Finance is not my world. Investment funds are definitely not my world.
So when I first came across Alsis Funds SC, a private credit firm based in Mexico City, my first reaction was something like: “Okay, but what does that actually mean?”
That question sent me down a rabbit hole. And what I found was genuinely interesting, not just for people in finance, but for anyone who has ever wondered how businesses actually get the money they need to grow.
This is me, a complete outsider, trying to explain it as simply as possible.
What Even Is Private Credit?
Before I can talk about Alsis Funds SC, I need to explain the problem they’re solving. Because once you understand the problem, everything else makes a lot more sense.
Here’s how most people think businesses get money: they either go to a bank, or they find investors who take a share of the company. That’s basically it, right?
The reality is messier. Banks have strict requirements. They want years of financial history, solid collateral, and a business that already looks like it doesn’t really need a loan. Small and medium-sized businesses, especially in markets like Mexico, often don’t tick all those boxes. They have real projects, real assets, real potential, but they don’t fit neatly into a bank’s checklist.
At the same time, giving up ownership of your company to get funding is a big deal. Once you sell equity, those investors own a piece of your business forever. For a lot of business owners, that’s not the right move.
Private credit sits in the middle. It’s a loan, but structured specifically around what a business actually looks like, not what a bank’s standard template requires. The loan is tailored, backed by real assets, and the business keeps full ownership. That’s the concept. That’s the gap that firms like Alsis Funds SC are built to fill.
Who Is Alsis Funds SC?
Alsis Funds SC was founded in 2007 in Mexico City. The name comes from the ancient Greek word “άλσίς,” which means growth. That’s not an accident. The whole point of what they do is helping businesses grow when traditional financing isn’t available to them.
By the numbers, they’ve invested more than $470 million USD across more than 90 transactions since their first investment in 2008. They currently manage over $260 million in assets. They’ve successfully exited more than 45 investments, with an average return above 20% in USD terms. Those are not small numbers for a firm that focuses on small and medium-sized businesses in Mexico.
One thing that stood out to me is that the firm is 100% owned and managed by its own collaborators and partners. There’s no outside ownership calling the shots. That structure tends to produce a different kind of decision-making, usually more long-term, more careful.
They have offices in both Mexico City and Miami, which makes sense given how many institutional investors operate across the US and Latin American markets.
The Mexico Angle
This part actually connects to something I’ve noticed just from spending time traveling through Mexico.
Small businesses are everywhere. Restaurants, construction projects, family-run financial companies, energy suppliers. The energy in those businesses is real. But when you talk to the people running them, one of the most common things you hear is how hard it is to access the kind of financing that would actually let them scale.
The banking system in Mexico, like in many Latin American countries, is not built for small and medium businesses that need flexible, customized capital. The banks that do exist for this segment often can’t move fast enough or structure deals with enough nuance to actually work for a specific project.
That’s the market Alsis Funds SC has been operating in since 2007. Most of their investments, about 63%, have gone into real estate and housing development, with the rest spread across financial services and energy. These are sectors that require serious capital but where bank financing often falls short.
The housing angle is worth noting specifically. Mexico has a real housing shortage. When a private credit firm channels investment into housing development, the impact isn’t just financial returns. It’s actual homes being built for people who need them. That’s a concrete outcome.
Four Ways They Actually Invest
I had to do some reading to understand this part, but I’ll break it down simply.
Alsis Funds SC uses four main investment strategies. The biggest one, covering 58% of their portfolio, is what they call subordinated or mezzanine debt. Think of it as a loan that sits behind the main loan in terms of repayment priority, but it often has the ability to convert into equity if needed. It’s a more flexible structure that works well for housing development projects.
The second strategy, at 25% of the portfolio, is more straightforward senior credit. This goes to businesses that don’t have a strong credit history but have solid real assets backing the loan. The repayment comes from the actual cash flows of the project or the underlying asset.
The third strategy, about 10%, involves buying distressed loan portfolios from banks. These are mortgages or assets that have already gone bad, purchased at a discount and then actively managed to recover value.
The fourth, at 7%, is lending to or buying loan portfolios from non-bank financial companies. These are institutions that originate loans but need their own financing to keep growing.
What connects all four is the same principle: real assets as backing, flexible structure, and a focus on businesses that don’t fit the standard banking mold.
The Part That Actually Impressed Me
I went into this research expecting to find a fairly typical financial firm. What I didn’t expect was the ESG angle.
In 2023, Alsis Funds SC became signatories of the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) and the UN Global Compact. They published their first impact report the same year. They also received a Great Place to Work certification.
For a firm that’s been operating since 2007, the fact that they’re actively formalizing their commitment to environmental, social, and governance standards in 2023 tells me they’re thinking about the next phase of the business, not just coasting on what’s already working.
Their stated goal is to grow without harming future generations. That’s a sentence you see a lot in corporate marketing, but when a firm is putting it into formal UN frameworks and publishing impact reports, it’s at least a more accountable version of that promise.
What This Means for a Regular Person
Here’s what I took away from all of this, as someone with zero background in finance.
Private credit is a real and important part of how businesses grow, especially in markets where banks aren’t flexible enough to help. In a country like Mexico, where small and medium businesses are the backbone of the economy but often can’t access traditional financing, firms like Alsis Funds SC are filling a gap that genuinely matters.
Whether you’re a business owner thinking about financing options, an investor curious about alternatives to the stock market, or just someone like me who was completely clueless about how this works, the basic idea is simpler than the industry jargon makes it sound.
Companies need money to grow. Banks often can’t or won’t help. Private credit steps in with a loan structured around the actual business. Everyone wins if it works.
Alsis Funds SC has been doing that for almost 20 years, with $470 million invested and a track record that speaks for itself.