Has Anyone Used Crowdfunding to Finance a Search Fund or Acquisition? Looking for Insights!

December 22, 2025

by a searcher from Henley Business School in England, UK

Hey folks, has anyone here successfully used equity crowdfunding (like Crowdcube) to raise a search fund or finance a business acquisition? Curious to hear if it’s a viable route or if anyone’s got tips from experience!”

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Reply by a searcher
from University of Texas at Austin in Austin, TX, USA

I looked into it last year. Ultimately it didn't make sense for my deal. It adds a level of complication that is likely make the legal costs much higher, because you are now beholden to shareholders (potentially a lot of them) who may not be accredited and therefore don't fully understand the investment. Also the platforms I reviewed took huge amounts of fees if your raise is successful (many are not), and the majority of the potential investors still had to be sourced from you. Most of the sites put your investment up for anyone to review, but you still have to drive that traffic to their site...it seemed pretty rare on most of the sites I reviewed that someone you didn't send to the site would become an investor.

Reply by a professional
from University of Georgia in Los Angeles, CA, USA

Crowdfunding (using Regulation CF or Regulation A) for an unnamed acquisition is not allowed. However, you can do an online raise using Reg D 506C to create a FUND with that in mind. You will spend 10-20% of the money you raise in online marketing to raise it so it may not work. Better to raise it here,

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