Four founding partners of former Citigroup hedge fund Old Lane, including its ex-chief executive Guru Ramakrishnan, have launched a firm that is one of the biggest US hedge fund start-ups of the year.

The New York-based fund, Meru Capital Group, started trading on Tuesday with some $300m (€198.7m) in capital, more than $75m of that belonging to Ramakrishnan and partners, say people familiar with the matter.