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Chris Davey, founder of the accounting firm Accountica, which primarily services family offices, start-ups, and SMEs, has spent the past 4 years researching the SF model. Recently, he decided to launch Search Fund Oz, his first vehicle to support searchers and facilitate SME acquisitions. Currently, he is raising AUS$2M to kickstart this venture, from sophisticated investors. He has already invested in 2 new Australian SFs that are currently fundraising and participated via equity gap funding in the acquisition of Australian herbicide manufacturer Granular Products by Resilient Search Partners.
Chris’ plan for Search Fund Oz is to allocate 50% to traditional SFs and 50% to self-funded initiatives. Overall, he aims to invest in 5 SFs and hopes to participate in up to 5 acquisitions before launching a much larger fund. He describes Search Fund Oz as “active investors” seeking access to strong partnerships and alignment with searchers. The goal is to provide comprehensive support in setting up searchers initiatives, including deal flow creation, opportunity analysis and evaluation, due diligence management, deal structuring, and financing setup. As he explained, Search Fund Oz positions itself between a Fund of SFs and an Accelerator: it leverages its network to help SMEs achieve the key metrics searchers seek, while offering searchers a platform with valuable insights, tools, and guidance to support them in successfully acquiring and leading a business.
