Moonbase Capital, a Search Fund investor based in Barcelona, Spain, released an industry insight White Paper, titled “Why Search Funds are a Major Private Equity Strategy in the Coming Years”, in which they outline how Search Funds fit into the investment space and why they are a promising investment vehicle in Europe.
The White Paper aims to be an in-depth introduction to Search Funds, an investment vehicle pioneered by the Stanford Graduate School of Business, which enables entrepreneurs to find, acquire, and then grow existing, yet stable SMEs into high-performing businesses.
The key insight is that, while SMEs make up 56% of Europe’s GDP, they are largely ignored by Private Equity and Venture Capital. Search Funds specifically focus on acquiring and growing SMEs, yielding higher returns than other investment vehicles, at a lower risk. A study quoted in the White Paper by Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business shows that in the United States, Search Funds generated an average IRR of 32.6% and a return on invested capital of 5.5x in 2019.