For the first time in three years, Asia-focused hedge funds exhibited a strong showing, adding assets of close to $20 billion last year, Reuters reported citing a survey done by AsiaHedge.

The hedge funds posted a robust growth last year, beefing up the industry's asset size to $158.8 billion from $139.08 billion at the end of 2012. The survey, done twice a year, showed that investors are beginning to go back to Asia even if the industry is still $33 billion below the peak it reached in 2007, the report said.

Head of Asia for HedgeFund Intelligence Aradhna Dayal, which manages AsiaHedge, was quoted in the report as saying, "This dispels the notion that Asian hedge funds have fallen off the radar for global allocators." She added that their survey witnessed the considerable growth of assets "in some of the large, home-grown managers" in 2013, the report said.

The strong performance was driven by a median return of 13.6% in Asian hedge funds, robust returns made by managers focused on China and Japan as well as a capital flow amounting to $3.85 billion in new launches in 2013. Another indication that the region's hedge fund industry has started to mature is that close to 80% of assets poured in the region's hedge funds are run from inside Asia. In 2009, only 71% of the assets invested were run from within the region while in 2000, there were only 52%, the report said. According to AsiaHedge, this was also a reflection of the "deep shift in the geographical dynamics of the industry."

Last year, distressed and special situation hedge funds' assets increased two times to $6.3 billion while those at funds focused for Japan posted a 35% rise to $19 billion. Meanwhile, the biggest Asian fund category is the China and Greater China equity long/short funds where the assets increased to $20.8 billion, the report said.