Research for the operating economy
Checked against the documents.
Free market reports on Southeast commercial real estate, and analysis of how private companies are valued, financed, and sold.
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The environment has changed
Cheap money covered a lot of weak assumptions. That is less true now. With capital costing more, value comes back to cash-flowing businesses and assets, and to underwriting that holds up when conditions are ordinary rather than perfect.
AI is changing costs, capacity, and diligence. It can improve the economics of a business. It can also produce faster versions of bad analysis. The test we apply is narrow: does it change cash flow, risk, capital needs, or asset value?
Avoiding a bad deal can be worth as much as finding a good one.
What we cover
The sectors we follow, and what decides whether a project in each one works. Each report dates and sources its own assessment.
Demand from AI and cloud, limited by which sites can actually get power.
Land for generation, substations, and battery storage as utilities race to add capacity.
Reshoring, automotive and battery supply chains, and incentive-driven plants.
Warehouse demand along the interstate and port corridors, and where it has been overbuilt.
Processing plants, cold storage, and food-grade space, where water, wastewater, and power decide the site.
Small businesses and contractors competing for scarce small-bay space and yards.
An aging population and hospital systems moving care into outpatient buildings.
Housing for the workers new plants hire, and whether local incomes support the rents.
Real demand, but several markets have added supply faster than population.
Selective. Strong where rooftops are growing, weak almost everywhere else.
Across the Southeast and Gulf Coast, anchored in East Alabama.
Based in Auburn, Alabama. We cover the markets where manufacturers, developers, and capital are actually moving, from the Gulf Coast through the growth corridors of the Carolinas and Virginia.
National coverage. Companies with roughly $5 million to $175 million in revenue, especially asset-heavy businesses.
What a buyer is really getting, and what separates cleanly from the parent.
When selling the building frees useful capital, and when it creates a new constraint.
What lenders and investors need to see before financing a new facility or market.
How companies are valued and what buyers examine before a credible offer.
The records, structure, and real estate questions that stall deals late.
Where technology changes cash flow and valuation, and where the claims run ahead of the economics.
Who reads it
Owners and executives of privately held companies deciding whether to build, buy, lease, expand, or sell. They are our primary audience.
The people underwriting and backing those decisions, who need the market read before they commit.
Communities with land, sites, and incentive programs that want an honest picture of what the market will actually support.
Incentives and site selection
Part of this research covers incentives, site readiness, and what separates a marketed site from a financeable one. Cities, authorities, and economic development boards are welcome to send sites, programs, and data for consideration in a report. We publish what the evidence supports, including when a site is not ready.
Submissions do not guarantee coverage. Please do not send confidential information without a prior agreement.
Send a site or programComing research
Growth, development activity, infrastructure, announced investment, and the limits of the available market data in one of Alabama's fastest-growing metros.
When selling the building frees useful capital, and when it trades one constraint for another.
Why water, wastewater, and power eliminate most sites before price matters.
The difference between acreage near a transmission line and a site that can carry a project.
What buyers examine before an owner with $5 million to $175 million in revenue sees a credible offer.
How the research is built
We built our own AI research system. It runs long, multi-step research across filings, public records, planning documents, and datasets, and places every material claim in a source ledger. Then we call the people who know the subject: operators, brokers, engineers, utility and economic development staff.
AI finds leads. Every material figure is then checked by hand against the filing, record, or dataset it came from. If it cannot be sourced, it is not in the report.
Primary record, government data, press, listing, or secondary. Asking rent is not achieved rent. An announced investment is not a completed investment.
Where reliable data does not exist, we say so instead of filling the space with false precision. Each report ends with what the findings mean for operators, owners, lenders, and investors.
On LinkedIn
Recent pieces on incentive deals, off-balance-sheet financing, and private capital, as published on LinkedIn.
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Talk to someone
Public research can explain how a market works. It cannot tell you whether your deal works. Arkvera Grove Partners, our advisory firm, takes one live decision at a time.
A data center, a manufacturer, or a developer has approached you. What is it worth, what are they really asking for, and what should the contract say?
Where it should go, what it will cost, what the utilities and incentives will actually deliver, and whether the numbers work.
What the business is worth, what buyers will examine, and how the real estate should be handled in the deal.
Sale-leasebacks and financing structures that free up operating cash without creating a new problem.
Sites, incentives, and infrastructure, assessed honestly, including when a site is not ready.
An outside read on a deal already in motion, including whether it deserves to proceed at all.
Who publishes Redchip
Redchip Ventures LLC is an Auburn, Alabama company and the parent of Arkvera Grove Partners. Redchip publishes the research. Arkvera applies it to client work.
Most of the research is written by Daniel Sexton, a partner at Vanguard Industrial Partners and founder of Arkvera. Partners and guest writers contribute as well, and every report names who wrote it. Over more than 20 years, he has built enterprise software and data systems for large companies, managed investment capital, advised operators, and worked on real estate and private-company transactions. He is the author of a book on AI, IoT, and the intelligent edge in the enterprise. More about Redchip →
The Grove Papers
Two kinds of work, one email list. Redchip reports examine markets, sectors, and the decisions in front of operators and investors. The Grove Papers investigates specific deals and projects: an incentive package, a plant, a stadium, a campus, and the distance between the announcement and what finally happened.
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