Minimums from $25,000 · 1,400+ accredited investors · Post-LOI deals only
CapitalPad for Investors
Review post-LOI search fund deals one by one: the company, the searcher who will run it, the structure, and the terms, each with a full data room and a recorded searcher interview. Take the deals that clear your bar and pass on the rest.
Minimums from $25,000 per deal.
CapitalPad for Searchers
CapitalPad invests $500K to $2M in search fund acquisitions at the post-LOI stage, arriving as one line on your cap table with one wire at close. The fit is an established U.S. or Canadian company with at least $1M of EBITDA, under LOI.
Searchers pay nothing, whether or not the deal closes.
CapitalPad for Investors
Traditional search fund investing commits capital to a searcher before a target exists. CapitalPad participates only after a search has succeeded. Every opportunity is a specific operating company under LOI, with historical financials, a negotiated structure, and a searcher who will operate the business as CEO.
Members review each acquisition individually and commit capital deal by deal, with no obligation beyond the transactions they select. Most targets are established, historically profitable companies with $1M to $7M of EBITDA in durable sectors.”
The searcher’s capability, the company’s financial history, and the deal structure, all before members see anything. Fewer than 5% of reviewed transactions reach investors, roughly one opportunity per month across deal types.
Most search deals are structured as preferred equity with investor protections, and the specifics differ by transaction. Whatever the structure (preference, board composition, reporting rights), it sits in the deal room before any commitment.
Individuals invest from $25,000 per deal through a single SPV. Funds, family offices, and SBICs allocate from $750,000 directly. Approval to join carries no obligation to invest in anything.
CapitalPad invests only in search fund, self-funded search, and independent sponsor transactions. Step-ups, seller notes, SBA 7(a) structures, and QoE timelines are everyday vocabulary, and the team has bought and operated companies itself.
Every co-investor consolidates into a single SPV: one line on the cap table, one set of subscription documents, one wire at close. No chasing fifteen individual checks while your exclusivity window runs down.
Searchers never pay CapitalPad a fee, whether or not the transaction closes. Carry comes from our own investors, never from your economics.
CapitalPad for Searchers
CapitalPad invests $500K to $2M per search fund transaction and works with both traditional and self-funded searchers at the post-LOI stage. Whether CapitalPad anchors the raise or fills the final gap depends on the deal.
Share the LOI and supporting materials and expect initial feedback on fit inside a few business days. Investors see the opportunity blinded until they sign NDAs, and a longer window before close usually means a larger check.
CapitalPad expects market-standard terms for the deal size and structure. Searchers pay nothing at any stage.
CapitalPad for Investors
“CapitalPad makes the deal sourcing and logistics of lower middle market investing easy.”
CapitalPad for Investors
“CapitalPad makes the deal sourcing and logistics of lower middle market investing easy.
CapitalPad for Searchers
“CapitalPad’s investment was invaluable for helping close our transaction. Highly recommended for searchers.”
CapitalPad for Searchers
“CapitalPad’s investment was invaluable for helping close our transaction. Highly recommended for searchers.”
The team behind CapitalPad has bought, operated, and exited lower middle market companies, with 50+ transactions across those seats. Search deals get read both ways: as the operator who has to run the company, and as the investor writing the check.
Portfolio companies span home services, healthcare, business services, light manufacturing, and distribution, acquired by searchers and independent sponsors through control buyouts and owner-operator transitions.
CapitalPad is limited to accredited investors and institutions, subject to onboarding and verification.
$25,000 per deal for individuals. Funds, family offices, and SBICs allocate from $750,000 per deal directly.
No. CapitalPad participates only at the acquisition stage. By the time a deal reaches members it has a signed LOI, financials, and a searcher committed to operating the company. Search-phase capital, the money that funds a searcher’s salary and sourcing before a target exists, is not part of the model here.
Approved investors see each deal in the dashboard with the diligence package for that transaction: the company and its financials, the searcher’s background and recorded interview, structure and terms, sources and uses, and the post-close plan.
Review the materials, ask questions through the deal room, and request an allocation. Near close, capital is collected and subscription documents are issued.
