A 20-year-old who dropped out of NYU says he has raised $5 million for his hedge fund

The 20-year-old who dropped out of New York University to start a hedge fund says he has raised $5 million.

Julian Marchese launched Marchese Investments last year after starting his fund in his dorm room.

In September, Marchese told Business Insider he was managing about $1 million at his startup and planning to raise around $3 million more. So the $5 million raised is slightly above his expectations.

Technically, Marchese Investments runs separately managed accounts, and the firm is small enough that it doesn't have to file regulatory filings on its assets, so Business Insider hasn't independently verified the figures.

Marchese told Business Insider the bulk of the new investments came from one investor, but declined to identify who was writing the checks.

Chris Kohler, an investment consultant at Mercer, is one of Marchese's advisors helping him with business strategy. Kohler said he had high hopes for Marchese.

"Some of the [hedge fund] all stars now, if you really track back, they were the ones that started doing this in high school and college," Kohler told Business Insider.

To be sure, $5 million is peanuts in the world of hedge funds - institutional investors like pensions and endowments don't usually start looking at funds until they have at least $100 million or so.

But then again, few people start investment firms at age 20.