Royalties from artists like Fleetwood Mac or Justin Bieber have become big bets for investors. Althera42 wants to copy that playbook for the tech world.
The new fund, launched by former BlackRock executive Caspar Macqueen and Christian Czernich, who founded private credit firm Round2 Capital, plans to provide working capital to companies building Europe's digital infrastructure — think data centers and cloud computing — without taking a stake in companies.
"Althera42's royalty investments allow companies to access capital without diluting equity or taking on rigid debt obligations," a factsheet on the new firm published last week states.
Focused on late-stage private companies, Althera42's deals will exchange capital upfront for a fixed percentage of future revenues over several years. The money is not a loan, as the manager is not looking to just be paid the initial capital investment plus a fixed interest rate.
It is a bet on the revenue growth and scalability of the companies they find, without having to buy in at the sky-high valuations that top startups are demanding for equity.
Why Althera42 thinks it's a new asset class
While private credit has been all the rage for years, with more than $260 billion raised in 2025's first quarter alone, according to Pitchbook, Czernich said the royalties model allows the firm to combine the upside of venture capital with the steady cash flow of private debt. The fund will send any gains to investors quarterly, Macqueen said, and charge a 2% management fee and 20% performance fee.
The firm's first fund hopes to pull in $300 million and do between 15 and 20 deals, mostly across Europe and the UK, with the potential for some North American investments, said Macqueen, who was the head of BlackRock's UK, Middle East, and Africa for the alternatives business of Aladdin, the firm's widely used risk and analytics platform.
The factsheet outlining the fund's plans states that it is seeking companies with between €10 and €100 million in annual revenue (roughly $17 million to $117 million) from "recurring or licensing-based models" that have "defensible IP, low churn, and diversified customer bases."
Macqueen imagines most of the money being deployed in France, Germany, Scandinavia, and the UK, and the firm plans to have offices in London, New York, and a still-undecided location in continental Europe, possibly Munich, where Czernich has worked from previously.
Other industries, like pharmaceuticals and music, have seen royalties investing come in and out of style over the years. Big names have put capital to work to tap into revenue streams from different industries. Private equity giant KKR purchased a majority stake in healthcare royalties investor HCRx last month, and Blackstone's 2024 purchase of Hipgnosis makes it one of the biggest music royalties investors in the world.
However, structuring the deal around future revenues instead of intellectual property is somewhat novel. For Czernich, who has done dozens of private market deals in Europe over his career, royalties investing has the potential for something much bigger than just strong returns for Althera42's investors.
"I do genuinely believe it will be a new asset class," he said.
