I write a monthly newsletter on Search, ETA, SMB, & more.

I thought I'd share an excerpt of the July edition I sent recently - sign-up at bit.ly/etamusings if want to get on the list (and I'll resend the full July edition later this week for new adds)


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Hi Friend,


Hope the summer is treating you well. As a family, we've been on a traveling working trip for a month and it's been great to see friends and different parts of the country.


Recent investments - in July we backed several great teams and added some attractive investments.


Traditional Search Investments: We committed to a range of interesting traditional searchers recently:

We backed Philippe Rodriguez, a recent Stanford MBA focused on a long-term hold who is passionate about aerospace and defense.

We also committed to Mitch Pulver, a recent Booth MBA who is part of the NextGen Growth Partners cohort and is focused on government technology.

We're also excited to be partnering with Tim Buehn, a recent HBS grad, at Deer Point Partners.

Currently Raising? Are you a traditional searcher currently raising? Know one? We'd love to meet - just reach out --@----.com Investments: We invested in several interesting deals this month:

We were excited to invest with Yves Biyah in his acquisition of a security platform in Cote 'd Ivoire in collaboration with a number of great international investors. We've done public markets investing in Africa before, but this represents our first closed search deal in Africa and will be exciting to watch and support Yves in what he's building.

Additionally we supported TJ Ross and Joel Milton in an independent sponsor deal focused on a niche online media platform.

Have a self-funded or traditional deal that is looking for equity investment? We'd love to see it - just reply to this email.

Deal & Diligence Assistance: We continue to dig in and help on deal-level analysis, deal structuring and sourcing directly with searchers on a number of software, business services and gov-related deals. If we can be of help, please reach out.



Content & Community -

Searchfunder Webinar: We hosted the session "Modeling for Traditional Search Deals - Intro to Building Financial Models" on Searchfunder on July 22nd. Watch the replay here. Respond to this email if you'd like a copy of the slides & the traditional search model templates.


Podcast: Pete Seligman is dedicating this season of his business podcast on search funds generally with a focus on his home country of Australia.


Deal Site News: Our friends at MicroAcquire recently raised $6M to build the "Zillow for M&A" - we know Andrew and are supporters of what he's building. He's seen impressive growth among both buyer & sellers of smaller software companies - will be interesting to see how he continues to evolve with additional capital.


Twitter: We've really enjoyed a few Twitter threads recently including 1) Lessons on Roll-ups from a Dental Roll-up CEO 2) Story of buying a community bank & growth journey Search funds rarely, if ever, target "balance sheet businesses" like banks, so this last one, about acquiring a small bank, provides an interesting perspective.


Women in Search: A great group of search investors & Yale professors recently wrote a great Yale case "On the Nature of Women Considering a Search Launch."


For full copy of newsletter & future editions - sign-up at bit.ly/etamusings