We recently sat down with Troy Marcus, Founder and CEO of Evergen Equity, to learn how his firm’s white-glove approach to investor service and unwavering focus on alignment and trust have fueled long-term loyalty from family offices and helped land Evergen on Juniper Square’s Top Fundraisers list for the second time in three years.
Q: Congratulations on making the top fundraisers list for the second time in three years. Reflecting on the past two years, what has changed about Evergen—and what remains the same?
Marcus: Since we last spoke, most parts of our business have stayed the same. We remain maniacally focused on alignment, on being the best fiduciary for the family offices we serve, and on partnering the capital we serve with the best risk-adjusted-return profile real estate opportunities. Most notably, our team continues to be rock-solid, hyper-passionate, and rowing in the same direction. The only major change is that our portfolio has quadrupled in size since our discussion in 2022.
In 2022 and early 2023, we were operating in a frothy market, but we stayed focused on being disciplined investors. That meant missing out on a lot of the acquisitions we chased because there always seemed to be companies willing to pay much more than we were for assets. In fact, we essentially deployed no new dollars for a 15-month period—not because we were not trying, but because we just could not make sense of the market at the time. We honestly did not know how the competition was making the numbers work. What then unfolded was a tectonic shift—a major wave of new supply and skyrocketing interest rates. Things broke, and opportunity presented itself.
From June 2023 to the end of 2024, when capital disappeared from the market, we were one of the few who could go on the offensive and be acquisitive, largely because we did not have a big legacy portfolio with big legacy problems. We have always felt that if there is a good deal, there will be capital for it. That was certainly the case last year, and that was part of what made 2024 really special.
Q: In 2022, you said capital raising was primarily word of mouth. Has that changed since then?
Marcus: Our approach has not changed—it is still word of mouth. We are fortunate that the family offices we serve have been some of our greatest advocates and cheerleaders. Any new families we are serving now have come through families we are already serving, who appreciate our white-glove, bespoke real estate offering. That is a great compliment that we do not take lightly.
The family offices we serve are ultra-high net worth, so they are usually big enough to have a fully built-out, dedicated family office team and behave more like institutional investors. They go deep on trust and due diligence into the operator, looking at systems, processes, safeguards, cybersecurity, and track record. One area where we build trust is by spending an extraordinary amount of time with each family we serve and really understanding their long-term objectives and how real estate fits into the bigger picture.
Q: You mentioned that potential clients evaluate your operations, processes, cybersecurity, and more. What exactly are they looking for?
Marcus: For the families we serve, wealth preservation is always priority one. How a company builds out its systems and processes is usually indicative of how it runs its investments. If you have dotted every I and crossed every T as you have built out your internal systems, you probably run your investments similarly.
Like us, many of the families we serve prefer to fly under the radar, so discretion is of exceptional importance. That means they never want anything slipping through the cracks—not an EIN, a social security number, any personal information, or where they are investing. With major cybersecurity threats like wire fraud to consider, Juniper Square has helped us ratchet up the protections for the families we serve. We have an exceptional place to house data and keep everything live on the investor portal, so Juniper Square can engage with us in real-time, monitor us, and double-check our work.
Q: How do conversations about tariffs affect what Evergen does?
Marcus: We spend a ton of time focused on understanding the movement of people and goods. Sitting here today, I am not sure what, when, or how, but I am certain something will change. The current administration is focused heavily on balancing trade with China and onshoring, bringing manufacturing back to the United States. Our house view is that much of what was offshored in the eighties, nineties, and early two thousands will never be fully onshored. First, we do not have the labor to support it. Second, the investment to build the facilities and teams is exceptionally high, and these trade wars and tariffs can be unwound as quickly as they have been wound up. We do, however, believe that as it relates to sectors addressing public health or national security, meaningful onshoring should happen. For example, a sliver of all the penicillin consumed in the United States is made here—that should probably change.
Lately, we have been more focused on nearshoring, manufacturing happening as close to the American consumer as possible. Canada and Mexico are the logical locations in our minds. Interestingly, last year was the first year Mexico surpassed China as the number one trading partner with the U.S., and we believe Mexico will be one of the major beneficiaries of these trade wars and re-alignment of the supply chain. While we only invest domestically, we think inland or cross-border trade will continue to increase, so we have been acquiring warehouses on the U.S. side of the U.S.-Mexico border. We are thankful for partners who understand the long term versus this moment in time, and we have long-duration capital to ride waves of volatility.
Q: Beyond consistent returns and the due diligence you put into locating assets and managing operations, is there anything else that helps foster loyalty among your existing investors?
Marcus: We built our firm focused on alignment—aligning the families we serve with who we are, what we do, and the economic structure, partners, and properties we put in front of them. We deliver a white-glove experience and spend a ton of time with their family office teams because we want them to understand what we are doing, and we are honored to be on the journey alongside them. We communicate often, and we are always above deck. We believe good news should trickle out when it is signed, sealed, and delivered, but we communicate bad news early. Juniper Square is arguably the most important tool we have for communicating information to our families.
Q: Given the current economic landscape, will raising capital this year be more or less challenging than in 2024?
Marcus: 2024 was a particularly difficult fundraising environment in our industry. At this moment in 2025, debt markets are ripping and roaring again, and the big institutions seem to be fully engaged. Our focus is on finding the right deals for the dollars we serve, not finding dollars for deals. We are very disciplined investors, and we are good at saying “no.” If there is something we have conviction in, the families we serve generally do as well.
Q: Based on your experience successfully raising capital amid challenging macroeconomic conditions, what advice would you offer to other firms on capitalizing opportunities this year?
Marcus: I believe there is a reset happening right now in the capital markets. After the Great Financial Crisis, there were huge tailwinds that led to exceptional performance, even for bad investments and operators. Right now, people are reevaluating their jockey and their horse. Because of this, there is an exceptional opportunity for up-and-comers to start and scale their own business.
From our experience, investors want above-average opportunities with above-average return profiles, protection, and investment teams. Said differently, they do not want ordinary, they want extraordinary. In our case, we are old school. Monday to Friday, we are together at our desks in our office at 7:30 AM, because the families we serve expect that of us—we expect that of ourselves. Right now, that is not ordinary. Going forward, those who outperform and take disproportionate market share will do it because they are doing something different, they are not average. If you are average or below average, you will not just lose market share, you will lose out completely. With tectonic shifts, there is movement on the totem pole. Some blue-chip names may wither away, and some sleepers could really scale. It is going to be fun to watch.
Q: How does the Juniper Square fundraising solution compare to other tools that you've used in the past?
Marcus: Juniper Square is in a league of its own. The user experience, both for us as communicators and for our partners as recipients, is untouchable. It has also been special to watch how Juniper Square has elevated over the last couple of years in the traditional private equity industry. Our family offices can easily log into Juniper Square and look at their non-real estate, traditional private equity exposure alongside their Evergen real estate exposure.
As Juniper Square continues to broaden its base, solve more problems, and serve more people, it allows us to deliver an even better white-glove service to our partners. We are wildly thankful for our partnership with Juniper Square, most notably because the time we save by using it allows us to do what we do best, what we are built to do, and what the families we serve have engaged us to do—create alpha through their real estate portfolio.
Evergen Equity was featured as one of Juniper Square's 2024 Top Fundraisers, based on our analysis of the capital raised by our clients using digital subscriptions. Digital subscriptions is one of Juniper Square's digital fundraising tools, helping GPs deliver a better investor experience and raise more capital.
This interview was held on April 18th, 2025.