About Us
Rivers Fike
Sam Lichmira
About Rivers
About Sam
Rivers Fike is the Co-Founder and Principal of Anchor Point Lending, where he leads the loan origination process and is the strategic vision. He completed his first real estate transaction in 2013 and his first private loan in 2018 and has since originated over $5 million in loans through Anchor Point Lending, which he co-founded in 2023.
In addition to his lending experience, Rivers has 12+ years of expertise in real estate acquisition, finance, and management specializing in residential and commercial properties with a focus on long-term value and strategic acquisition.
Before transitioning full-time into real estate and lending, Rivers spent 15 years in the oil and gas industry, overseeing over $3 billion in capital projects in engineering and operations roles. His background in project management, risk assessment, and financial oversight informs his structured approach to underwriting and capital deployment.
Beyond his work at Anchor Point, Rivers will be a new father in 2025 and loves to travel and ski. Rivers holds a Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering from Louisiana State University.
Sam Lichmira is the Co-Founder and Principal of Anchor Point Lending, where he leads investor relations and capital strategy. With a career spanning real estate development, design, and construction management, Sam brings a deep understanding of project execution, risk assessment, and financial structuring to the firm. His expertise in lean project delivery and process optimization allows Anchor Point to efficiently manage capital deployment while maintaining a disciplined, investor-focused approach.
In addition to his lending experience, Sam has over a decade of expertise in real estate transactions, management, and development, specializing in value add residential and commercial properties with a focus on long-term value.
Prior to founding Anchor Point Lending, Sam held leadership roles at national-level design and construction firms, delivering projects ranging from large-scale design-build process facilities for Fortune 500 companies to large mixed-use development for private developers. His ability to navigate project complexity and foster collaborative cultures has made him a trusted advisor in the real estate and lending sectors.
Beyond his work at Anchor Point, Sam serves as the Austin market leader for the Lean Construction Institute community of practice. Sam enjoys spending time with family and sailing. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Lehigh University.
The Origin Of Anchor Point Lending LLC
From Bondi Beach to Building a Lending Platform: A Partnership Years in the Making
Anchor Point Lending LLC was co-founded in 2023 by Rivers Fike and Sam Lichmira, but the foundation of their partnership was laid nearly two decades earlier — halfway around the world on the shores of Bondi Beach, Australia.
Rivers and Sam met as juniors in college while studying abroad at the University of New South
Wales in Sydney. Randomly assigned as roommates in a small apartment just blocks from the
beach, they were among the few engineering students who chose to study abroad — both
drawn by a shared sense of curiosity, adventure, and the conviction that their education wasn’t
meant to be confined to a lecture hall.
They quickly bonded over their fraternity backgrounds, love of travel, and a mutual willingness
to dive headfirst into new experiences. Together, they scraped together enough money to buy
a used surfboard, taking turns learning to navigate the famously aggressive waves at Bondi.
That semester laid the groundwork for a lifelong friendship marked by New Year’s traditions,
long weekends in each other’s cities, and travel to far-flung destinations.
After college, Sam moved to Washington, D.C., and Rivers to New Orleans, and despite careers
pulling them in different directions, they never lost touch.
From Friendship to Real Estate — and Eventually to Lending
Rivers was the first to jump into real estate investing
buying his first rental property in 2013 and steadily growing his portfolio over the next seven years, focusing on distressed residential properties in the Jackson, Mississippi market. Sam followed in 2016 with his first live-in flip in the D.C. suburbs, gradually building a small portfolio alongside his wife.
Over time, their conversations shifted from catching up to comparing strategies — capex budgets, property management headaches, the trade-offs between cash flow and appreciation. What started as personal investing evolved into a shared business vision. In the winter of 2019, they launched their first joint venture, a real estate holding company focused on acquiring distressed workforce housing in the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. The strategy was simple and effective: buy underperforming properties, invest in value-add capital improvements, stabilize operations, and hold long-term to benefit from both appreciation and cash flow. That business continues to operate and grow today — and served as a proving ground for what would become Anchor Point Lending.
Why We Started This Fund Anchor Point Lending LLC was created to change that.
As operators, we have experienced firsthand the frustration of sourcing capital that fits the real-world needs of a deal. Whether it is a land purchase with a tight closing window, a value- add project in need of bridge financing, or a unique property that doesn’t check the right boxes for a traditional lender, we kept running into the same wall: most capital wasn’t built to move at the pace of opportunity.
We founded this company to bring flexible, fast, and thoughtful capital to the small- and mid-sized real estate operators who are creating real value — but are often overlooked by banks and institutional lenders. We are here to be the kind of capital partner we always wanted: responsive, real, and relationship-driven.
Why “Anchor Point”?
The name Anchor Point comes from the image of a sailboat riding out a storm.
When the waves get rough and the wind picks up, an anchor is not just a tool — it’s a lifeline. It holds the vessel steady, gives the crew time to assess, adjust, and chart their course forward. It is the thing you count on when everything else feels uncertain. That is exactly how we see our role in a deal. Anchor Point Lending was built to be that stabilizing force — for both our borrowers and our investors. In a fast-moving, often unpredictable real estate environment, we provide clarity, responsiveness, and reliability. We are not just deploying capital — we’re holding deals steady through complexity, helping our partners navigate challenges, and giving them the confidence to move forward.
And just like a seasoned sailor does not drop anchor without knowing the seabed, we don’t commit capital without knowing the terrain. We bring an operator’s eye to every loan, grounded in years of experience, insight, and real-world execution. Whether you are investing capital or borrowing it, we aim to be the anchor that holds — through calm waters and storms alike.
What We are Trying to Achieve by Raising Capital
This fund is designed to meet Three Key objectives:
Looking Ahead
What started as a shared surfboard in Australia has grown into a shared vision for what private lending can be: relational, efficient, and value-driven. We bring the same curiosity, hustle, and trust to this fund that we brought to our early friendship — and we are just getting started. Anchor Point Lending LLC is more than a company. It’s the product of years of shared experience, the belief that good deals deserve good capital, and the commitment to building
something that lasts.
We are raising this capital to fund investors who have a common goal of improving neighborhoods one property at a time. We are grateful to do it with people who share that vision.