What it is
AYCRE Capital Partners raised a fund to buy lots and build custom homes around Las Vegas, including the Ascaya community. Fowler joined in late October 2022 as Managing Director on the capital side: the capital strategy, the investor process, the private placement memorandum and the materials behind the ask. The raise ran through Prince Capital as the licensed placement advisor, and Common Ground's brand team held the brand and the deck.
When he arrived, the operators believed the offering would sell itself. The deck and financials had been built for an earlier stage, there were warm relationships but no pipeline, and the next touch after any conversation depended on who remembered to make it.
What Common Ground did
- Fowler wrote sources and uses before anyone was asked for money: what comes in, from whom and in what order, and what it buys. An ask with a stated use is an underwriting; an ask without one is a story.
- He built a staged investor pipeline, sourced, engaged, diligence, soft commit and closed, each stage with an entry trigger, a required next step and a follow-up window.
- He inverted the usual follow-up cadence so the window was tightest nearest the signature. In private capital the alternative to yes is silence, and a missed touch near the signature quietly defaults to no.
- Common Ground rebuilt the deck in the order a diligence-stage investor asks questions, and the financial model tied construction draws to each project's deal stage rather than to a calendar.
- The private placement memorandum was created and then revised so the point where subscription documents go out matched the soft-commit stage of the pipeline. Outside counsel held the document.
- The marketing effort was aimed at putting a name and a warm path on every prospect before the first touch, rather than running as a brand exercise beside the raise.
- The deck that came out of the rebuild, version 3G, runs eleven pages under one line, the Aycre Way: building success simply. The method comes first, the ask after it, and the money last.
- Fowler and the team built a 55-plus community concept for the fund and shopped it in Las Vegas and then Phoenix. Shopping it in Phoenix is how he first met Jon Armstrong of Armstrong Construction Group, and that relationship carried forward into LÏEF Development.
Results
- $25M in commitments toward a $50M target in fourteen months. These were commitments, not funded capital: the commitments did not fund, the fund did not close near target, and Fowler left in December 2023.
- Four custom-home projects reached term sheet during the raise, Plaka Del Rey, Modena Court, Sanctuary Peak and the Winston Court joint venture: evidence the fund had places to put money. None closed with Aycre.
- Two things outlived the fund: the follow-up cadence, which Fowler has used since, and the relationship with Jon Armstrong, which came out of the concept and not out of the raise.
- The seat set the order Fowler has used on the development work since: capital last, after site control and a proven model.
External links
- Public data room: Aycre Capital data room
Public record
Stories from this work
At a glance
| Project type | Fund formation, capital raise process and investor materials |
|---|---|
| Industry | Real estate private equity and residential development |
| Seat | Managing Director |
| Ran through | AYCRE Capital Partners; the raise ran through Prince Capital |
| Dates | October 2022 to December 2023 |
| Duration | Fourteen months |
| Location | Las Vegas, Nevada |
| Public data room | Aycre Capital data room |
| Related pages | Common Ground, Prince Capital |
| Credit | Created by Common Ground |