About Us - Acuere Capital Partners

Where the Story Starts

Dr. Dipesh Sitaram, Founder

My career began in oral surgery. For years my world was patients, clinical outcomes, and the operational discipline that healthcare demands. Healthcare teaches you quickly that trust matters, process matters, and bad decisions carry real consequences. That discipline shaped how I approached everything that came next.

As my practice grew, I began allocating capital beyond it. Over time I built Acuere Capital Partners, my private family office. Today Acuere holds positions across real estate, hospitality, commercial lending, energy, and insurance. As the principal making allocation decisions, I had access to deals, but I also had a problem. The most attractive opportunities in lower-middle-market real estate were sitting in a gap that no platform served well.

The Gap I Saw

The largest institutional managers ignored the deals I was most interested in because the check sizes were too small to move the needle on a multi-billion-dollar portfolio. At the same time, retail syndicators chasing those same deals lacked the underwriting depth, the sector specialization, and the institutional reporting infrastructure I needed to deploy family office capital responsibly.

To pursue these opportunities at scale and at the standard I would expect from any institutional allocation, I would have had to internally hire and retain a CIO-grade team specialized in healthcare and housing real estate, with capital markets, credit structuring, and reporting capabilities to match. Most family offices my size cannot internally staff that. Even the ones that can find that staffing CIO-quality talent in real estate is harder than it has ever been. So I had a choice — pass on a sector where I had genuine conviction and operating insight, or build the platform I wished existed.

Why I Co-Founded Responsible Real Estate

I co-founded Responsible Real Estate Investment to solve Acuere's own operating gap first. Responsible is the institutional platform I needed for my own family office. The fact that other families and accredited investors can now access what we built, through proper offering structures, is what makes the platform scalable. But the design intent began with one question: what would the ideal outsourced real estate function look like for a family office of our profile? The answer required four people, each bringing a capability the others could not replicate. That structure became Responsible Real Estate.

The Team

Dilip Petigara, Chief Executive Officer
Dilip leads the firm's work in healthcare and active adult (55-and-over) housing. He brings more than 25 years in private credit, specialty finance, and commercial real estate lending, much of it spent building lending businesses and the capital infrastructure beneath them. As CEO of Access Point Financial, he grew the firm organically to $2.4 billion in total loan originations and led its strategy, capital markets, and risk management, after first building its credit function as Chief Credit Officer. Earlier in his career, he scaled a participated-loan portfolio from $100 million to more than $2 billion across more than 120 bank participants. A lawyer and tax specialist by training, Dilip holds a J.D., an LL.M. in Taxation, and an M.B.A. in Finance, pairing an operator's track record with a structurer's command of the tax considerations that shape real estate ownership.

Brendan Hotchkiss, Chief Investment Officer
Brendan brings the rigorous underwriting architecture that protects investor capital and separates disciplined funds from promotional ones. With more than 20 years in commercial real estate and over $4 billion in transactions advised, he operates at institutional standards. He also co-founded LDCRE, a global commercial real estate marketplace that has marketed more than $1.892 trillion in listings across 49 countries, demonstrating both his reach and institutional credibility. His 15-year relationship with the principals at a 67-year-old Midwest developer became the foundation of our Active Adult vertical. That is not deal flow we sourced cold. It is a programmatic partnership built on trust developed over decades.

Paul Cronin, Chief Financial Officer
Paul provides the institutional credit and capital markets discipline that family offices and sophisticated investors expect before committing seven-figure capital. He spent more than 30 years in banking and financial services across Santander, KeyBank, HSBC, and ABN AMRO/LaSalle, with responsibility for corporate and structured finance, capital raising, and client development. He has personally led the management of a $750 million leveraged loan fund and a $1 billion high yield fund, with full investment committee responsibility across multiple asset classes. As a partner at Salmon Leap Capital Partners, he advises private funds and family offices on capital structuring and credit strategy. His presence on our platform means every Responsible Real Estate acquisition is underwritten with the same structural discipline a top-tier institutional buyer would demand. That same rigor now protects every investor in the platform, regardless of check size.

And myself, Dipesh Sitaram, Co-Founder
My role on the platform is to bring the family office principal's perspective to every decision. I sit on the same side of the table as the family offices we partner with. I share their concerns, their reporting standards, and their need for genuine alignment between sponsor and capital. The questions I ask of our acquisitions, our structures, and our reporting are the questions any of our family office partners would ask if they had the bandwidth to ask them themselves.