No. These are long-term, illiquid holdings. Distributions can occur during the hold, but most of the return arrives at exit, typically 3 to 7 years out, and there is no secondary market.
Two ways. A one-time 1.5% administration fee at funding, with nothing charged annually, and 20% carried interest per deal behind a 100% return-of-capital hurdle: no carry until that deal has returned investors’ full capital.
Institutions writing $750,000+ direct checks pay no carried interest.
An executed LOI or late-stage diligence, an established company with a profitable operating history (typically $1M to $7M of EBITDA), a realistic path to close, and a searcher equipped to run the business. Terms should be market-standard for the structure.
No. Acquisition stage only. Once a company is under LOI and the raise is live, CapitalPad can participate. Search capital, searcher salary, and sourcing costs are outside the mandate.
No. Nothing at review, nothing at close, nothing if the deal dies. CapitalPad’s economics are carried interest from its own investors.
Initial feedback on fit arrives within a few business days of the LOI and supporting materials. Firm commitments follow diligence and the investor process. Thirty or more days before close is the preferred runway, and additional lead time typically means a larger allocation.
$300K to $2M directly. Beyond that, funds, family offices, and SBICs in the investor base write $750,000+ direct checks next to the CapitalPad SPV, and that combination is what fills larger raises.
Both work. Traditional searchers use CapitalPad to complete an acquisition raise alongside their search investors. Self-funded searchers, who have no committed investor group behind them, use it to build the equity stack from scratch. Either way, the entry point is a signed LOI.
A search fund is an investment vehicle through which an entrepreneur raises capital to find, acquire, and operate a single small-to-medium-sized business. The entrepreneur, known as the searcher, becomes CEO of the acquired company and runs it for the medium to long term, typically five to ten years, with the goal of growing the business and exiting at a higher valuation. The broader strategy is known as Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition, or ETA.
The model originated at Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1984 under Professor H. Irving Grousbeck, and Stanford’s Center for Entrepreneurial Studies has tracked the asset class through a biennial study ever since. Harvard Business School professors Rick Ruback and Royce Yudkoff later broadened its reach through their MBA course and the HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business. ETA programs now run at Kellogg, Columbia, MIT Sloan, Wharton, Tuck, Darden, Chicago Booth, and IESE Business School in Barcelona, whose International Search Fund Center publishes the leading study of search funds outside the U.S. and Canada.
Traditional search fund investing raises capital twice. The search phase comes first: a group of investors funds the entrepreneur’s full-time hunt for a target, typically $400K to $600K raised in units from 10 to 20 backers, covering salary, sourcing, travel, and diligence over roughly 18 to 24 months. Roughly four in ten traditional searches end without an acquisition, and that search capital is largely or entirely lost. Search-phase investors are compensated for that risk with a stepped-up conversion of their search capital into acquisition equity, commonly at 1.5x, plus pro-rata rights to invest in the acquisition itself.
The acquisition phase follows once a target is under LOI. The searcher raises a larger pool of equity, often $2M to $10M, alongside senior bank debt and seller financing that commonly cover half or more of the purchase price. At this stage investors are evaluating a real company: a quality of earnings report, actual customers, an operating history.
CapitalPad invests exclusively at the acquisition stage. It does not fund searches, in either the traditional or self-funded model.
Searchers typically pursue established, historically profitable companies in the lower middle market: enterprise values of roughly $5M to $30M for traditional searches (smaller for self-funded deals), revenue in the $5M to $25M range, and EBITDA margins of 15 to 30%. The ideal profile emphasizes recurring or repeat-customer revenue, fragmented industries, and low cyclicality. Common sectors include B2B services, healthcare services, home services, IT managed services, facilities management, light manufacturing, specialty distribution, and professional services. Many targets are founder-owned businesses approaching a succession event, which is what creates the acquisition opportunity. The searcher steps in as CEO after close.
Traditional searchers typically earn 20 to 25% of the common equity over time, vesting in three tranches: a portion at the acquisition close, a portion through time-based vesting over four to five years, and a performance tranche tied to investor IRR or MOIC hurdles. Investors hold preferred equity with a liquidation preference, majority board control, quarterly reporting, and approval rights over major decisions.
