Search Fund Partners and Alumnus Sumit Garg on campus Mon 10/23 12:30-2:00 in C210

Following on the success of this past week's Search Fund discussion, we're bringing to campus on October 23rd three former searchers, two of whom are now partners at Search Fund Partners.


Search Fund Deep Dive with Bay Area Search Fund Investors

Ready to be your own boss and to be the CEO and part owner of a small company? Interested in learning more about Search Funds? Want to network with Bay Area Search Fund Investors?

Search Fund Partners (SFP) is a small firm that invests exclusively in Search Funds. SFP was founded in 2004 and has been an important name in the space since the fund's inception. The partners are well connected and have invested in many of the search funds that have been raised over the last 13+ years. Todd Tracey and Jim Edmunds have each worked as operators, running companies acquired through the search fund model, and are now both investors and partners at SFP. Haas MBA alumnus Sumit Garg is also a former successful Searcher.

A search fund is raised by an entrepreneur who seeks to unearth, acquire, and operate a small private company. A consortium of investors back the Searcher(s) during the search phase and "step up" to finance the acquisition. Searchers are often recent MBA grads from top programs who are motivated to gain a significant equity position and run a small company.

Jim Edmunds

Jim Edmunds joined Search Fund Partners in 2008 after running a company sourced through the search fund model. Jim and his partner found and acquired Celebrity Kids Portrait Studios, a leading provider of upscale children's photography, in 2005. Jim served as President and CFO of the company. He currently participates on the boards of Microdea, Neuro International, Consumeraffairs.com, Gogotech, and UCIT Online.

Before launching a search fund, Jim was an Associate at McKinsey & Company in Palo Alto. Prior to attending business school, Jim conducted business development for PetSmart.com, managed a successful political campaign in Texas, and worked in Investment Banking and Equity Capital Markets at Bear Stearns.

Jim holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was named a Siebel Scholar, and an A.B. in History from Harvard University. He is the treasurer of Building Futures Now, a non-profit dedicated to helping high potential students in East Palo Alto. He lives in Menlo Park with his wife Christine, daughters Emiko and Mika, and son Koji.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-edmunds-b03470/



Todd Tracey

Todd Tracey joined Search Fund Partners in 2016 after acquiring, running, and successfully exiting HemaSource, a company he sourced through the search fund model. HemaSource is a distributor of medical disposable products to the blood therapies markets and at the time of the sale it was one of the most successful 'single searcher' exits. Todd served as President and CEO of the company.

He currently participates on the boards of ComplianceLine, TDR, Detroit Dental, and Elevated Billing Solutions.

Prior to launching his search fund, Todd filled leadership roles in operations, sales, and finance for a variety of lower middle market companies. His broad industry background includes agriculture, telecommunications, web advertising and healthcare. He also worked as a Senior Associate for Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman).

Todd holds an MBA from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University where he was a Lerner Scholar and the Harry W. Gillies Management & Strategy Student of the Year. He graduated cum laude from Dartmouth College with an A.B. in Economics.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-tracey-57a28/


Alumnus Sumit Garg

Sumit is Managing Partner at Software Growth Partners and also an Operating Partner at Alpine Investors. In his current roles, Sumit is passionate about helping high potential software companies to achieve market growth, build operational scale and gather world class teams. Most recently, Sumit served as President at Cleo, an integration software company that he acquired through a search fund. During his tenure, Sumit co-led rapid revenue scale acceleration, subscription conversion, and transformation of Cleo from a mid-market focused managed file transfer company to a large enterprise-focused big data integration company. Sumit's experiences prior to Cleo include executive leadership role at SumTotal Systems; strategic finance including investment banking at GCA Savvian, and venture capital investments at Visa Ventures; and technical roles including Pre-Sales, Product Management and Software Engineering at Alvarion, Aperto Networks and Hughes Software Systems. Sumit received his MBA from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Technology in Computer Science & Engineering from IIT-BHU, where he was captain of the volleyball team, and member of the track team.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gargsumit/

This will be an interactive discussion, so please bring questions. And feel free to bring lunch...

RSVP below.

Finance Club | Website | View More Events

Contact the organizers