Applied Real Intelligence (“A.R.I.”), a research-driven private investment manager, announced strong results for its A.R.I. Senior Secured Growth Credit Fund, which generated approximately 18% cash return on deployed capital in 2025, following a 26% cash return on deployed capital in 2024. These reported cash returns exclude substantial unrealized appreciation from the Fund’s equity-linked investments, which management believes represent an important source of long-term value creation.
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Dr. Zack Ellison, DBA, MBA, MS, CFA, CAIA, is the Founder and Managing General Partner of Applied Real Intelligence (A.R.I.) and Chief Investment Officer of the A.R.I. Senior Secured Growth Credit Fund. With more than 20 years of experience across leveraged lending, investment banking, fixed income portfolio management, and corporate credit trading, Dr. Ellison leads A.R.I.’s research-driven investment platform and oversees its disciplined approach to private markets investing. He earned a Doctor of Business Administration from the University of Florida, an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and an MS in Risk Management from NYU Stern School of Business. Under his leadership, A.R.I. developed the proprietary 7S Investment Methodology™ and continues expanding its institutional investment platform through private credit, structured private equity, and differentiated real asset investment strategies designed to meet the evolving needs of sophisticated investors.
Fiscal year 2025 marked another significant milestone for the A.R.I. Fund, as it maintained its record of no realized principal losses since inception, expanded its investment portfolio, distributed strong recurring cash income to investors, and continued executing on its core investment strategy.
“Strong performance in private credit is never accidental. It is the result of a disciplined investment process,” said Dr. Zack Ellison, Founder and Managing General Partner of Applied Real Intelligence.
Disciplined Credit Investing Focused on Capital Preservation
A.R.I.’s investment strategy emphasizes protecting investor capital through conservative credit underwriting and customized transaction structuring.
Each investment is evaluated under the firm’s proprietary A.R.I. 7S Investment Methodology™, which emphasizes:
- Seniority — A.R.I. invests at the top of the capital structure, ensuring first-position rights to cash flows, assets, and remedies to maximize recovery potential.
- Security — A.R.I. lends against perfected, all-asset collateral packages to preserve value and protect principal across market cycles.
- Structure — A.R.I. engineers every investment with robust lender protections, including covenants, cash controls, information rights, and early-warning triggers, to proactively manage risk.
- Size — A.R.I. sizes each facility conservatively relative to borrower liquidity, collateral, revenue, and enterprise value to limit loss severity and concentration risk.
- Short — A.R.I. originates short-duration, floating-rate loans with interest rate floors to minimize duration risk and enable rapid capital rotation, frequent repricing, and limited credit drift.
- Scalable — A.R.I. finances companies positioned for sustained growth, allowing the firm to increase exposure to outperformers and capture equity-linked upside as they expand.
- Strategic — A.R.I. serves as an aligned strategic partner, providing operational guidance, board-level insight, disciplined oversight, and targeted network access to unlock sustainable growth.
“Protecting investor capital is the foundation of everything we do,” Dr. Ellison said. “Once investor capital is appropriately protected, we seek to create significant upside through carefully negotiated equity participation.”
A.R.I.’s Continuous Investment Process
A distinguishing characteristic of A.R.I.’s investment process is its emphasis on disciplined underwriting before every investment and active portfolio management throughout the life of every investment. Before committing capital, A.R.I. conducts extensive financial, operational, legal, commercial, and structural due diligence designed to identify risks, validate assumptions, and negotiate comprehensive lender protections tailored to each transaction.
Following the initial funding, A.R.I. continuously monitors its investments through ongoing financial reporting, covenant compliance, regular engagement with management teams, and board oversight.
“Unlike investments in the public markets, great private credit investments aren’t found—they’re built through disciplined execution at every stage of the investment lifecycle,” Dr. Ellison said.
Expansion of the A.R.I. Investment Platform
Building upon its successful private credit fund, A.R.I. continues to expand its investment capabilities to meet the evolving needs of sophisticated investors seeking differentiated sources of return.
During 2025, the firm expanded its platform to include structured private equity investments and is preparing to launch an additional investment strategy during the fourth quarter of 2026. The new strategy is expected to focus on real asset investments designed to provide investors with tax-efficient returns, inflation protection, and low correlation to traditional stock and bond markets.
A.R.I. believes the strategy addresses growing demand among family offices and other long-term investors seeking differentiated real asset exposure that complements traditional private credit and private equity allocations.
“Many investors are increasingly looking beyond traditional stocks and bonds for sources of return that provide diversification, inflation protection, and tax efficiency,” Dr. Ellison said. “We’ve spent considerable time listening to these investors, identifying their unmet needs, and developing a differentiated real asset investment strategy designed to address them. Although the underlying assets may differ from our private credit strategy, our new fund is grounded in the same disciplined investment philosophy that has guided A.R.I. since inception.”
About Applied Real Intelligence (A.R.I.)
Applied Real Intelligence (A.R.I.) is a research-driven investment platform with expertise in private credit, venture debt, structured private equity, and customized financing solutions for innovative North American companies. Through disciplined underwriting, thoughtful transaction structuring, and active portfolio management, A.R.I. seeks to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns while providing downside protection and meaningful long-term upside through equity-linked investments.
As part of its continued platform expansion, A.R.I. is developing additional investment strategies, including a differentiated real asset investment strategy expected to launch in the fourth quarter of 2026. The firm’s platform is backed by sophisticated family offices and institutional investors across North America. Learn more at www.arivc.com.
Dr. Zack Ellison, CFA, CAIA is the Founder and Managing General Partner of A.R.I. and Chief Investment Officer of the A.R.I. Senior Secured Growth Credit Fund. He has more than 20 years of experience across leveraged lending, investment banking, fixed income portfolio management, and corporate credit trading at five publicly traded financial institutions, including three with more than $1 trillion in assets. Dr. Ellison earned a Doctor of Business Administration from the University of Florida, an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and an MS in Risk Management from NYU Stern School of Business.
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