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David Briend, a 39-year-old French entrepreneur, has launched Briend & Associés, a search fund dedicated to identifying, acquiring, and leading a high-potential SME in France. The initiative has been oversubscribed by 150%, with 20 investors onboard—carefully selected to form a balanced mix of entrepreneurs and business owners, family offices and private investment structures, and traditional funds, both French and international. Notable supporters include Baudouin Lescuyer, Peter’s Troop, Alain Jarre, Jean-Cyrille Droin, Benoît Praud, as well as private structures and family offices such as SARTI, Legacy Partners, Aniol, and Secways, and institutional investors including Orca Equity Partners, Alza Capital Partners, Istria Capital, and Spectra.
David brings over 15 years of combined experience in private equity and executive leadership. He began his career as a private equity investor in French SMEs within a family office, before transitioning to hands-on operational roles. Since then, he has led or co-led companies with revenues ranging from €5 million to €250 million, across both industrial and service sectors. Among them, he took over his family’s publishing house, improved its performance, and successfully sold it to a strategic buyer. Most of the other companies were complex or distressed situations that required urgent transformation, turnaround, or repositioning.
He graduated in nuclear engineering from ESTP Paris and has progressively developed a leadership philosophy grounded in trust, empowerment, and high expectations.
ETA is part of David’s family heritage: his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather each acquired and developed existing businesses in France. This legacy shaped his entrepreneurial journey and gave him the desire to take over and grow a company himself.
In 2019–2020, David conducted his first self-funded search to acquire a language training company but the deal fell through just days before signing due to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
David is now seeking to acquire an SME with clear potential to improve EBITDA by 15% per year within the framework of the search fund model. This improvement may come from accelerating growth in an already well-performing company, or from strategic add-on acquisitions, or from unlocking value in a company currently underperforming relative to its market. While maintaining a broad and opportunistic approach, he plans to conduct deep dives into selected niches within the education, healthcare, and software sectors.
