Highland Creek Partners
At a Glance
A deep bench and a thin site: everything published is about who stands behind a searcher and nothing about what they should buy.
- Pricing
- Custom Pricing, Investment terms, not fees. No fee is charged to a searcher; what the firm publishes about its own side is in the row.
- Best For
- A traditional searcher who values a large advisory bench and is comfortable with a firm that publishes no address and no criteria.
- Track Record
- Founded in 2013 by two searchers who raised seed capital, with a hundred-plus search funds and acquired companies, sixty-plus advisors and eighteen current against seven exited holdings. A sixty-search-fund figure on the same site belongs to one partner's personal career.
- Lane
- Traditional
- Funds
- The search phase and the deal
- Based
- No address, city or country published on any page.
- Invests
- No investing scope on the pages this review read, so ask whether it will look at a search where you are.
- Buys
- A named roster of forty-five search funds and a portfolio split into current and exited, with nothing at all about what those companies should look like. No band, no industries, no criteria of any kind across five pages.
- Before A First Call
- An email address and nothing else, with the contact button on the page having no destination behind it. No form, no application and no condition on who may write.
- First-Time Operators
- Nothing about a searcher's background across five pages. What the site is about instead is the bench standing behind one, which it sizes rather than describes.
- 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.
- Roadmap Stages
- 3. Set Up & Fund the Search
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Names forty-five search funds among its entrepreneurs, so the roster is checkable rather than counted
- Publishes a dated founding story including the acquisition and exit its founders made themselves
- Publishes the size of the advisory network behind its searchers rather than only asserting one
Cons
- No address, city or country published on any page
- Publishes no earnings band, no industries and no company criteria of any kind
- One of its partners' personal investment counts sits beside the firm's own and the two are easy to confuse
What Searchers Say
Named as a backer on the rosters of five separate searchers. Its founders' own acquisition already appears on this site's acquisitions record, sourced to this same team page.
How to Approach
Firms do not publish a term sheet you can prepare against, so this is how traditional (investor-backed) search capital comes in, what it weighs, and how to arrive ready.
The Typical Arc
- A first conversation on your background and why search, before any deal.
- A deep dive on your plan: industries, criteria, and how you will source.
- Backing for the search itself, then a fresh underwrite when you bring a live deal.
- A board seat and governance once you close.
What It Weighs
- Whether you will finish a two-year search, not only start one.
- The quality of your thesis and target criteria.
- How you will behave on a cap table over a long hold.
How to Prepare
- Bring a sourcing thesis, not a blank slate. Buyer Profile Builder
- Know which firms lead versus follow, and on what terms. Investors
- Make your operator case on one page. Buyer Profile Builder