ETA Funding Partners
At a Glance
One useful sentence, and a row that says plainly how much of the picture is missing.
- Pricing
- Custom Pricing, One sentence carries most of the disclosure: '10-15 investments per year with an average check size of $200k-$400k.' Its criteria page adds a floor of consistent EBITDA of at least $750k, and a post underwrites to debt service coverage of at least 1.5x. No ownership, fees or governance terms published; the preferred returns and step-ups its posts describe are prefaced as what most investors want, not the firm's sheet.
- Best For
- A self-funded searcher sizing a small equity gap who wants to know whether there is room this year
- Track Record
- No year of founding, size of fund or number of deals on any page; a post names the vehicle as Fund I, a closed-end fund raising from accredited investors, and says the firm reviews dozens of deals a month. The ten to fifteen checks it does publish are a yearly cadence on its home page and the whole portfolio on a post, and the site does not reconcile the two.
- No founding year, fund size or deal count. Its one investment quantity is a plan for the year ahead, 10 to 15 investments at $200k to $400k, which the home page still states in the present tense. RE-READ IN SEPTEMBER: the footer year has slipped back to 2025 and the newest post is still dated June 2025, so the one signal that had read as tended is gone. Read whole in September with the page data behind each page: the content pages were last edited in October 2025, four months after the last post, and nothing since. Read at: All five content pages, the blog index and the sitemap, which lists twenty-one URLs and no portfolio page.
- Lane
- Self-Funded
- Funds
- The deal only
- Based
- Not published anywhere on its own site.
- Invests
- No investing scope on the pages this review read, so ask whether it will look at a search where you are.
- Buys
- Services, manufacturing or distribution businesses with consistent EBITDA of at least $750k, non-cyclical and recession resistant, selling something essential, with a long history behind them.
- Before A First Call
- A business already under a letter of intent or in diligence, and leadership, industry and P&L experience, which its criteria page lists beside the company's own.
- 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
- Ten to fifteen investments a year at an average check of $200k to $400k, by its home page. A post underwrites to debt service coverage of at least 1.5x in the base case, the one term it states as its own rather than as what most investors want.
- What A Searcher Gets
- Not published on the pages this review read. It is the figure a searcher most wants and most of this shelf does not print it, so ask before the first call rather than after.
- After The Close
- Names post-close support among its practices without saying what it is.
- Roadmap Stages
- 3. Set Up & Fund the Search5. Diligence & Close the Deal
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Publishes a deployment cadence as well as a check size, which tells a searcher whether the door is open
- States the entry point plainly, at LOI or in diligence, so nothing about the lane needs inferring
- A managing partner named with a biography, on a site that otherwise carries one number, one floor and one cadence
Cons
- No geography published at all, which is the largest single gap in the row
- An earnings floor of $750k on its criteria page and nothing above it, so the size of deal it will not do is unstated
- No founding year and no history: the quantities on the site are a target cadence, a floor and a coverage ratio, and its content pages were last edited in October 2025 by their own stamps
What Searchers Say
The check size and the annual cadence read from its home page, the $750k floor from its criteria page, and the fund's name from a post; its managing partner's biography carries a venture accelerator's fifty investments and a dessert company, neither of which is the firm's track.
How to Approach
Firms do not publish a term sheet you can prepare against, so this is how self-funded search capital comes in, what it weighs, and how to arrive ready.
The Typical Arc
- No conversation until you have a deal: gap capital comes in at the LOI, not before.
- A fast read on the specific target and your underwrite.
- An equity check to close the gap the loan and your own injection leave.
What It Weighs
- The deal itself: is the business financeable and fairly priced.
- Your underwrite, since there is no search track record to lean on.
- How much of the equity gap actually remains after the loan and your own cash.
How to Prepare
- Underwrite the specific deal end to end before you call. Underwrite a Deal
- Size the gap: sources and uses against what a lender and seller accept. Sources & Uses Builder
- Know your own number first. SBA Acquisition Calculator