# Search fund

Investors fund the search and the deal; the [searcher](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/searcher) earns equity in return.

It is the academically documented path, and it buys a searcher two things a self-funded buyer does without: a salary during the search, and investors who can write bigger equity checks for bigger targets. The trade is ownership and control, since those investors take most of the equity and a real say in governance, so the searcher earns their stake back through performance.

In numbers: Backers might fund a $500,000 search for the right to invest in whatever it finds, with the searcher earning around 25% of the equity in [three tranches](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/equity-tranches) tied to time and performance.

Source: https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/search-fund
Not dated: A definition is editorial: what a term means, why it matters, and an example. None of it reads a source that can go stale, so there is no date to take and a stamped one would be the build time wearing a costume.

Site index for machines: https://searchspheresource.com/llms.txt