What is a SICAR? — Société d'investissement en capital à risque (Luxembourg)
A SICAR is Luxembourg's dedicated private equity and venture capital vehicle, created by the Law of 15 June 2004. It is a CSSF-authorised investment company reserved for well-informed investors that must invest in "risk capital" — assets held to develop a business and exit it — and in exchange carries no risk-spreading requirement at all: a single-asset SICAR is legal.
The numbers, as reset by the Law of 21 July 2023: subscribed capital plus share premiums must reach €1,000,000 within 24 months of authorisation (previously 12 months), and a non-professional well-informed investor commits at least €100,000 (down from €125,000) unless certified as expert.
Everything turns on qualifying as risk capital. Since December 2025 the assessment criteria live in Chapter 5 of CSSF Circular 25/901, which replaced the old Circular 06/241: the CSSF looks for an intention to develop the portfolio company, a specific (higher-than-market) risk, and an exit strategy — plus restrictions on what asset classes can ever qualify. A strategy that is really buy-and-hold yield, or listed-market exposure, will not clear the test.
The practical gotcha: the SICAR is a niche answer in a RAIF world — the RAIF Law borrows the same risk-capital concept, so most new risk-capital vehicles launch as risk-capital RAIFs and skip CSSF product approval. Pick the SICAR when investors specifically want a CSSF-supervised product or the manager sits below the AIFMD thresholds.
Where this appears on FundRegTracker
- CSSF Circular 25/901, consolidated — the current risk-capital criteria
- NAV error correction across domiciles — SICARs self-set their threshold, capped at 5%
- Where to domicile a private fund