Chances are you’ve never heard of Search Funds or Entrepreneur-Led Buyouts. Neither had I until 6 months ago.
The model sits somewhere between Private Equity and Venture Capital and has shown impressive returns since its inception at Stanford in 1984. Like with Venture Capital, it was pioneered quietly by a few entrepreneurial risk-takers in California but unlike VC it’s only starting to go mainstream globally. Many of the original “searchers” are now scaling the asset class mainly in North America and Europe.
Self-funded searchers are essentially anyone looking to buy a small business and operate it.
started investing in other searchers applying standard terms. These standard terms are now known as the “traditional search fund”.