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Pacific Lake Partners vs Miramar Equity Partners

Side by Side

AttributePacific Lake PartnersMiramar Equity Partners
What It IsA committed fund founded in 2009 solely to back search fund entrepreneurs, co-founded by Coley Andrews and Jim Southern. It describes itself as the largest dedicated search investor, with offices in Boston and the Bay Area, hundreds of searchers backed, investments in over 70 companies, and a fourth fund reported at $175M.A Dallas family-office investor focused exclusively on search-acquired businesses: reports backing 125-plus search funds and 100-plus portfolio companies over nearly a decade, with former searcher-CEOs on the team and stated search, platform, and holdco capabilities.
CategoryCapital & InvestorsCapital & Investors
Pricing ModelCustom PricingCustom Pricing
What It CostsInvestment terms, not fees: standard traditional search-fund economics, negotiated per the model's conventions.Investment terms, not fees: search-fund and acquisition economics negotiated per the model's conventions.
Best ForTraditional searchers who want the scale player: the deepest bench, the most active portfolio network, and the resources that come with the category's largest dedicated fundTraditional searchers who want family-office patience rather than fund-cycle pressure, with an investor bench that has searched and operated itself
Where It FitsChoose Your Path, Set Up & Fund the SearchChoose Your Path, Set Up & Fund the Search
Our VerdictThe scale anchor of the traditional path: most funded searchers want it on the cap table, and every funded searcher should understand why before deciding whether they do.The family-office alternative on the traditional bench: same model, longer clock; worth prioritizing if patience matters more to you than brand.
Pros & Cons
  • Scale: the largest dedicated search fund investor by most accounts, with institutional fund size reported by trade press
  • Full-time team and structured searcher support beyond capital
  • A Stanford-rooted history at the center of the traditional model's ecosystem
  • Traditional search economics apply; the structure trades meaningful equity for the backing
  • Scale cuts both ways: you are one of many searchers in a large portfolio
  • Highly selective, and terms are not published
  • Family-office capital removes the fund-clock pressure that shapes some investor behavior
  • 125-plus search funds backed with a team of former searcher-CEOs
  • Search, platform, and holdco capabilities cover more than one ownership shape
  • Terms, check sizes, and selection criteria are not published
  • Traditional search economics apply, with the standard equity and governance trade
  • A single family's capital concentrates relationship risk in one partner

Our take

Choose Pacific Lake for the machine built around the model: the largest dedicated search investor, with the playbooks, peer network, and pattern recognition that hundreds of backed searchers produce.

Choose Miramar if the clock matters more than the brand: family-office capital with no fund cycle behind it, an ex-searcher team, and the patience that structure buys when year three gets hard.

Put It to Work

Whichever side wins for you, Investor Match filters the verified investors by your path.