Jake Nicholson

Search Funds 101 with an Industry Veteran

Jake Nicholson is considered one of the leading figures in regards to Search Funds in the current generation. He’s been in the field for more than a decade and has a reputation globally for being one of the real experts in the search fund, entrepreneurship through acquisition and all things related to that community.

Together with Insead professor Mr. Timothy Bovard, they built and run the world’s first accelerator for search funds SFA (Search Fund Accelerator), and ran that for a couple of years and now running a different platform for search fund entrepreneurs in Australia.

Given his experience, he is well recognised as having a deep understanding in the market for search fund, globally. At the moment his focus is on the Australian market, which is very useful to the region.

In this podcast, Pete speaks to Jake about the fundamentals of search funds, entrepreneurship through acquisition, how Search Funds is different from start-ups and focusing on how to build the marketplace for Search Funds in Australia.

Show Notes

  • 01:20 –Jake talks about his journey on Search Fund and how search funds is different from startup.
  • 06:49 –Pete and Jake talks about what the search fund model actually looks like from the investors perspective and the searchers perspective and how the Search fund model mechanics works?
  • 18:27 –Pete asks what is Jake’s impression of the Australian market compared to the US, UK and Spain and How Generation and Culture have an impact to the Search Funds in the region. 
  • 25:46-Jake talks about how business owner, searchers and search investors help each other to work to grow the search fund community.


Learn more about Search Funds and entrepreneurship through acquisition and connect with Pete and Jake:

Pete Seligman: LinkedIn
Jake Nicholson: LinkedIn 

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