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Could you start by walking us through your professional journey before founding Pitlane Capital? What experiences shaped your decision to dedicate your career to the search fund ecosystem?
My professional journey has always been a combination of entrepreneurship, operating businesses and investing. I started getting involved in investments while I was still at university, and in 2004 I joined A.Y.R.A.D Investments, a family-owned investment firm focused on high-tech companies. Over the years, we reviewed hundreds of ventures and participated in or led investments across areas including mobile, e-commerce, software, cybersecurity and robotics.
That gave me an early exposure to entrepreneurship from the investor side, but I also wanted to understand what it was like to actually build and operate businesses.
I joined SHL Telemedicine in 2007, initially as Director and Project Leader for the company’s Germany B2C business. I led a cross-country sales team, managed a multi-million-dollar P&L and worked on the company’s expansion in Europe. I later became VP Business Development, where I was responsible for global business development and marketing activities and worked on initiatives including the company’s expansion into India and the launch of a new SaaS product with a leading UK hospital.
I then joined Roboteam, a defence robotics company, as VP Business Development. I was responsible for business development across EMEA and Asia-Pacific, helped win a major tender with the Israeli Defence Forces, established partnerships with distributors across Europe and the Far East, and led a financing round for the company.
Alongside my operating experience, I continued to be involved in investments and boards. For example, I served as a board member and investor in Dynasec, where I led three investment rounds and recruit an industry expert chairman and management team. The company was subsequently acquired by Check Point. I was also a board member and investor in BioCatch, which was later acquired by Bain Capital and then, Permira and recently Visa.
In 2014, I co-founded Mindspace with a good friend of mine, where I have served as Chief Business Officer. Building Mindspace has probably been the most formative experience of my career as an operator. We built the company into an international flexible workspace business, expanding across Europe and the US and operating today 50 locations across over 25 cities and seven countries.
What I particularly learned at Mindspace was how to build and scale an operating business across multiple markets. Every time you enter a new country, you are effectively starting from scratch: you need to build relationships with customers, suppliers, landlords and service providers, establish a local team and adapt to different cultures and ways of doing business. That experience gave me a very strong understanding of execution, international expansion, people management, fundraising and the many challenges involved in building a business.
At the same time, I always remained attracted to the investment side of entrepreneurship. About a year ago, I started looking for a way to combine these two experiences. That was when I discovered the search fund ecosystem.
I was already familiar with the broader concept of Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition, but I didn’t know that there was such a developed ecosystem around search funds. Once I started learning about the model, speaking with searchers and investors, and understanding the dynamics of the industry, I felt there was a very strong fit with my own background.
Search combines many of the things I have been doing throughout my career: investing, entrepreneurship, becoming an owner-operator, building businesses and working closely with management teams. That is ultimately what led me to launch Pitlane Capital in January 2026.
We now have commitments in more than 15 searchers, most of them in Europe, as well as in Latin America, India and Israel.
What was the original insight or market opportunity that led you to launch Pitlane Capital? Why did you believe there was room for a new search fund investment platform?
I don’t think we have even scratched the surface of this industry yet. If you look at the number of searchers in most countries, it is still very small. There are many countries that don’t have searchers at all.
But what really attracted me to the model is the underlying generational transition taking place across thousands of small and medium-sized businesses. Many of these companies have been built over decades by founders or family owners. They are profitable, established businesses, but the owner is approaching retirement and there is no clear successor within the family.
That creates both a genuine business continuity challenge and an extraordinary opportunity. An entrepreneur can step into an existing business, preserve what the founder has built, take care of the employees and customers, and at the same time bring a new level of energy, leadership and operational excellence to the company.
I think we are at a particularly interesting moment for this model. There is a large pool of established businesses that need a succession solution, while there is a growing generation of entrepreneurs who want to become owners and CEOs. Pitlane Capital sits at that intersection.
As the industry develops, more people will hear about the model and more investors will enter the space. But that doesn’t necessarily mean there are too many funds. In any asset class, the best entrepreneurs attract a lot of investors. You see the same thing in venture capital, private equity and other investment categories. If someone is exceptionally good, many people want to invest behind them.
So I am not operating under the assumption that there is an oversupply of search fund investors. I believe the industry still has significant room to grow, and that the key is to identify and back the very best searchers.
The search fund model has grown significantly in recent years. How do you see the market evolving, and what role do you want Pitlane Capital to play in that development?
As the industry grows, more people will naturally enter the search fund ecosystem. That is a normal part of the development of any industry.
