Salve Lucrum

Private Equity

Direct stakes and co-investments in private companies, from early-stage software to established platforms, alongside firms such as Astorg and Cobepa.

Public Equities

A concentrated book of listed shares, weighted toward technology and businesses that compound quietly over years.

Real Estate

Property held directly and with partners across the US and German-speaking Europe, bought to keep rather than trade.

Philosophy · Ikigai

Invested where four things meet.

Ikigai is a Japanese idea about finding the work that sits where four things overlap. We borrowed it because it describes fairly well how we decide what to put money into, and what to leave alone.

Conviction — what we genuinely believe in.
Expertise — what we understand better than most.
Demand — what the world will keep needing.
Returns — what compounds at a sensible price.

“Every position we back is one we would hold ourselves.”

About

Built by operators.
Aligned by capital.

salve, lucrum — “welcome, profit.” The words are drawn from a mosaic set into the threshold of a Roman merchant’s house.

Salve Lucrum is a private investment office. We invest our own capital in private companies, listed shares and real estate. Between us we have spent most of our working lives building and running technology businesses. That background decides most of what we look at, and nearly everything we pass on.

The name comes from a mosaic set into the doorway of a Roman merchant’s house. We liked that it was practical rather than grand: a greeting to profit, laid where people wiped their feet.

There are two of us, which limits how much we can sensibly follow. So we hold a small number of positions and stay close to each one. We would rather know ten companies properly than fifty in outline.

Salve Lucrum operates as Salve Lucrum LLC, a registered Florida limited liability company.

Investment Approach

Where our conviction goes.

Patient capital across private equity, venture, listed equities, and real assets — most of it technology-led.

01

Private Equity

We take direct stakes in private companies and co-invest alongside firms such as Astorg, Cobepa and Gridiron Capital. Most of what we look at is technology-led, because that is the ground we know. We move slowly and expect to hold for years rather than quarters.

02

Public Equities

We hold a concentrated book of listed shares, weighted toward technology and businesses that compound quietly. Positions are sized to how well we think we understand them. We revisit the reasoning roughly once a quarter and otherwise leave it alone.

03

Venture & Startups

We write smaller cheques into early-stage software companies, usually founder-led. We look for places where we can be useful beyond the money: hiring, pricing, or getting the first enterprise customers over the line. That is the part we enjoy most.

$30M+ Capital invested

We have more than $30 million of our own capital committed across private companies, listed shares and property in the US, German-speaking Europe and the Nordics. Every position on this page is one we hold ourselves. We manage no outside money.

Criteria

What we look for.

Four questions we ask before committing to anything. Most of what crosses our desk fails at least one of them.

Durable economics

Can it raise prices without losing customers? Does the revenue repeat? We want returns on capital that survive a bad year, not only a good one.

Aligned operators

We want management holding a meaningful stake of their own. People spend their own money differently, and it tends to show up in the numbers.

Technology leverage

Software should make the business harder to replace, whether the company sells technology or simply runs on it better than its competitors do.

A sensible price

This is the one people talk themselves out of. We have passed on companies we liked because the price was wrong, and we expect to again.

Selected Holdings

Where the capital sits.

A representative sample of where our capital sits: funds we are invested in as a limited partner, listed shares we own directly, and a few private companies.

Corsearch Corsearch Brand risk & performance technology Private Equity

Max Matthiessen Max Matthiessen Nordic pensions, insurance & savings Private Equity

Astorg Astorg European private equity Fund investment

Cobepa Cobepa Independent investment company Fund investment

Gridiron Gridiron Capital North American private equity Fund investment

Investcorp Investcorp Global alternative investments Fund investment

Karnov Karnov Group Legal & tax information software Listed · Technology

RELX RELX Group Information & analytics for science, law and risk Listed · Information

KnowMe IQ KnowMe IQ Customer messaging & feedback software Venture

Real Estate Direct & co-invested property, held for the long term US & DACH

Positions shown are illustrative, unaudited and subject to change. Entries marked “fund investment” denote a limited-partner interest in a fund managed by that firm, not an ownership stake in the firm itself. Company names, trademarks and logos remain the property of their respective owners and appear for identification only; their inclusion does not imply any endorsement, sponsorship or affiliation.

Where We Operate

A focused geography.

We concentrate where we have edge and relationships — the United States, the DACH region of Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and the Nordics. Across private equity, listed equities, and real estate. High-level by design; deep where it counts.