New investors can no longer put money into the fund, but existing investors can still add to their holdings, with remaining capacity of around $300m-$500m, depending on market conditions.
Investment Week understands GSAM is preparing to launch a Growth Markets fund later this year, which will provide exposure to similar growth regions.
The fund is already listed in the group's prospectus, with a provisional launch date before January 2014, depending on investor appetite.
It will invest in the eight global growth markets that already contribute more than 1% to global GDP - the traditional BRIC countries, along with Mexico, Korea, Turkey and Indonesia.
The N-11 fund was launched in January 2011 to invest in the securities of the ‘Next Eleven' countries - Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Turkey and Vietnam - on a GDP-weighted basis.
These markets were identified as the next global growth markets by Jim O'Neill and the Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research team back in 2005.
Nick Phillips, co-head of distribution for EMEA, said: "The reason the N-11 fund has seen so much interest from investors is because it provides diversification around geographies and different stages of growth, and it was designed as a compliment to a global emerging markets portfolio."
"We have soft-closed the fund to maintain the liquidity in the interests of existing investors, especially taking into consideration less liquid markets such as Nigeria and Bangladesh.
"When we do our capacity assumptions, more challenging markets such as these can create specific risks and we build these into our analysis."
The fund has consistently beaten the MSCI Emerging Markets index since launch, returning 27% over the last 12 months to 2 June versus the benchmark return of 11.3%, according to Morningstar.
Read more: www.investmentweek.co.uk/investment-week/news/2271950/goldman-sachs-am-softcloses-next-11-fund
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