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In 2020, while Kieron and Gonzalo were launching their search fund, you began investing in multiple acquisitions in parallel. How did your partnership come about, and what initially attracted you to the search fund model?
We are a group of INSEAD MBA colleagues and friends who learned about the ETA model during business school. We all “fell in love” with that asset and since graduating in 2019, while Kieron and Gonzalo were operating their search fund (Ibérica Partners), we have stayed very close to the search fund community and began investing in other searchers together. Until the beginning of 2025, we had backed 12+ search funds across 8 countries, many of which have been colleagues from INSEAD.
Given the success we’ve seen and the strong momentum in the search fund space, we’ve decided to convert our investment vehicle into a fund — Iberica Investment Partners (Fund I). The fund will consolidate our existing investments and support new ones across Europe and other markets.
Turning to you Gonzalo, let’s revisit your success story as searcher together with Kieron. Can you walk us through the acquisition of Carpro and Jimpisoft and how their merger ultimately led to the creation of Emotion Mobility?
The opportunity emerged in 2019 and came to us through a broker while we were still at INSEAD. We didn’t conduct a search; we started the due diligence while we were still at INSEAD. During the DD process, we looked at several competitors, and the strategy from day one was to pursue M&A to build a clear presence in Europe.
The first acquisition (CarPro) was delayed due to COVID — the lockdown started just one week before closing. The lead investors were Relay, Thomas Buhler, Gernot, and Istria, who helped us put a strong board in place.
Six months after the first acquisition, we acquired Jimpisoft, and since then we have focused on building a single group capable of serving the largest possible number of customers.
Key figures: we managed to grow at an annual rate of 35% during 5 years; we are present in more than 90 countries, and we have grown from 85 employees to more than 130 today.
Under your leadership, the company experienced significant growth before being sold to PSG Equity, marking one of the most successful European exits to date. What were the key drivers of that growth, and what lessons would you share with other searchers?
I always say I don’t think Kieron and I are smarter than the average, but we have worked hard and had the right guidance + of course have had luck.
– Get a great board from the start: talking to peers, we had at least a 2-year headstart just because of the board and the direction we were given
– Energize and promote people who delivered. Let go of people who will not help you or will be fighting back (there is a lot of change)
– Something we did not do: get the right team working for you from the start. By mid-journey you will be needing to hire a good team of management – why not do it now and capitalize on the growth? It makes sense to try to preserve EBITDA, but the leverage you can obtain by hiring good people can highly impact your returns.
The exit happened relatively quickly. What advantages does this new phase bring now that you have the backing of a private equity partner?
There is still plenty of opportunity and growth ahead, now we are better positioned to address that potential. Of course, growing 35% on a bigger company is much harder – so we need new guidance
The consolidation in the industry represents an opportunity but also a threat. We did not have the right capital behind us to accelerate acquisitions. This meant that we were likely going to end up being acquired.
As a final point, 50% of the car rental market is in the US, this requires investors with local know-how to help us in that hyper competitive market.
Looking at your investment track record, over the past five years you have backed around a dozen projects. Could you tell us more about your portfolio and why you decided to formalize your approach by launching now a regulated investment vehicle?
As said before, until the beginning of 2025 we had backed 12 projects in 8 countries. I would say that was a turning point for us: we wanted to dedicate time and support to our investees, we were discarding very interesting dealflow due to the lack of personal resources and in parallel we were receiving a lot of interest from friends and colleagues who wanted to invest in this asset. Therefore, we decided to structure and professionalize our vehicle. However, our DNA remains unchanged, we are operators and private investors to whom the circumstances have led to become a more traditional fund. We acknowledge the value of engaged investors and that is what we aim to be, supportive partners to whom searchers can honestly and transparently ask any tough question, ask for help or even just get something off their chest.
During 2025/2026, we have been fully focused on setting up the fund and completing all the regulatory and administrative tasks. However, in parallel we have kept our investment activity and, in addition to the prior portfolio we contributed at the incorporation of the entity, we have:
- taken an equity stake in Vialterna, a corporate telecommunications company in Mexico: https://vialterna.com/
- Added 7 new active search funds: 2 in Spain, 1 in Italy, 2 in the UK, 1 in India, and 1 in Portugal.
- Additionally, through a search fund in which we are invested here in Spain, we are closing the acquisition of a packaging company.
- Of course, we are continuously reviewing opportunities in new search funds and equity gaps, as well as deals brought to us by the search funds in which we are invested.
You are aiming to raise approximately €30M with Iberica Investment Partners. How is the fundraising progressing, and how do you differentiate yourselves from the many investors currently active in the market? What will be your core investment strategy?
Our overall target is to have €30M AUM in this first fund, with a first close now of €15M, which is almost fully secured. In terms of our strategy, this is an evolving ecosystem and we are flexible and open. This applies to how we approach our investments: though we prefer traditional duo search funds, we are open to equity gaps, self-funded or strong individuals. Our non-traditional path to become a fund has allowed us to craft and adapt the fund to the way we do and see things, and not the opposite. And this is a clear advantage.
For us the key is the searchers’ motivation, their humbleness to ask for support and help when needed, their openness when addressing problems and the value they give to an investor who “talks their language”. We see this as a marriage and not only do the searchers need to convince us, but we must also be suitable to what a particular searcher is looking for. As said before, if you are looking for an investor who is a partner, who can assist you, who you can talk to transparently and who is going to be engaged, we are there for you. If your path is different, then there will be other more suitable investors out there.
It’s clear that, in your DNA, you are searchers before investors. Do you see this as a competitive advantage when it comes to being hands-on and supporting new searchers? What advice would you give searchers when building their cap table, and what common mistakes should be avoided when setting up the board post-acquisition?
Absolutely, again for us this is the key value of this project. Kieron and Gonzalo are first and foremost searchers: we all are enthusiasts of this asset class and we have been betting our own personal wealth into this throughout the years. We know there is a lot of attention and money flowing into this ecosystem but we have dedicated a lot of time and care to our own cap table, that reflects who we want to be and how we want to operate. We have learned thanks to that experience as searchers the difference that good and supportive investors can bring to the table. And those learnings have defined how we have built our own cap table: we have avoided institutional investors, we are more an investment club, comprised of searchers, entrepreneurs, business executives and business owners who want to invest and support the next wave of businessmen and women.
We want our conversations with searchers to be a safe space, where they can discharge their day-to-day stress and ups and downs. We offer support from opening a bank account, introductions to other investors, advice on different actors of this ecosystem, ad hoc expertise of any industry thanks to our investors’ pool, on how to structure a deal, and of course connections and knowledge during the operation. We are not going to be demanding but quite the opposite, we will be there if you need it. We offer all our investor talent to act as mentors, board members… Again, we have been there, we have faced the challenges you are facing, and our sole purpose is that we all thrive while enjoying the ride.
