I am a serial search fund investor. Together with a group of co-investors, I back young talented entrepreneurs and help them source, acquire and become successful CEOs of small growing businesses. I love what I do.
I believe that the transfer of wealth that is taking place with the retirement of the generation of baby boomers offers one of the investment opportunities of our lifetime. Search funds allow investors to capture this opportunity by investing in profitable businesses in the often-unexplored lower end of the middle market.
I live in Madrid. During the last 3 years Spain has become a hub for search funds in Europe. I am also a husband and a father of three, and I love spending time with my family even more than investing.
In 2018, alongside with my partner Ignacio, I co-founded Istria Capital, the first (and so far only) institutional fund of search funds based in Europe. At Istria we have backed more than 50 searchers worldwide and invested in 12 operating companies. I serve in 3 boards and sit in another one as observer (Tethys, Teclena, Theia and CarPro Systems as observer).
I love reading about investing, decision-making and storytelling. I also love playing soccer – I’ve already played the top ten games of my career - and occasionally playing guitar and golf - I hope I haven’t played yet the top ten golf games of my career. Having three young girls and running a small investment firm, it is always a challenge to keep other interests alive.
I am a generalist. Although I have broad experience as a lawyer, private investor and second-generation family business owner, I am only at the beginning of my SF investing career and still early in the learning curve. There are many folks out there that have a much deeper knowledge and experience investing in search funds and operating companies. I feel lucky that we get co-invest along with them, learn from their incredible experience and be part of the incredibly talented and kind search fund community.
At Istria we like to think of ourselves as fast learners and, although we are relatively new to the search fund ecosystem (as almost everyone is in Europe), we are one of the most active investors. There is no substitute for personal experience when it comes to investing. We (hopefully) have many years ahead of us to fix this.
I decided to start this blog because writing helps me improve my thinking process. My initial idea is to write here mainly about search funds and search fund investing. However, knowing myself, it’s just a matter of time that I start digressing and writing about other topics that interest me.
Don’t expect to find here the ultimate wisdom of search fund investing. But do expect to find hard work, some good research and sharing my learning journey.