Entrepreneurship + Growth

We are passionate about people and business. Northspring Partners is a private equity firm focused on partnering with driven entrepreneurs, investing in lower middle market companies with exponential growth potential.

 

Our Approach


We grow and mentor our searchers, transforming businesses and lives in the process, while delivering outsized returns with reduced risk for our investors.

Search Fund Model


Conceptualized in the early 1980’s, search funds have delivered aggregate pre-tax returns of 35.3% internal rate of return (IRR) and 5.2x return on investment (ROI).

Our Team


As former searchers, we are dedicating the next chapter of our careers to helping other aspiring entrepreneurs to acquire, operate and grow successful businesses.

Investors

Northspring is actively seeking investors interested in allocating assets in private equity with exposure in the lower middle market. As part of the search fund model, making minority investments in micro-cap companies with exponential growth potential, the fund is diversified in established, profitable businesses with an ecosystem that backs the CEOs to support success.

Our typical investor profile includes single or multi-family offices, high-net worth individuals, former searchers, and endowments.

If you would like to learn more about becoming an investor, we invite you to contact our team.

Please note that Northspring Partners is an SEC registered private equity firm and can work only with Accredited Investors and Qualified Purchasers, as defined by U.S. securities laws. Northspring Partners is prohibited from offering its products to the general public under applicable securities law regulations.

Entrepreneurs

There are many ways to pursue the path of entrepreneurship, from the bootstrapped startup, to the high-geared world of venture capital, crafting new ideas and opportunities in hopes of building the next great company.

While this may happen for a select few, the reality is the failure rate for startups is high and the pressure on entrepreneurs is even higher to generate results. An alternative path being taken by some who have the desire to run and grow a company, but don’t want to start from scratch is entrepreneurship through acquisition. These future CEOs leverage a search fund to make their dreams a reality.

Looking to run your own company, but don’t want to start from scratch? This may be the path for you. Northspring is always looking to connect with interested candidates for our next searcher cohort. 

What is a Search Fund?

Search Funds are a unique form of private equity that has increased in popularity in recent years. Although around since the early eighties, they have remained a relatively unknown, yet very efficient and successful, model for the transfer, sale, or recapitalization of businesses that are at an inflection point in their corporate timeline.

Often this results in the next generation entrepreneurs, many of whom are seeking their first experience as a CEO, to recapitalize the business with assistance of experienced investors and operators. The concept was first pioneered at some of the top-tier business schools, but has since attracted "searchers" from all walks of life and stages of their career.

This is the story of an entrepreneurial journey - in short, it’s entrepreneurship through acquisition (or "ETA"), and traditionally yields very attractive risk-adjusted returns with aligned incentives for everyone.


Stanford publishes a report biennially on the Search Fund category, to download the most current whitepaper entitled ”2022 Search Fund Study: Selected Observations” click the download button.