# Cypress Equity Investments

Cypress Equity Investments is an Asset Manager based in Los Angeles, United States.

## Overview

- **Organization type:** Asset Manager
- **Headquarters:** Los Angeles, United States
- **Region:** North America
- **Address:** Los Angeles, CA, United States
- **Founded:** 2001
- **Assets under management:** Undisclosed
- **Website:** cypressequity.com
- **LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/cypress-equity-investments

## Regulatory record

- **Reports private funds:** No

## About

Cypress Equity Investments was founded in 2001 by Michael Sorrentino and Salvatore Rusi. Unlike a blind-pool commingled fund, CEI sources, entitles, and develops each project directly, raising capital through single-asset joint ventures with institutional partners. The firm operates from a hub in Los Angeles with additional offices in New York, San Francisco, Menlo Park, Bend, Potomac, Houston, and Owings Mills. CEI's strategy focuses on ground-up multifamily development in high-barrier-to-entry submarkets. The firm targets a mix of mid-rise and high-rise rental communities, often incorporating ground-floor retail. Geographic concentration spans the West Coast, Northeast, and select Sunbelt metros, including Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, New York, and South Florida. The firm's development pipeline has historically ranged between 5,000 and 8,000 units in various stages of construction and predevelopment. CEI structures each deal as a standalone special-purpose vehicle, typically partnering with a single institutional equity provider — a model that allows tailored capital stacks and asset-level exit strategies rather than fund-duration constraints. CEI has developed and sold multifamily assets to institutional buyers including pension funds, REITs, and private operators. CEI does not operate a registered philanthropic foundation or a private club for limited partners, and it does not publicly report firmwide AUM. In September 2023, CEI secured a $75 million construction loan from PCCP for a 197-unit multifamily development in Denver's RiNo neighborhood, continuing its pattern of project-level institutional financing. CEI's structural differentiator is its refusal to pool investor capital into a blind fund. Every project is a discrete joint venture between CEI and a single capital partner, which gives institutional investors full transparency into asset selection, cost, and exit timing. This model sidesteps the forced deployment and liquidation deadlines of traditional closed-end real estate funds, aligning the firm's incentives around per-deal performance rather than management fees on committed capital.

## Sectors

- Real Estate
- PropTech

## Offices

- New York
- San Francisco
- Menlo Park
- Bend
- Potomac
- Houston
- Owings Mills

## People

- Michael Sorrentino — Co-Founder & Managing Partner
- Salvatore Rusi — Co-Founder & Managing Partner

## Questions

### How is Cypress Equity Investments structured — does it use a blind-pool fund or a different model?

CEI does not operate a traditional blind-pool commingled fund. Each development project is capitalized through a standalone special-purpose vehicle with a single institutional equity partner. This project-level joint-venture structure gives capital partners full visibility into asset selection, development costs, and exit timing, avoiding the forced deployment and liquidation schedules that constrain closed-end fund managers.

### Who makes investment decisions at Cypress Equity Investments?

Co-founders Michael Sorrentino and Salvatore Rusi lead the firm as managing partners. Each of CEI's eight regional offices is staffed with local partners who originate and execute projects, though the firm has not publicly disclosed a formal investment committee or detailed decision-making hierarchy.

### How does CEI source its development sites?

CEI sources sites through its network of eight regional offices, where local partners identify infill parcels in supply-constrained submarkets. The firm takes projects through entitlements, design, and construction, relying on the local market knowledge of its dispersed office footprint to find off-market or lightly marketed opportunities.

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Last updated: 2026-08-11T02:43:31.692Z

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