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Searchfunder is the easiest, but the quality of deals posted directly on the platform may be poor. This will also give you a directory of who's currently active, so you could always ping them from there, which may open opportunities for higher quality deal flow.
Best path is to create a twitter presence, network, and promote your personal brand, which will feed inbounds for higher quality deals - but obviously takes much longer and sounds like you're looking to avoid this route per your post.
Thanks. You not planning to launch one yourself? ;)
Its not worth it....
Relative to what?
Go to the McGuireWoods or iGlobal events and meet the people raising for their deals.
Came here to say annual MGW Independent Sponsor Conference in Dallas, but got beat to the punch. This is without a doubt the big event for indy sponsors.
PM me. One of my close friends / contacts' main focus is private placements for fundless sponsor deals. Let's chat and I will connect you.
Are you US focused or Europe?
Business schools have some clubs / conferences specifically focused on search funds. See e.g. https://cdo.mit.edu/organizations/entrepreneurship-through-acquisition-…
Thanks. The problem with search funds is you're taking a layer of inexperience risk on top of the risk of not finding a target to acquire, leverage on the company, etc. Most SF entrepreneurs are inexperienced operators. That's why I'm lukewarm about them.
Not disagreeing with you, but have you seen the Stanford reports on their returns? I believe it's something like 35%+ IRR on average, which would seem to compensate for the risk. Not to mention the little downside if these guys don't find a deal - most units only seem to be priced at ~$50k.
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