Sylebra Capital has turned it around in two months.
Sylebra had a rough go earlier in the year, with the firm down about 13 percent through April. However, in the ensuing two months, the Tiger Grandcub staged a remarkable reversal. It strung together gains of 12.5 percent in May and 18.8 percent in June amid a recovering stock market, a swing of more than 30 percentage points.
As a result, the volatile long-short fund was up 16.7 percent for the first half of the year, ranking among the better-performing hedge funds in general and Cubs specifically.
Sylebra turned things around dramatically thanks to its long book, which kicked in 58 percentage points to gains in the first half, according to an investor. At the same time, the firm’s shorts subtracted 30 percent.
The long book was driven by two stocks. Sylebra’s biggest long bet is controversial recycling technology company PureCycle Technologies, which accounted for more than 20 percent of U.S. stocks at the end of the first quarter. In the second quarter, PureCycle’s stock more than doubled, contributing significantly to Sylebra’s sharp turnaround. The volatile stock had more than halved from late October 2024 to late April 2025.
PureCycle purports to hold a global license for the only patented solvent-driven purification recycling technology, developed by Procter & Gamble. It is designed to transform polypropylene plastic waste into a continuously renewable resource.
The company went public in March 2021 through a merger with Roth CH Acquisition I, a special purpose acquisition company. The stock — which has many skeptics — initially peaked at a little more than $32 but in January 2024 plummeted to a low of about $2.40. The company reported its first revenues in first-quarter 2025.
Sylebra is by far the largest shareholder, with 19.5 percent of the shares. Jeffrey Fieler and Dan Gibson, co-founders of Sylebra, both serve on PureCycle’s board of directors.
Institutional Investor previously reported that Sylebra was one of several prominent firms that recently participated in the company’s second private placement this year, and at least their third in less than two years.
Sylebra’s recent performance has also been boosted by Aeva Technologies, the hedge fund’s seventh-largest U.S. long. Its shares are up more than tenfold since mid-March alone. There is a lot of hope — and hype — behind Aeva, known for its sensing and perception systems, LiDAR technology, and FMCW-based sensors for self-driving cars and robots for industrial automation.
Sylebra is headed by Gibson, previously a partner at Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management, and chief operating officer Matthew Whitehead, who joined the firm in January 2016 from LIM Advisors, a hedge fund firm based in Hong Kong.
The firm emphasizes small and midcap tech, media, and telecom stocks. It eschews big tech like the Magnificent Seven companies. In the past, the firm has touted its short-selling prowess. Current exposure is evenly split between longs and shorts, according to an investor. The long book contains 35 names and the short book 100 names, the source says.