Each of us alone could not build this. Together, we deliver something rare at the lower-middle-market scale: a platform that operates the way a family office's internal investment function would operate if it had access to talent at this level. Institutional underwriting through Brendan's capital markets depth. Credit and structural discipline through Paul's institutional banking experience. Family office alignment through my own perspective as a principal. That is the platform we set out to build, and that is the platform we now operate.

A Barbell, Not a Single Strategy

Responsible Real Estate's first two strategies form a barbell. On one side, core net lease healthcare real estate, structured for income, capital preservation, and recession-resistant tenant demand. On the other side, opportunistic active adult housing development, structured for growth and developer-aligned upside in an under-supplied housing segment. Both anchored to the same demographic foundation. Aging Americans need places to receive care, and they need places to live on their own terms.

The barbell is how sophisticated allocators construct real estate exposure inside an institutional portfolio. Stability on one end, alpha on the other, both supported by structural demographic tailwinds. Responsible lets families and accredited investors tune their allocation across the barbell to match their portfolio needs.

Institutional Standards, Multiple Entry Points

Responsible Real Estate was structured to serve sophisticated capital across the full spectrum of family office and accredited investor profiles, with the same underwriting, credit discipline, and reporting standards applied uniformly.

Family offices and institutional allocators participate through programmatic partnerships, anchor positions, and co-investment structures with preferential economics and direct GP relationships. Accredited investors participate through the fund vehicle under the proper offering framework. Same platform. Same underwriting team. Same standards. Different structures for different investor profiles.

Why "Responsible"

We chose the name Responsible Real Estate Investment deliberately. We wanted the standard built into the brand.

Transparent structures. Aligned incentives. GP capital alongside LP capital. Institutional credit discipline applied to every acquisition. Reporting that matches what a sophisticated family office would expect from any institutional allocation. These are not differentiators we discuss in marketing. They are operating commitments visible from the first conversation.

This is the platform I wanted available to my own family office. It now exists, and it is available to families who recognize the same gap I did.

LPs invest in people first. The numbers come second.

That is true at every scale, from the first accredited investor we work with to the largest family office we partner with. Our story is not a marketing layer. A surgeon and family office principal who saw an operating gap and co-founded the institutional platform he needed. A capital markets veteran whose decades-long relationships became programmatic partnerships. A licensed managing broker with deep net lease specialization. An institutional banker who has structured billions in credit and capital. Together, we built Responsible Real Estate. That is why we are called Responsible. That is why the platform is structured the way it is. And that is why the story matters.

Legacy & Philanthropy: A Purpose Beyond Profit

At Acuere Capital, we see wealth as a tool for meaningful change. Our mission goes beyond financial returns — we're committed to building a platform that inspires the next generation to lead with generosity and purpose.

When the next generation sees wealth used as a tool for global transformation rather than just personal accumulation, they are inspired to carry the torch of stewardship forward. At Acuere, we help build legacies that provide for families today and build a vision for a better world tomorrow.

An exit is not the finish line; it is the point where capital gets its next job. Acuere plans for structure, timing, and tax considerations early, in coordination with each partner’s own legal, tax, and wealth advisors, so that liquidity can be kept, deployed, and passed on with intention.

The Sitaram Family Foundation

Learn More

Giving is part of how our family defines success. The Sitaram Family Foundation supports the Vidyabharti College in Umrakh, near Bardoli in the Surat district of Gujarat, India. The university was founded by Dr. Sitaram’s grandfather, and the family has played a major role in its operations ever since, with Dr. Dipesh Sitaram serving as a primary donor and key contributor to its growth. Each year, a percentage of Acuere Capital Partners’ profits goes to the Foundation to fund the College’s work.

What began as one man’s commitment to his community has grown into a symbol of academic excellence, offering quality education from the primary level through higher education and research. The College’s institutions share one campus. They include the S. N. Patel Institute of Technology & Research Centre, the College of Business, Computer Science & Research, the College of MCA & MBA, and a pharmacy school. The campus also houses the Texas Multispeciality Hospital, which extends the college’s commitment to health care.

Our philanthropy is also built into how we manage wealth. By strategically converting appreciated assets into philanthropic vehicles, we reduce deferred tax liabilities and redirect those resources where they matter most: building schools, supporting students, and strengthening underserved communities. We call this our “Exit-to-Impact” model, which turns financial transitions into lasting social good. We believe education and health care are among the most lasting ways to create opportunity for the next generation.

"I did not set out to build an investment program. I built one because I needed it."