Goldman Sachs ETF platform hits milestone, boosted by demand for active funds

More than a decade after launching its first Exchange-Traded Fund, Goldman Sachs Asset Management says that the company’s ETF platform has hit a major milestone, fueled by demand for actively-managed funds.

“Our ETF platform actually last week crossed through $100 billion in assets,” said Bryon Lake, co-head of third party wealth and chief transformation officer at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, at a media event at the company’s Manhattan headquarters Wednesday.

Goldman Sachs launched its first ETF, the ActiveBeta US Large Cap Equity ETF (Ticker: GSLC), in 2015. Last month the Wall Street heavyweight closed its $2 billion acquisition of active ETF sponsor Innovator Capital Management. With the integration of Innovator Capital Management’s suite of 171 ETFs, Goldman Sachs managed approximately 240 ETFs globally at the deal’s closing.  

The company is seeing more and more active investments delivered through the ETF wrapper, according to Lake.  “We want to be focused on the active end where we can provide real solutions to investors,” he said. “We do that with our exchange funds, our active mutual funds. And of course now on the ETF side.”

Actively managed funds have been firmly in the spotlight in recent years. Active ETF inflows as a portion of all exchange traded funds have doubled since 2022, according to data released by Goldman Sachs earlier this year, with assets topping $1.8 trillion across the globe.

Last year, data from Cerulli Associates said that active ETF assets ballooned to $1.17 trillion in the second quarter of 2025, compared to just $71 billion in 2018. 

Morningstar analysis also indicates that, for the whole year 2025, nearly 1,000 active ETFs were launched, compared to 584 in 2024.

During the event Lake said that the key to being a “great asset manager” rest on two key factors. “To be excellent, you have to have a tremendous amount of technology to drive your investment,” he said. “Number two, you need to have data - in an AI-first world data is key. You need to make sure that you have the data that you can apply the AI to to drive insights and to drive alpha across the marketplace.”

“I think we have incredibly unique data sets and that absolutely helps us drive those outcomes for investors,” Lake added.

Speaking during the event, Bruce Bond, advisory director and co-founder of Innovator Capital Management said that the company wants to grow its ETF business with more of an alpha focus.  “We're interested in introducing some of those products here in the near future,” he said, adding that these will be very appealing to younger investors. “A lot of young investors today … if the market, if it doesn't move around, you know, 3 or 4 percent a day, there's not a whole lot of interest in it.”

“We're going to have some products here in the near term that will address where these younger investors are at,” he added.