According to Business Insider, two traders, Moody Nashawaty and Risley Mabile, met in a Discord channel for retail investors back in 2022. Their online chats evolved into a formal partnership, leading them to launch an investment fund named Enders Capital in 2025. The fund, named after the sci-fi novel “Ender’s Game,” is registered with the SEC under Rule 506(c) and currently manages $5 million in assets. While they started with some outside investors, Nashawaty provided the bulk of the initial capital and is so confident he’s looking to put more of his own money in. Their approach is quantitative and automated, heavily using the platform Composer to build trading strategies. Notably, Mabile helps run the fund while also working as a radiology resident.
The professionalization of the meme
This is a fascinating evolution of the whole retail trader saga. The early WallStreetBets era was pure, beautiful chaos—a bunch of randoms with Robinhood accounts trying to blow up hedge funds with GameStop. But that energy was never sustainable. What we’re seeing now, with stories like Enders Capital, is the natural next step. The most engaged, serious people from those chaotic forums are trying to build something lasting. They’re getting SEC-registered, building quant models, and talking about reducing volatility. It’s David deciding he wants to be Goliath, but maybe a nicer, more tech-savvy version.
A new talent pipeline
Nashawaty’s quote here is key: “I think that the next generation of hedge funds won’t be from Wall Street.” He’s probably right, to an extent. The tools and information that were once locked behind Ivy League degrees and Bloomberg terminals are now widely accessible. A medical resident can become a derivatives expert in his spare time. A digital marketing exec can pivot to running a fund. The talent pool is absolutely decentralizing. But here’s the thing: finding signal in the noise of social trading communities is itself a massive skill. As Mabile notes, there’s “a lot of noise.” For every solid team like this one, how many blow up because they mistake confidence for competence in a Discord chat?
The real test is ahead
Let’s be real, managing $5 million is one thing. That’s often just friends, family, and your own money. The true test for a fund like this comes at the $50 million or $100 million mark. Can their quant models scale? How do they handle serious due diligence from institutional allocators? And there’s a built-in tension in their story. They praise the meritocracy of social media talent, but they also had to register with the SEC and rely on a specialized platform like Composer to execute. That’s not exactly a garage operation. They’re using professional infrastructure, which is smart, but it also means they’re already playing by the established industry’s rules.
A trend, not an anomaly
The co-founder of Composer predicts more of this, arguing that AI will handle the fixed overhead of huge funds, creating a meritocracy. That’s a compelling vision. Basically, the barrier to entry for launching a sophisticated trading operation is lower than ever. But this also opens up a new can of worms. If everyone and their Discord buddy can spin up an “AI-driven quant fund,” how do investors separate the real deals from the marketing hype? The credential being evaluated might shift from “where did you go to school” to “what’s your backtested Sharpe ratio,” but that just creates a new kind of arms race. Still, it’s a refreshing story. It proves that serious market insight can come from anywhere—even a chaotic chat app.
