Emerging Markets Search Fund

Hey guys posting under a throwaway account for anonymity.

A little bit about me: - Born and raised in an emerging economy in South America - Graduated from top 50 undergraduate business school in the US - Spent a year working in consulting right after undergrad - Extension to my work authorization was denied so I decided to pursue graduate school - After graduate school, spent a couple years working at BB/EB as an analyst - Finished my associate program at a MM/UMM type of firm

Current situation: Since I was a kid I've been pretty entreprenurial. While I was in graduate school, I had the opportunity to launch a decently capitalized e-commerce business in my home country with a high school friend (think US$1 mm in equity). We managed to scale that to roughly US$1 mm in revenue and US$200k of EBITDA by the end of year 1.

I eventually decided to sell my equity stake in the business back to my friend given that I was about to start full-time in investment banking and I didn't really see myself moving back home and working with this guy for an extended period of time at all.

After going through the usual IB>PE pipeline, I have found myself increasingly disillusioned with PE for a variety of reasons and I have been reflecting deeply on what has made me fulfilled in life so far. I have realized that I genuinely enjoy business and the idea of building a company.

What troubles me is the risk/reward profile of starting something from scratch and the incredible difficulty and stress that comes with it given the lack of talent available, processes, and clients. Hats off to all the guys out there that do this but I am pretty sure I wouldn't want to do this again.

I am currently toying with the idea of starting a search fund in my home country. Ideally, I'd like to acquire a consumer company due to my previous experience and my passion for the industry/business model.

Currently I have the following things lined up: - A green card, which would allow me to move back to the US and get back to working in finance if things don't work out - Excellent GMAT score that hopefully makes applying to bschool another fail safe - Roughly 500k to use as equity in funding the acquisition - Another 300k of savings I can use to fund my lifestyle while potentially not having a salary

A couple things worry me which is the reason that I wrote this post: 1) Would traditional capital providers in the U.S. (ex. search fund investors, family offices, etc.) be interested in this type of transaction given the geography it would take place in? 2) What size of company could I feasibly target given the size of the equity check I could personally write? I am thinking maybe something in the realm of US$2-3 mm? 3) I am struggling to visualize what kind of exit mechanism I could pursue after 2-3 years of operating the business given the lack of a real LMM PE market

Would really appreciate some perspective and insight from people who might have pursued search funds before or are intimately familiar with the ecosystem.

Tagging @APAE since he seems to have a wealth of knowledge in this matter.