# The Cambria Group

Backs searchers and independent sponsors.

One of the longest-standing principal investors in small-business acquisition: reports over 300 platform investments plus hundreds of add-ons across 40-plus states, and works several ways at once, leading its own deals, backing search fund executives, and supporting independent sponsors and co-investments.

- Category: Capital & Investors
- Pricing model: Custom Pricing
- Where it fits: Learn & Choose Your Path, Set Up & Fund the Search
- Website: https://www.cambriagroup.com

## At a Glance

Worth a call precisely because it is structure-flexible: if your path shifts between [search fund](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/search-fund) and [independent sponsor](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/independent-sponsor), this desk has seen both.

- Track Record: 300-plus platform investments plus hundreds of add-ons, founded 1996; on the search side its principals name 200-plus traditional search funds backed, 110-plus acquired businesses, roughly twenty search-acquired boards, and 35 to 45 active searchers at any one time. Its portfolio page lists 354 companies with no person, year or status on any.
- Lane: Traditional, Self-Funded
- Funds: The search phase and the deal
- In the Round: Says it will either lead or join, depending on the deal.
- Based: Dallas, Texas.
- Invests: Across 40-plus states and Canada by its home page; its own by-location page says thirty-two states and four countries, and its portfolio's locations add Scotland and England to Canada, Mexico and Korea.
- Buys: Businesses earning at least $1M of operating profit, in transactions worth up to $25M.
- Before A First Call: A criteria page entirely about the company and the transaction, down to equity of up to $5M and operating earnings of at least $1M. Its search funds page counts the searchers it works with at any one time and names no condition on becoming one of them.
- First-Time Operators: Criteria entirely about the company and the transaction, and a search funds page counting how many searchers it works with at a time. That page lists six searcher traits, a track record of leadership among them, and says in the same breath that there is no such thing as the perfect searcher; a profile with its own disclaimer is not a bar.
- 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: Writes up to $5M of its own equity into a deal.
- What A Searcher Gets: It publishes the equity it writes into a deal and nothing about search capital or the equity a searcher earns.
- After The Close: Says its holding periods across the firm generally run three to ten years, with some investments held more than twenty.

## What It Costs

Investment terms, not fees: search-fund and acquisition economics negotiated per the model's conventions.

## Best For

[Searchers](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/searcher) and [deal-by-deal](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/deal-by-deal) buyers who want an investor comfortable across structures rather than committed to one model

## Pros and Cons

- Pro: Flexibility across structures: leads deals, backs searchers, supports independent sponsors
- Pro: Over 300 platforms of small-business pattern recognition, among the deepest anywhere
- Pro: Established-operating-history focus matches the businesses searchers actually buy
- Con: Not a search-only investor, so the search fund practice is one lane among several
- Con: Publishes its check size and its company criteria but nothing about [search capital](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/search-capital) or the equity a searcher earns
- Con: Breadth means the fit conversation does more work than a category label would

## What Searchers Say

A quiet fixture of the small-business acquisition world for decades, run from Dallas since its whole-site read; less visible in searcher social media than the dedicated funds, which says nothing about the capital. Its portfolio page names 354 companies with a sentence and a location each and no person or year.

## Sources

- https://www.cambriagroup.com/
- https://www.cambriagroup.com/portfolio
- https://www.cambriagroup.com/our-approach
- https://www.cambriagroup.com/our-approach/search-funds
- https://www.cambriagroup.com/contact-us

Also on this site: https://searchspheresource.com/resources/category/capital.md
Source: https://searchspheresource.com/resources/cambria-group
Last checked: 2026-09-23

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