What is Aquatic Capital Management?
Jonathan Graham spent more than 13 years at Citadel, finishing as the partner who ran Global Quantitative Strategies. In November 2018 he formed Aquatic Capital Management LLC in Chicago. The private funds did not launch until 1 May 2021, which is why public sources still disagree about when the firm "started".
Aquatic manages systematic strategies for US and foreign private funds. It describes the product as a research and development platform with disciplined risk management, and it does not publish a list of markets, holding periods or models. The useful public facts sit in the filings and on the firm's own site (Aquatic, accessed 8 September 2026; Aquatic Form ADV, 2026).
Aquatic at a glance
- Founder: Jonathan Graham
- Legal formation: 7 November 2018
- Private-fund launch: 1 May 2021
- Head office: Chicago, 225 W Randolph Street
- Other offices: New York, 461 Fifth Avenue, and London, 1 Angel Court
- Regulatory AUM: $5.43bn at 31 March 2026
- Adviser employees: 91 in the 2026 Form ADV, of whom 67 perform investment-advisory functions
- Approach: systematic investment strategies built by researchers and engineers
- Ownership: Aquatic Holdings LP, principally owned through Graham family trusts
- Applications: recruiting contacts on Aquatic's official site
- Quantt directory: Aquatic Capital Management
The employee count is the regulated adviser's figure, not a group headcount from social profiles. Treat it as a dated snapshot, the same way you should treat the AUM.
How much money does Aquatic manage?
Aquatic reported $5,430,350,270 of discretionary regulatory AUM at 31 March 2026, across four accounts. It manages no non-discretionary assets. Private-fund gross asset value is reported separately and can exceed regulatory AUM because the two measures answer different questions (Aquatic Form ADV, 2026).
Aquatic does manage outside investor capital. The investor page says the firm commits its own money alongside its partners, and the Form ADV describes US and foreign private funds organised through master-feeder structures.
Do not confuse the $5.43bn figure with a 13F total. A 13F covers reportable US equity positions at quarter-end. It is not the firm's AUM, and it cannot tell you whether a listed holding is an outright forecast or one leg of a hedge.
Who owns Aquatic?
The 2026 Form ADV says Aquatic Capital Management LLC is wholly owned and managed by Aquatic Holdings LP. That partnership is principally owned by trusts established for Jonathan Graham's family. Aquatic Partners LLC, an affiliate, acts as general partner to the advised funds.
That is a founder-led private manager. It does not tell you how investment authority is split day to day, and it does not justify guesses about team ratios or named internal books.
Where does Aquatic have offices?
Three current addresses: Chicago at 225 W Randolph Street, New York at 461 Fifth Avenue and London at 1 Angel Court. The ADV lists 16 investment-advisory staff in New York and 10 in London. Aquatic Capital UK LLP is an English limited liability partnership (Aquatic contact details, accessed 8 September 2026).
Apply to the location on the vacancy. A three-city footprint does not mean every function exists in every office.
What does Aquatic trade?
Public evidence supports "systematic investment strategies" and little more. The Form ADV gives Aquatic broad authority to use strategies and securities consistent with each fund's documents. Listed US equities show up in 13F filings. That is not a complete strategy map.
Aquatic's public identity is the research system. Researchers and engineers, the firm says, are building a "prediction machine". For a candidate, the interesting question is not which fashionable model they use. It is whether you can take a weak signal through the full chain:
- obtaining point-in-time data;
- defining labels without leakage;
- validating weak and non-stationary signals;
- converting forecasts into positions under risk and cost constraints;
- monitoring live behaviour and model drift.
Our machine learning for trading tutorial covers that chain. The machine learning in finance guide explains time-aware validation and look-ahead bias.
What careers does Aquatic advertise?
Aquatic looks for researchers and engineers who want to apply science and technology to markets. It publishes separate contacts for experienced professionals and students, so an early-career channel exists. A campus email is not a promise of a fixed internship class.
The careers copy emphasises collaboration, curiosity, mentoring and development. Those are employer statements, not culture scores. Still, they tell you what to put in front of a recruiter:
- researchers should show one careful empirical project, including the tests that failed;
- engineers should show how they made research or production systems faster, safer or more reproducible;
- both should be able to discuss trade-offs without pretending every improvement is free.
Use recruiting@aquatic.com for experienced roles and campusrecruiting@aquatic.com for student enquiries, as listed on 8 September 2026. Check Aquatic's site before you write, in case the route has changed.
What is known about Aquatic's interview process?
Very little is official. Aquatic does not publish a standard number of rounds, a mandatory take-home or a decision timetable. Prepare for the role, not for a fictional universal loop.
Research candidates
Choose one project and reconstruct it from raw data to conclusion. Explain selection bias, time splits, multiple testing, costs and the strongest alternative explanation. If you used machine learning, say what it added over a simpler baseline.
Engineering candidates
Map your experience to research throughput and production reliability. Useful topics include distributed computation, data lineage, reproducibility, observability and safe deployment. Do not assume Aquatic uses Rust, JAX, PyTorch or any named stack unless the current advert says so.
Student candidates
Use the campus route. Depth in one area beats a thin imitation of a senior portfolio researcher. A strong thesis, systems project or careful replication study can show how you think.
The quant research interview questions guide offers practice prompts. For a Chicago peer comparison, see the Radix Trading interview guide. Public information does not prove the two processes are alike.
What the filings cannot tell you
An ADV is useful for ownership, legal entities, clients and dated asset measures. It is a poor source for culture, research quality or your likely job. It cannot tell you which model generated a position, how quickly the book turns over, or whether a listed equity is an outright forecast or a hedge.
The same limit applies to 13F analysis. Reverse-engineering a strategy from a partial long-only snapshot is how confident fictions get written.
Use filings to set factual boundaries. Use the interview to ask how teams are organised, how ideas move into production and how success is measured in the seat.
Aquatic does not publish firm-wide total-compensation bands. Any salary range in a live advert applies to that role, place and date, and it may omit bonus. The strongest sources here are Aquatic's site and its SEC filing. They establish formation, ownership, offices, investor capital, adviser headcount, broad strategy and recruiting contacts. They do not establish exact markets, frequencies, technology choices or interview stages.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Aquatic Capital Management manage?
Aquatic reported $5.43bn of discretionary regulatory AUM at 31 March 2026. It also reports private-fund gross assets under a different measure, so numbers from filing databases may not match exactly.
Does Aquatic manage external money?
Yes. Its SEC disclosure describes private investment funds, and Aquatic's own site addresses investors and says the firm invests its capital alongside its partners.
Who founded Aquatic?
Jonathan Graham founded Aquatic after more than 13 years at Citadel, where the official biography says he ultimately led Global Quantitative Strategies.
How many people work at Aquatic?
The 2026 Form ADV reported 91 employees at the registered adviser, including 67 in investment-advisory functions. That is a dated regulatory snapshot, not a group-wide headcount.
Where are Aquatic's offices?
Aquatic listed Chicago, New York and London offices on 8 September 2026. Chicago is the principal US base in its regulatory disclosure.
Does Aquatic recruit students?
Yes, it publishes a dedicated campus-recruiting email. The firm does not publicly promise a fixed number or type of student placements, so check current availability directly.
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