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As the Spanish SF ecosystem continues to mature, Grupo Santa Marta is emerging as a distinctive player focused on long-term value creation through ETA. With a presence in Madrid and New York, the firm combines investment discipline with hands-on operational experience, positioning itself as more than a traditional financial sponsor. Grupo Santa Marta works alongside searchers, founders, and family-owned businesses with a philosophy centered on alignment, sustainable growth, and long-term ownership. Their guiding principle is “built by operators, for operators,” reflecting the background of its leadership team, led by Manolo Moreno, in partnership with Santiago Prieto. Manolo has spent more than a decade leading companies across the industrial, software, and real estate sectors in both Spain and the United States. His experience includes work within the Alpine Investors ecosystem in the U.S., as well as prior involvement in M&A advisory, an area where Santiago brings over 15 years of experience advising on mid-market M&A across Europe.
The firm supports entrepreneurs throughout the acquisition lifecycle, from deal sourcing and structuring to post-acquisition governance and growth initiatives. This operational DNA shapes its investment style. Grupo Santa Marta is not designed around transaction volume or rapid portfolio turnover. Instead, it seeks deep involvement in a limited number of companies where governance, alignment, and operational execution can generate long-term value. Manolo has stated that the firm’s permanent-capital mindset—enabled by the absence of a traditional fund structure or fixed investment horizon—allows investment decisions to prioritize business fundamentals over predefined exit timelines.
Over the past 12 months, the firm has participated in four acquisitions in Spain, including Pentatel, a turnkey audiovisual production company serving corporate and institutional clients; Itegra, a digital claims platform for Spanish sports federations; and Cartondis, an established corrugated packaging business with multiple production plants. The firm typically seeks to acquire at least a 5% stake in each company. Its strategy involves backing two to four searchers per year, with a similar number of acquisitions completed annually. It also actively evaluates opportunities arising from equity gaps and has a particular interest in roll-ups, buy-and-build strategies, and HoldCo structures, which the team views as a natural extension of the team’s operating background and the firm’s permanent-capital structure.
Geographically, Grupo Santa Marta is primarily focused on Spain but is also interested in opportunities in the United States, Mexico, and Italy. In the Americas, the firm is active in the U.S. SF ecosystem through a strategic partnership with Mosaic ETA, built on the same operator-led investment philosophy.
