More than USD 15bn is deployed into royalty investments every year, and the world's biggest
firms are accelerating that trend.
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Here's what's happening:

1. Royalty Pharma's market cap has roughly doubled to USD 27bn over the past 12–18
months

2. Pophouse raised USD 1.3bn for its debut music IP fund

3. Partners Group launched the first scalable multi-sector royalty strategy in 2025

4. KKR acquired Health Care Royalty Partners (HCRx), a USD 3bn AUM healthcare
royalty firm

5. Brookfield invested USD 200–250m in Primary Wave and backed its latest USD
500m fundraise
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This is a structural shift…

As the global economy becomes increasingly IP-driven, royalties are emerging as a distinct
and highly investable asset class. And the application is not limited to a handful of industries.

The best royalty-eligible assets typically share a few characteristics:
- A contractual entitlement to a revenue stream
- High gross profit margins
- Repeat usage or recurring sales
- Identifiable IP rights, data, or formulas
- Auditable reporting
-Durable demand

But here's what almost no one is talking about yet.
The digital sector, sitting on EUR 1 trillion in recurring revenues, has been completely absent
from most royalty portfolios.
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That is the gap I have been building toward for years.

Royalty underwriting in digital infrastructure is a distinct discipline. You need to understand
customer retention, technology embeddedness in workflows, switching costs, revenue
cohorts, billing systems, and how to structure and price a true-sale royalty on contractual
recurring revenue.
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Most firms simply don't have that royalty-specific expertise.
I have deployed EUR 140m across 39 royalty investments in European tech and software.
That expertise took years to build and cannot be replicated quickly.
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The big players have entered royalties, but the digital infrastructure opportunity is still wide
open.

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