Overview
- Sands Capital reported a 26.9% net return for its Technology Innovators Fund in Q2 2026 and said global equities saw their strongest quarterly gain since 2020 as enthusiasm for AI infrastructure pushed information‑technology stocks higher.
- The letter singled out Seagate as a primary contributor after the company posted first‑quarter revenue up 44% year over year and a record 47% non‑GAAP gross margin, with management now forecasting multiyear HDD pricing growth in the mid‑teens.
- The fund described improving demand for storage driven by AI workloads that need larger and longer data retention while industry supply remains constrained, which it said should support durable earnings for storage suppliers.
- Sands Capital flagged Samsara as a steady vertical‑software hold that grew revenue about 30% and delivered roughly 500 basis points of margin improvement but nevertheless detracted from performance because of multiple compression in software stocks.
- Portfolio positioning shifted into critical AI bottlenecks such as memory, manufacturing, networking, and power, a move that helped gains in memory and software infrastructure but reduced relative returns from the fund’s concentrated exposure to mega‑cap chip designers.