What's a Search Fund ? Discover this mechanism to buy a company

A Search Fund is a financial vehicle founded by a young candidate entrepreneur who desire to acquire a company to run it.  

The founding of this financial tool is generally split in four phases :

• The fund creation, i.e. the search for investors by the young entrepreneur.
• The search and the acquisition of a company. Once the fund is settled, the Searcher starts looking for a company to buy, and once found, he proposes the deal to its investors.
• The management and development of the acquired company. Once the company bought, the Searcher become the boss and has the mission to grow the company for several years.
• The Exit. The company has evolved, the goald can be to sell it at a multiple so that the investors and the Searcher can have benefits on their investments..

Most of the young entrepreneurs who get into this adventures are between 30 and 35 years old and thus have a limited professional experience. In most cases, they have a MBA education, but this is not a neccesity. The reason is that Search Fund are taught in MBA programmes such as Harvard, Stanford, IESE and INSEAD, with specific courses, which are popular amongst students.

The alumni networks in those institutions are strong and ready to help the young entrepreneur. Some investors prefer MBAs as it is an additional indicator of the potential of the Searcher to succesfully find and run a business.