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Hampton River Partners

Backing this generation's foundational serial acquirers

Hampton River is a long term investment firm dedicated to building and scaling operator led serial acquirers across Europe and the United States. We partner with exceptional leaders and give them the capital, structure, and long-duration mandate to compound at the highest levels.

What we do

• Back world class capital allocators and operators 

• Provide capital, disciplined M&A frameworks, and playbooks for methodical capital allocation

• Help founders accelerate from first deal to multi company groups 

• Active today across Europe and the United States

Who we back

• Experienced, gritty leaders from best in class serial acquirers and other relevant firms who can hit the ground running and stay the course for the long road

• Investor operator minds with deep networks

• Data driven, equity-efficient, frugal MOIC maximizers who value self sustainability

If you want to build a serial acquirer… we want to meet you.
Contact us!

Today’s Rundown

• How to grow a company by 50-200% per year

• Framework for evaluating small business acquisitions

• True price of running a trades company

• Proof of cash in transactions

• 2 deal / launch announcements

Weekly Highlights

• HoldCo builders podcast published a new episode on how to grow a company by 50-200% per year:

  • The core claim is that returns are decided in operations rather than in dealmaking and the fastest diagnostic uses unit economics by comparing customer acquisition cost with customer lifetime value and gross margin to confirm growth is profitable

  • A concrete ROI example shows about $90,000 per year spent on Facebook ads produced essentially no attributable customers once tracking was implemented, so removing the spend improved profit with no observed revenue impact

  • Scaling stalls when founders remain embedded in high-frequency work, and real scale begins only after repetitive outputs are delegated so leadership time shifts to lower-frequency, higher-leverage activities like system design and talent development

  • Delegation fails not because of people quality but because outputs, timelines, and check-ins are underspecified, creating hidden inefficiency and rework that grows exponentially as headcount increases

  • Sustainable success comes from building a company that consistently serves customers profitably while also delivering money, time, and meaningful work to ownership, because businesses that do not serve the owner’s life eventually become fragile even if they look financially healthy

• Mineola Search Partners, a search fund investor, shared a four-part framework for evaluating small business acquisitions:

  • The framework prioritizes asymmetric outcomes where downside is capped and survivable while upside remains meaningful, favoring modest leverage and businesses that can grow without requiring perfect execution

  • It explicitly avoids existential risks such as customer concentration, excessive leverage, cyclicality, or single points of failure, since even rare zero-outcomes overwhelm all other successes

  • The approach emphasizes protecting the downside over chasing maximum upside, accepting missed winners in exchange for avoiding permanent capital loss and preferring high-probability 2–3x outcomes over low-probability 10x bets

  • “Hard to kill” businesses share common traits like recurring revenue, high retention, low key-person risk, simple operations, defensible margins, and sufficient absolute EBITDA to absorb mistakes

  • Historical search fund outliers achieving 8–13x MOIC were built on conservative entry multiples around 4.5–6x EBITDA, moderate leverage near one-third of enterprise value, strong recurring revenue, and durable unit economics rather than binary risk-taking

• John Wilson’s Owned & Operated podcast published a new podcast episode on the true price of running a trades company in 2025:

  • 2025 combined solid growth with volatility as revenue grew roughly 14-15% year over year, but HVAC demand was weak with October shipments down about 49% industry-wide while their HVAC revenue stayed roughly flat at about 0.7%

  • Gross margin discipline drove most of the upside as margins expanded from roughly 42% in 2024 to about 49% in 2025, showing that profitability gains mattered more than top-line growth

  • Capacity, not demand, became the binding constraint as losing 2 of 5 HVAC technicians cut service capacity in half and led to an estimated $1 million in lost revenue over roughly three months

  • Fixed-cost decisions made against an aggressive budget amplified downside when revenue missed plan, reinforcing the lesson to keep costs variable in cyclical, weather-driven businesses

  • Operational focus and leadership quality proved decisive, with plumbing growing 16% and emerging as the strongest division after hiring a strong manager, while daily huddles and financial transparency improved decision speed and execution

• QoE Prep published a new blog post on how a proof of cash helps you buy the right business:

  • A proof of cash reconciles every bank deposit and withdrawal to the financial statements, providing a complete view of how cash actually moved rather than relying on sampled transactions

  • This analysis frequently uncovers revenue overstatements, undisclosed liabilities, or timing errors, especially in cash-heavy businesses or those transitioning from cash to accrual accounting

  • By verifying that reported revenue and expenses appear in bank statements, proof of cash directly tests the integrity of the topline, which is often the primary driver of valuation

  • Within a QoE process, proof of cash acts as a foundational stress test that validates growth claims, confirms trends, and flags mismatches between accounting profit and real cash inflows

  • Running proof of cash early in diligence reduces late-stage surprises, improves negotiation confidence, and materially lowers the risk of overpaying for earnings that are not supported by cash

Deal / Launch Announcements

• 🇩🇪 Alvia Capital, a search fund managed by Hans-Cornelius Kölln and Max Techand and focused on buy & build approach in outpatient and domiciliary care services, acquired Daheim Gruppe, an outpatient, intensive and home care business (link)

• 🇮🇹 Mare Group and Borgosesia launched EasyGo, a search fund focused on engineering and industrial businesses (link) 

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