Sophomore Students Starting Search Funds — Is This the New Wave?

Saw a LinkedIn post today from a sophomore announcing the launch of their own search fund.

We had a quick chat months ago when they were asking basic questions about resume formatting… and now apparently they’re structuring acquisitions? Respect the ambition, but I can’t help but wonder:

I’m genuinely confused. How do they plan to finance anything? Are we talking about pooling together first-year internship paychecks to go after local landscaping businesses?

Is this just a new version of resume-padding or personal branding dressed up as micro-PE? Or is this actually becoming a legitimate trend for students looking to skip the traditional IB-to-PE path?

Curious if anyone has seen student-led search funds that are actually sourcing and closing deals. Or is this just LinkedIn optics at its finest?

2 Comments
 
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Thinking of transferring to Waterloo from Ivey - I seen that the people have pretty proper placements. I saw a few people at Sahara Trading company even someone as a VP at a second year on Linkedin that's pretty insane. I also saw some clubs like Waterloo Securities Org and Waterloo Advisory Group, not sure what they do but sure sounds sick. The founder told me its comparable to the student investment fund and even rivals like QUIC and WIC. Can someone confirm is the placements are better than WPC or even WIC. Should I transfer to Waterloo I really want to work at Evercore Long/Short or Goldman Stanley Private Equity or even Blackstone Tactical Accounting sounds solid

 

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