Brydon Group
At a Glance
The employed lane's scale option: if you would search on salary, the cohort with 46 closed deals is the bench strength to compare everyone else against.
- Pricing
- Custom Pricing, Employment economics, not fees: salary during the search plus equity in the acquired platform; specific splits are not published.
- Best For
- Experienced operators and executives who want the employed path with cohort structure, committed capital, and bigger-than-usual platform ambitions
- Track Record
- 36 CEOs-in-residence across five cohorts since 2022, 21 of them now leading companies, with 46 acquisitions and about $570M managed.
- Lane
- Employed
- Funds
- The search phase and the deal
- Based
- Washington, DC.
- Invests
- No investing scope on the pages this review read, so ask whether it will look at a search where you are.
- Buys
- Platform businesses with $5M to $25M of revenue and $1M to $5M of EBITDA, bought 90% to 100% outright.
- Before A First Call
- An application through its own hiring system, and deep experience in its core sectors, which it describes as consulting partners, P&L owners, or private-equity-backed C-suite executives.
- First-Time Operators
- States a bar that a first-time operator has to clear, usually having owned a profit and loss.
- How Long The Search Runs
- No length on the search and nothing about what happens if it ends without a deal, on the pages this review read. Ask what the clock is before you sign anything.
- Published Terms
- States its capital is 100% committed with no fundraising contingencies, so a deal carries no financing condition of its own.
- What A Searcher Gets
- What a CEO-in-residence is paid, and what equity the role earns, is not published anywhere on its pages.
- Roadmap Stages
- 1. Learn & Choose Your Path3. Set Up & Fund the Search
Pros and Cons
Pros
- A salary during the search removes the personal burn that ends many searches early
- 46 acquisitions across five cohorts is a real, recent track record for a young program
- $30M-plus of committed equity per platform aims higher than most first acquisitions
Cons
- Equity splits and salary figures are not published, so the trade against a traditional search is hard to price from outside
- An annual application window (decisions by late March) sets the calendar for you
- The thesis is shaped with the firm, so you trade some of the searcher's autonomy
What Searchers Say
A frequently named program in the employed-searcher lane; the cohort model and veteran/underrepresented recruiting emphasis are its recurring differentiators.
How to Approach
Firms do not publish a term sheet you can prepare against, so this is how employed searcher (salary model) capital comes in, what it weighs, and how to arrive ready.
The Typical Arc
- A recruiting process more than a fundraise: you are applying to a program.
- A case or deal exercise and a panel with the partners who would back you.
- A salary and committed capital, in exchange for most of the equity.
What It Weighs
- Whether you can operate, since the firm is hiring a CEO.
- Fit with the firm's playbook and the cadence its portfolio runs at.
- Why you would trade ownership for a salary and a built-in backer.
How to Prepare
- Know the firm's thesis and portfolio cold. Investors
- Weigh salary and equity against owning outright. Path Economics
- Bring a real deal, underwritten end to end. Underwrite a Deal