ETF Odyssey Continues as Issuers Sail Toward Another Record-Breaking Year

The ETF market is looking a lot like showings of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey: crowded and breaking records. 

There have been 868 ETF launches in the US through July 27, according to CFRA data, putting the market easily on track for yet another record-breaking year. Single-stock and artificial intelligence, or other tech-related funds, have been especially popular, said Deborah Fuhr, founder of the research firm ETFGI. It’s no wonder issuers want to bring more of these funds to market: Investors have poured money into funds that give them leveraged exposure to big names such as Nvidia and Tesla, while products like the Global X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF (BOTZ) have garnered billions of dollars in assets. Now that retail and institutional investors alike have embraced ETFs as easy-to-use and liquid ways to get exposure to some of the most dynamic trends in the market, introduction of new funds isn’t likely to slow down.  

“We will continue to see the new launches growing,” Fuhr said. She added that we’ll likely continue to also see existing products, like mutual funds and separately managed accounts, converted to the ETF wrapper. 

Searching for ETF Ithaca

A launch far from guarantees a fund’s survival, but that’s not stopping issuers from seeing what sticks. “Right now, the US ETF industry is still in growth mode and newer, smaller issuers are experimenting with multiple launches,” said Aniket Ullal, head of ETF research at CFRA. “We expect only a fraction of these launches to succeed, and it is possible we may see a spike in closures in two to three years.” 

But when a fund strikes the right chord, it can take off quickly: 

• The Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM), which launched in April, has already amassed nearly $25 billion in assets. 
• The ProShares GENIUS Money Market ETF (IQMM) hit the market in February and has AUM of roughly $18 billion. 

Is this pace sustainable? Steve Foy, senior vice president of trading at white-label ETF platform Tidal Financial Group, said that at the level that matters for business sustainability, assets and revenue, the industry’s growth is structural and has significant momentum. “As in any industry, today’s innovations will keep iterating, and investors’ ability to pivot quickly between offerings is one of the hallmarks and strengths of the industry that drives this overall growth.”

Crowded Seas: Looking beyond the US, the global industry has seen a significant increase in the number of new launches over the past few years. In the first half of 2026, there were 1,798 new ETFs launched around the world compared with just 805 in the first half of 2022, Fuhr said. The US and Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) launched the largest number of funds this year, while Latin America had just 34.