Across all U.S. and Canadian search funds since 1984, the Stanford GSB Search Fund Study reports on aggregate pre-tax IRR and MOIC (multiple of invested capital) through year-end 2025. Those aggregate figures are dollar-weighted and lifted by a small number of exceptional exits. For current data from the Stanford and IESE studies, see the search fund statistics page.
In a traditional search fund, investors back the searcher before any target exists and participate in the acquisition if the search succeeds. In a self-funded search, the entrepreneur pays for the search personally and raises equity only at the point of acquisition, typically alongside an SBA 7(a) loan with a personal guarantee and seller financing. Self-funded deals tend to be smaller, close faster, and transact at lower multiples, and the searcher keeps substantially more of the equity, often majority ownership, in exchange for bearing the search risk personally. Investors in self-funded deals typically hold preferred equity while the searcher holds the common.
CapitalPad invests in both traditional and self-funded search acquisitions, always post-LOI.
Searchers and independent sponsors both acquire companies deal by deal without a committed fund, but the profiles differ. Searchers are typically earlier in their careers, often straight from an MBA program, and commit to finding and operating one business as CEO. Independent sponsors are usually experienced private equity professionals or executives pursuing larger transactions with structured promote economics, governing at the board level rather than stepping into the operating seat. CapitalPad invests behind both.
The community concentrates around a handful of recurring events: the Stanford Search Fund CEO Conference (the longest-running), the IESE International Search Fund Conference in Barcelona, the Chicago Booth ETA Conference, ETA events across MIT Sloan, Kellogg, Wharton, and Tuck, and the HoldCo Conference and Self-Funded Search Summit on the operator side. Searchfunder is the online community where much of the day-to-day connecting happens.
For most of its history, search fund investing was closed to individual investors. Deals were funded through Stanford GSB and HBS alumni circles, and former searchers reinvesting their proceeds. Institutional firms such as Pacific Lake Partners, Search Fund Partners, Anacapa Partners, and Housatonic Partners came later. Without a personal connection to a searcher or a seat inside one of those networks, there was no practical way into the asset class.
Individual accredited investors evaluating the space today see three routes. Providing search capital directly to a searcher means funding the search phase itself, which requires sourcing and vetting searchers personally and carries the risk that no acquisition happens. Committing to a multi-search fund vehicle means an institutional-style, multi-year commitment made before knowing which companies will be bought. The third route is deal-by-deal co-investment: evaluating a specific acquisition, with a real company under LOI and full diligence materials, and deciding on that single transaction alone.
CapitalPad is a private equity co-investment group and a search fund investor. CapitalPad lets accredited investors invest in search funds, one deal at a time, rather than committing to a blind-pool fund. Every deal CapitalPad reviews is post-LOI and comes with a complete diligence package, so investors avoid search-phase exposure. Accredited investors can Apply for Access to review live deals. For investors new to the asset class, the Stanford study, the IESE study, and the HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business are essential starting points.
CapitalPad does not provide personalized investment advice or recommendations. All information made available through this website, including materials related to potential investment opportunities, is for informational purposes only and is not authored or guaranteed by CapitalPad.
Investors acknowledge and accept the inherent risks of investing in private securities, including the risk of a total loss of invested capital. Past performance of any entity, individual, or investment strategy is not indicative of, and does not guarantee, future results. Any forward-looking statements or projections are hypothetical in nature, may not materialize, and should not be relied upon as a guarantee of future performance.
Investors are solely responsible for conducting their own independent due diligence prior to making any investment decision. Investments made through CapitalPad are speculative, illiquid, not FDIC-insured, not bank-guaranteed, and may lose value. There may be no secondary market for these securities.
Investments may also involve limited or no voting rights. Investors should assume that they will not have influence over the management or operations of the underlying entity.
By participating, investors acknowledge that all investments involve significant risk and that neither CapitalPad nor its affiliates make any representation, warranty, or guarantee as to the performance of any investment.
