Viking Capital Taps Multifamily Veteran as President
Viking Capital has tapped multifamily veteran Alex Gill as its President, a new role aimed at helping the apartment-investment firm triple its assets to $3 billion within three years.
The hire is meant to bring institutional-level processes to a company that has built a billion-dollar portfolio over the past decade. Gill joined last month after running his own shop for four years. His 20-plus-year resume includes time at Related Group, Mill Creek Residential, and Trammell Crow Residential.
“Our task now is to institutionalize the platform and position it for the next wave of multifamily growth,” Gill said.
Physicians Vikram Raya and Ravi Gupta started Viking in 2015 with a syndication model, investing in apartments with family, colleagues, and friends. Raya, a cardiologist, serves as a Chief Executive and Strategic Lead, while Gupta, an internal medicine specialist, helped establish the firm’s operating framework.
Vienna, VA-based Viking now owns 20 properties, with capital raised from 1,200 investors, including wealthy individuals and family offices. The firm’s minimum investment size has long been $100,000, but it’s aiming for more with a new division called Elevate Institutional Partners.
The idea is to raise equity in larger slugs from registered investment advisors, family offices and institutional investors. Elevate is planning its first fund, which could raise capital from both institutional and retail investors.“
With Elevate, we’re complementing [our friends-and-fam-ily investor network] with an institutional platform that allows us to partner with one-check LPs and scale the business much faster,” Gill said.
Gill is tasked with shifting the company toward a more institutional approach to acquisitions, capital raising and portfolio management. Since joining, he has refined Viking’s “buy box” from smaller, older suburban properties to newer, larger communities with professional management.
Gill sees current market conditions as creating opportunities to buy below replacement costs and, in some cases, below outstanding loan balances.
“We believe we’ve reached the bottom of the multifamily cycle, which makes this an ideal time to buy,” he said. “Investors are sitting on dry powder, waiting to reenter the market. By 2026-28, fundamentals and rent growth should look strong again, with concessions tapering off.”
Viking’s portfolio includes 18 stabilized properties totaling more than 5,000 units in Atlanta, Indiana, Tennessee, Texas and Washington. The firm also is developing two apartment complexes in the Phoenix suburbs: Avondale Commons, a 324-unit, four-story garden-style community in Avondale that recently received its temporary certificate of occupancy and began lease-up, and Peoria Gateway, a 200-unit project in Peoria that’s slated for completion next year.
Gill said Viking plans to focus on core-plus and value-added multifamily assets across the SunBelt, targeting garden-style and mid-rise properties built after 2000 with at least 200 units.
“We’re especially active in Texas, which has a great story and strong fundamentals, but we’re also investing in Atlanta, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Florida and Arizona,” he said.
Gill began his career at Trammell Crow in 2005, where he rose to become a managing director overseeing West Coast acquisitions and development. In 2010, he was among a group of senior partners who established the spinoff of Mill Creek, which today is one of the nation’s top multifamily developers.
He later held leadership roles at Holland Residential, Intra-corp, and Related, before founding Miami-based Waterman Residential, a Sun Belt-focused multifamily investment firm, in 2021.
Gill’s hire was arranged by executive-search firm Rhodes Associates.
