# Futaleufu Partners

The mentorship-first search investor.

David Dodson's search investor, styled 'Search Fund Investing. Old School.': the man who wrote the original Stanford search-fund course material and raised the model's third search fund, backed by seventeen operator-LPs who commit to mentor and join boards, with a deal count deliberately held flat to keep the mentorship personal.

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

## At a Glance

The [cap-table](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/cap-table) seat you want if mentorship is the bottleneck you fear most; the trade is access, since staying small is the whole point.

- Track Record: Founded by the man who raised the model's third search fund and helped create Stanford's first search-fund course with three colleagues. Its limited partners are seventeen former operators, three operating partners sit on its team, and its references page pairs seventy people with forty-nine companies and dates none of them.
  - Its walking-the-talk page says its entrepreneurs buy companies at a rate fifteen percent above the average, a figure of the firm's own making with no base named. The page it now calls references lists each entrepreneur beside one company and no year; no count of searchers backed or capital raised appears anywhere. Read at: Home, team, walking the talk, musings, the references page that was the investments page, and the contact form.
- Lane: Traditional
- Funds: The search phase and the deal
- Based: Los Gatos, California.
- Invests: No investing scope on the pages this review read, so ask whether it will look at a search where you are.
- Buys: A front page and an investments list pairing searchers with companies, which is evidence of activity. Its Walking the Talk essay is about the firm's own posture and names no size, sector or structure it will fund.
- Before A First Call: A front page and an investments list pairing searchers with the companies they bought, under an invitation to send a message that asks for nothing in it.
- First-Time Operators: An investments list pairing searchers with the companies they bought. The pairing is the whole of what it publishes about them.
- 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: No check size, stake or fee on the pages this review read. Most firms on this shelf publish none, so ask early rather than late.
- 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: Pairs a new CEO with an operating mentor for regular one-on-one sessions through the first year, and joins the board when asked.

## What It Costs

Investment terms, not fees: search-fund economics per the model's conventions; nothing is published.

## Best For

Traditional [searchers](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/searcher) who want the model's deepest operating mentorship on the cap table and accept a deliberately small, selective fund to get it

## Pros and Cons

- Pro: The founder helped invent the model and raised its third [search fund](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/search-fund)
- Pro: Seventeen operator-LPs are recruited specifically to mentor and join boards
- Pro: CEO Boot Camp, a searching webinar series, and a CEO accelerator come with the check
- Con: Deliberately few deals a year, so selectivity is the product and access is the constraint
- Con: Terms and check sizes are not published
- Con: A mentorship-first pitch is hard to weigh from outside until you are in the room

## What Searchers Say

Active searchers routinely list the firm on their investor pages, and the founder's course material and books are staples of the searcher canon.

## Compared With

- The biggest network or the most personal bench? (https://searchspheresource.com/resources/compare/pacific-lake-partners-vs-futaleufu-partners.md)

## Sources

- https://futaleufu-partners.com/
- https://futaleufu-partners.com/about/
- https://futaleufu-partners.com/our-team/
- https://futaleufu-partners.com/our-investments/
- https://futaleufu-partners.com/resources/

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

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