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Today’s Rundown

• Searcher lessons from a deal that didn’t happen

• Guide to search fund PPMs

• AI reps and warranties in deals

• 4 deal / launch announcements

• 5 new career opportunities

Database Overview

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Weekly Highlights

• Hugo Pruvost, a French searcher, published an article about the challenges he faced while searching for two years for a great business to take over as CEO in France:

  • Hugo launched his search fund in France drawn by the structure and support of the traditional model, but quickly encountered market-specific obstacles, including intense competition from small-cap PE funds, seller skepticism about solo searchers, and limited differentiation in crowded sectors

  • His initial broad, sector-agnostic search strategy diluted focus, leading to mismatches between his background and target industries; he later refined his approach to sectors where he had credibility (e.g., B2B services, HVAC), but this came after costly learning cycles

  • He reached exclusivity on three deals, with one advanced opportunity falling apart during SPA negotiations despite full financing secured; the seller chose to retain the business, and Hugo had already depleted much of his budget on due diligence and legal fees

  • A second LOI attempt failed due to insufficient investor interest, highlighting the difficulty of aligning stakeholders in time-sensitive, capital-intensive deals - especially as seller trust and deal certainty became recurring challenges

  • After two years and no acquisition, Hugo chose to end the search, citing solo workload, market misalignment, and timing pressure; he advises future searchers to focus narrowly, build a strong partner team, and consider self-funded searches for smaller targets with less competition

• Innesto Partners, a search fund investor, released the first two episodes of their guide to writing a search fund PPM:

  • Episode 1: More than a document - framing your search story with purpose

    • The Private Placement Memorandum (PPM) is not just a fundraising document - it serves as a foundational tool for self-reflection, strategic clarity, and investor positioning, forcing searchers to articulate their motivations, search thesis, and process discipline

    • While templates like the Stanford Primer provide structure, effective PPMs must be customized to reflect the searcher’s personality and long-term vision, balancing authenticity with professionalism to build early investor confidence

  • Episode 2: The first three pages - details that define your professionalism

    • First impressions matter: the cover page, table of contents, and legal disclaimer signal professionalism, legal literacy, and organizational maturity - qualities investors expect even before evaluating the strategy itself

    • The executive summary functions as the PPM’s elevator pitch, distilling capital needs, search scope, sourcing methods, and investor terms into a single, compelling page that sets the tone for the rest of the document

• Mark Wendaur, a seasoned lawyer and advisor to family offices and private equity, published a new episode of his episode of Search-Fund-Operate about AI reps and warranties - emerging issues in deals and commercial contracts:

  • AI’s integration into business processes has moved legal concerns from theory to reality, requiring specific contractual terms in commercial and M&A contexts that address risk allocation, liability, and asset valuation - especially around how AI tools are used and governed

  • Emerging market standards introduce AI-specific representations and warranties, including obligations to disclose AI tool usage, ensure compliant data inputs, protect proprietary IP created with generative tools, and verify training data deidentification

  • Licensing agreements involving AI now require tailored provisions addressing non-infringement, ownership of model outputs and weights, training data auditability, indemnification for misuse or IP violations, and performance uncertainties inherent in "black box" systems

  • AI is now a distinct due diligence category in M&A, with focus areas like training data provenance, third-party dependencies, model control rights, export restrictions, and post-closing documentation for architecture, ethical safeguards, and operational continuity

  • IP security agreements must evolve to capture AI-driven assets (e.g. model weights, prompt libraries, datasets), requiring detailed collateral descriptions, ownership clarity, license compliance, and operational dependency mapping to ensure enforceability and proper lien perfection

Deal / Launch Announcements

• 🇩🇪 evolutiq, a search fund investor, announced their first closing of evolutiq Search Capital I Fund (link)

• 🇪🇸 Bramley Johnson and Carl Lundberg launched Victoriam Equity, a search fund investor exclusively investing in traditional search funds (link)

• 🇳🇱 SearchRight Capital Partners, a Amsterdam based search fund investor, enters the German search fund ecosystem (link)

• 🇵🇹 Miguel Marques Paulo Fiet launched MMP Capital, a search fund focused on technology-driven value creation (link)

Career Opportunities

• [PE] Investment & Portfolio Manager | PER | Munich (apply)*

• [PE] Investment Associate | Carbyne Equity Partners | Hamburg (apply)

• [PE] Investment Associate | Novastone Capital | Europe (apply)

• [PE] Investment Associate | ACL Partners | Frankfurt (apply)*

• [PE-Asset] Head of Finance | Tim Wagner Personalberatung | Frankfurt (apply)*

_*Headhunter

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