At the same time, I think people need to understand that search is not an easy or quick entrepreneurial journey. It is a long and complicated process, and it is not for everyone. I would encourage anyone considering becoming a searcher to have a very honest conversation with themselves before starting: Is this really the right path for me?
I expect there will be more searchers in the future, but also a clearer distinction between the top searchers and those who discover along the way that the journey is more complicated than they initially thought. That is not unique to search; you see the same thing in startups and other entrepreneurial environments.
I also think there is an important broader economic trend behind ETA. Much of today’s business conversation revolves around AI and software, but a significant share of economic value over the coming decade will continue to come from physical businesses, essential services and infrastructure.
AI is not going to eliminate the need for technicians, electricians, installers, infrastructure professionals and skilled tradespeople. In many cases, these businesses will actually become more important, but they will need stronger leadership, better systems and greater operational excellence to continue growing.
That is another reason I believe ETA is particularly relevant today. We are not only talking about financial transactions; we are talking about ensuring the continuity and future growth of businesses that provide essential products and services to the real economy.
For Pitlane Capital, I want to be a supportive investor, drawing on my experience as an operator, surrounded by top searchers and other high-quality investors. I want the fund to keep growing, remain deeply involved in the ETA community and, ultimately, make an impact on the ecosystem.
When evaluating a searcher, what qualities or characteristics make you believe someone has the potential to become an exceptional CEO and business owner?
The first thing I look for is motivation and hunger. Why does someone want to become a searcher? There are many ways to acquire a company and many ways to become an entrepreneur, so I want to understand why they have chosen this particular path.
Second, I look for curiosity and humility. A searcher needs to understand that there is a lot to learn. I don’t want someone coming into the process with the mentality that they already know everything. It is about having the humility and eagerness to learn.
The third quality, which may sound simple, is being quick. For an entrepreneur and a manager, speed is extremely important: making decisions quickly, responding quickly to employees and customers, and moving quickly when circumstances change.
It is also contagious. If employees see that their CEO is slow, they will become slower. If they see that the CEO is quick and decisive, they tend to become quicker themselves. And even when you make a mistake, being quick means you can identify it, correct it and change direction quickly.
I also believe strongly in a sense of ownership. At Mindspace, we used to talk about this all the time. The searcher already has ownership, but it is very important that they create that same sense of ownership among their employees. When employees feel that the business is theirs, they treat it differently and can become the best employees you could imagine.
That is closely related to another principle I believe in: a sense of urgency. Even though the search phase can last two years, it is actually a very short period of time. Nobody is waiting for you, and competition is not waiting for you. You have to move quickly.
Could you explain Pitlane Capital’s investment philosophy? What types of companies, sectors, and geographies do you find most attractive — and which ones do you typically avoid?
We are relatively sector agnostic, but I want to see a strong fit and chemistry between the searcher and the company.
If a company is highly complex — for example, a specialized factory requiring a particular technical background — I want to see someone with relevant experience. Running a business is complicated enough without adding unnecessary complexity by putting someone in charge who has no relevant background.
More broadly, I want to invest in companies that are hard to kill. That is the minimum bar. But beyond that, I want to invest in amazing companies, and amazing companies are not defined only by good financial numbers. There should also be something special or unique about the business.
Why this company rather than another one? Is there a unique product, customer base, geographical position or some other form of competitive advantage? What I don’t want is a company whose only unique characteristic is that it has a particular owner.
We focus on profitable, stable and growing companies with proven customer bases, positive cash flow and, ideally, exposure to sectors benefiting from long-term structural demand. The companies we target are often mature businesses with recurring revenue and a strong operating history.
In terms of financial characteristics, cash generation is probably the single most important factor for me. Recurring revenue is also very important, although recurring revenue on its own is not enough. I want to see a profitable company and, more importantly, understand how much cash it actually generates.
Geographically, Pitlane Capital is global, with somewhat greater emphasis on Europe.
Launching a new fund requires building a strong investor base. How did you approach fundraising for Pitlane Capital, and what has been the reaction from LPs and the broader investment community?
The initial fundraising reaction has been very positive. I was actually positively surprised by it as it’s a new asset class for most people.
Pitlane Capital has completed its first close with backing from private investors, fund managers, business leaders and family offices in Israel. We are aiming to complete the fundraise soon at $25 million and have attracted investors from Israel as well as international markets.
The vast majority of investors I spoke with had never heard of search funds before. So there is naturally an element of market education involved. But once I explained the model and how it works, it was relatively easy for people to understand why it is an interesting investment opportunity.
Compared with some other asset classes, the search fund model is relatively straightforward to explain. The challenge is initially introducing investors to a model they have not encountered before.
