for retirement platforms — gives Sapir's operation a distribution reach that single-vehicle ETF issuers lack. What structurally separates ProShares from the majority of ETF issuers is its specialist focus on convexity products. While BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street dominate the broad-market exposure business, ProShares occupies the precision-tool lane: leveraged, inverse, and VIX-linked products that serve hedge, speculation, and tactical-allocation use cases institutional allocators typically execute through swaps. Its product set is not a generalist shelf but a curated kit for expressing short-term market views inside the tax-efficient, daily-transparent ETF wrapper — a legal framework Sapir helped shape from the start.
General information
Firm type
Asset Manager
Year founded
2006
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Bethesda
Corporate office
Bethesda, MD, United States
Principals
Michael L. Sapir
Co-Founder and CEO
Louis M. Mayberg
Co-Founder
Edward Karpowicz
Chief Investment Officer
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at ProShare Advisors?
Michael Sapir, co-founder and CEO, sets the firm's overall product and strategy direction. Edward Karpowicz serves as Chief Investment Officer, overseeing portfolio management, trading, and the indexing methodologies that underpin ProShares' leveraged, inverse, and thematic ETFs. Sapir's legal background shaped the firm's early focus on structuring novel exposures within the Investment Company Act of 1940 framework.
How is ProShares structurally different from other ETF issuers?
ProShares specializes almost exclusively in geared and convexity products — leveraged, inverse, and volatility-linked ETFs — rather than competing in the broad-market beta space dominated by Vanguard and BlackRock. The firm's ETFs are structured as '40 Act funds, not exchange-traded notes, which eliminates the issuer credit risk embedded in ETNs and provides different tax treatment. The affiliated ProFunds platform mirrors these strategies in a mutual-fund wrapper for retirement accounts that cannot hold ETFs.
What was ProShares' role in the launch of crypto-linked ETFs in the US?
ProShares launched the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) in October 2021, which became the first U.S.-listed bitcoin-linked ETF. The fund drew record first-day natural volume for an ETF launch and gave regulated broker-dealer platforms their first vehicle for gaining bitcoin futures exposure inside a traditional brokerage account. The firm extended this franchise into ether futures with the ProShares Short Ether Strategy ETF (SETH) in December 2023.
Does ProShares offer traditional long-only index funds?
While the firm's primary identity is built on leveraged and inverse products, ProShares also operates a suite of long-only dividend-growth ETFs such as the ProShares S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats ETF (NOBL), which targets companies with 25 or more consecutive years of dividend increases. These products serve a different allocation function from the geared equity and crypto products, and they demonstrate the firm's willingness to compete in rule-based factor strategies alongside its signature convexity lineup.
What risks are specific to ProShares' leveraged and inverse ETFs?
All ProShares leveraged and inverse ETFs reset leverage daily, which means their multi-day returns can diverge significantly from the simple multiple of the benchmark's multi-day return — a phenomenon known as compounding drift or volatility decay. The firm explicitly designs these products for daily hedging and tactical trading, not for buy-and-hold positions lasting longer than a single session. The prospectuses prominently disclose this path-dependency risk, and the products are actively used by professional traders, not long-only allocators.
How are ProShares and ProFunds related?
ProShares and ProFunds operate as affiliated entities sharing common ownership and management under Michael Sapir and Louis Mayberg. ProShares issues exchange-traded funds, and ProFunds issues open-end mutual funds. Many strategies — particularly the leveraged and inverse S&P 500, Nasdaq-100, and Dow Jones Industrial Average exposures — are offered in both wrappers. The dual structure allows the firm to serve taxable brokerage accounts via ETFs and tax-deferred retirement platforms via mutual funds.
What is ProShares' geographic investment focus?
ProShares' underlying exposures are predominantly U.S.-centric, with its flagship products tracking the S&P 500, Nasdaq-100, Dow Jones Industrial Average, and S&P 500 VIX futures. The firm also offers single-country and regional leveraged and inverse ETFs covering developed and emerging markets. Its crypto-linked ETFs reference CME-listed futures contracts and are accessible to investors globally, but the fund structures themselves are U.S.-domiciled under the Investment Company Act of 1940.
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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