Spotlight: Carter Funds, Carter Exchange DSTs and Aphorio Carter Data Centers

A Tampa sponsor running a 1031 exchange DST platform and a data center portfolio out of the same organization, with property management kept in-house.

August 24, 2026

Carter Funds is a private real estate investment company headquartered in Tampa, Florida, that sponsors Delaware statutory trust programs for 1031 exchange investors and separately owns data centers. The firm reported $4.3 billion in assets under management as of February 2026, held across four affiliated companies: Carter Exchange for DST offerings, Carter Multifamily for value-add acquisitions and ground-up development, Aphorio Carter for data centers and critical infrastructure, and Allegiant-Carter Management for property operations.

The infrastructure side traces to Carter Validus. John Carter, who founded Carter Funds and serves as executive chairman, previously founded and led Carter Validus Mission Critical REIT I and II, non-traded REITs that acquired net-leased healthcare and data center facilities. According to the firm, the two REITs raised more than $3.0 billion in equity and assembled portfolios exceeding $4.1 billion across over 150 data center and medical properties totaling 11 million rentable square feet, merging in October 2019 into a $3.2 billion REIT. Carter Exchange chief executive Dallas Whitaker and Carter Funds president Gael Ragone also came out of Carter Validus.

The DST platform

Carter Exchange, founded in 2019, has structured 26 private placement offerings. The firm reports DST assets under management of $2.05 billion as of 2025, spanning 25 properties across 23 DST programs — 21 multifamily properties holding 6,144 apartment homes, and four commercial properties totaling roughly 900,000 square feet. Three offerings are currently open: Midwest Industrial Logistics in Fort Wayne, Indiana; Mode at Hyattsville in Maryland; and Texas Industrial II in Forney, Texas. Texas Industrial II launched in January 2024 as a 506(c) zero coupon offering seeking $3.4 million, secured by a 20-year absolute net lease with Atmos Energy on a facility built in 2023.

Carter Exchange reports that its first two full-cycle deals, both completed in 2023, produced a 25.54% average annual return and a 60.98% average total return. The most recent exit came in January 2026, when the sponsor sold Retreat at the Park, a 249-unit garden-style community in Burlington, North Carolina, for $48 million after a 5.75-year hold. The firm reports a 55.4% total return to investors, average monthly rents on occupied units up 20.1% across the hold, and average occupancy of 95.5%. Carter Exchange defines total return as the ratio of total sales proceeds and distributions over initial equity invested, net of fees, and states that the figures were not audited by a third-party firm.

The Burlington sale also put a number on the in-house management structure. Allegiant-Carter Management ran the renovation program at the property, installing upgraded flooring and new washers and dryers, which the firm reports generated a 37.7% return on invested capital.

Distribution runs through independent broker-dealers and registered investment advisors. Orchard Securities serves as managing broker-dealer for Carter Exchange and is not affiliated with it; the firm discloses that Orchard does not serve in that role for Carter Funds, Carter Multifamily, Aphorio Carter, or Allegiant-Carter Management. On the multifamily side, Carter Multifamily targets Class B and C garden-style properties, typically pre-2005 construction, in secondary and tertiary markets across the Southern and Mid-Atlantic U.S.

Data centers and critical infrastructure

Aphorio Carter reports a portfolio of 11 properties totaling 1.051 million square feet, $342 million in assets under management, and 98.4% portfolio occupancy. It buys across four data center types — enterprise, wholesale, colocation, and switch centers — with current holdings in Tucson, Dallas, Trumbull, Ontario and Riverside in California, and Louisville and Simpsonville in Kentucky. The firm reports that its data center leadership has sourced and managed nearly $5.3 billion of assets since 2010, and that roughly half of the current pipeline comes from off-market channels.