What have been your first commitments through Pitlane Capital, and what made those opportunities stand out among the many searchers you review?
We started engaging with searchers towards the end of last year, and Pitlane Capital officially started in January. We now have commitments in a dozen of searchers, and we realized our first acquisition a few months ago (Simova in Brazil).
Most of these are in Europe (Crescendo Transmission, Apiana Partners, Perennis Capital, Trolega…), but we are also backing searchers in other regions, including Latin America (Igarapava Capital), India (Vystra Capital) and Israel (Surge Ventures).
What ultimately matters to us is the quality of the searcher and the fit between the entrepreneur and the target business. We are looking for people with the right motivation, curiosity, humility, speed and sense of ownership, as well as a strong fit with the business they are planning to acquire.
We are looking to build a portfolio of approximately 20 companies, although the final number could vary depending on the opportunities and the potential for additional investments in businesses that pursue roll-up strategies.
Our model is not simply to provide capital for the search. We want to back exceptional searchers from the beginning, invest alongside them in the companies they acquire, and partner with them through execution and growth.
Beyond providing capital, searchers often look for operational guidance and a strong investor partnership. How does Pitlane Capital support entrepreneurs throughout the entire journey?
This is one of the areas where I believe my background as an operator can be particularly valuable.
I spent more than 12 years building and operating Mindspace, including expanding it across more than 25 cities and multiple countries. We had to compete with a very strong competitor, WeWork, which forced us to become better across many aspects of the business. You cannot win simply by being cheaper. You need to have a better team, better locations, better design, better execution and a better overall proposition – and it all boiled down to a better customer experience
That experience gives me the ability to support CEOs in many of the challenges they face, particularly when they are running businesses with recurring revenue and cash flow.
I also bring an investor perspective. Over the years, I have been involved in dozens of investments through boards and through my immediate family and my wife’s family, with exposure to entrepreneurial businesses of different sizes, many of them international. I have therefore had a front-row seat to very different outcomes: spectacular successes, modest successes, difficult situations and businesses that simply didn’t survive.
Another advantage is my background in operating across multiple countries and managing teams made up of dozens of nationalities. That provides a different perspective on how to assess and support a CEO, and how to manage organizations with people from different cultural backgrounds.
I also think the combination of backgrounds within Pitlane Capital is important. Omer Ben Shach, our Operating Partner, has been investing in the ETA ecosystem for more than seven years and has backed more than 55 search funds globally across the search, acquisition, scaling and exit stages. He brings deep pattern recognition, ecosystem access and hands-on experience supporting first-time CEOs.
So we are combining operating experience with significant search fund investment experience. Our philosophy is to partner with searchers from day one, through the search, acquisition and beyond, and to be particularly useful at the moments that matter most.
Finally, coming from Israel’s technology ecosystem can also be useful to searchers. Technology is deeply embedded in the Israeli business environment, and our network can be very useful to the searcher and CEOs we are working with by providing them access to solutions or technologies that can save them time and money or help them build a better business.
I don’t believe that supporting a company necessarily means sitting on its board. No one can really contribute as a board member on 15 or 20 different companies. There are many other ways to contribute.
Wherever I can add value, I will do so, whether I am on the board or not. If there is a stronger or better-qualified board member for a particular company, that person should be on the board. I’m not a board chaser.
In some cases, I may also be able to help identify and bring in a board member from my network who can provide significant value. If I have a good relationship with the searcher and my background can be useful to them, I want to be a resource they can use as part of their arsenal.
Looking ahead, what is your long-term vision for Pitlane Capital? Where would you like the platform to be in five years, and how do you see the search fund ecosystem evolving over that period?
I expect the search fund ecosystem to continue growing and becoming more established. As with any growing industry, more participants will enter the market, including both searchers and investors.
At the same time, I expect the market to become more differentiated. There will be more visibility around the top searchers and top investors, while some people will discover that the search journey is more difficult and complex than they initially expected.
For Pitlane Capital, my ambition is to build a platform that is surrounded by top searchers and high-quality investors, while continuing to grow and remain deeply involved in the ETA community.
After years of building a global company, I see my next chapter as helping other entrepreneurs become owner-operators of enduring businesses.
ETA combines many of the things that have motivated me throughout my career: entrepreneurship, hands-on company building, investing and meaningful economic impact. Ultimately, our goal at Pitlane Capital is to back exceptional people as they acquire outstanding businesses and give them the capital, experience and network they need to create long-term value.
If we can help a new generation of entrepreneurs take over great businesses, preserve what previous generations have built and then grow those companies for the next generation, I think we will have achieved what we set out to do.
