JB46 Partners
At a Glance
The clearest fund-size disclosure among the European backers here, and the coverage map makes the first email easy to address.
- 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 searcher who wants an institutional backer with a named fund size and a partner assigned to their own geography.
- Track Record
- More than a hundred and eighty search fund teams supported, a third fund closed at forty million euros, and a portfolio filterable by year from 2018 across fourteen countries.
- Lane
- Traditional
- Funds
- The search phase and the deal
- Based
- Madrid, Spain.
- Invests
- Europe, the United States, Canada, Mexico and Brazil, with a partner assigned to each coverage geography.
- Buys
- Small and medium-sized enterprises, with no size band or earnings floor published.
- Before A First Call
- A contact route and a limited partner login, with no sentence anywhere stating who may write or what a first message should contain.
- First-Time Operators
- Nothing about prior experience as a condition. Its search fund line says it supports first-time chief executives to acquire high quality companies, which invites the first-timer rather than gating 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.
- Roadmap Stages
- 3. Set Up & Fund the Search
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Publishes the size of its third fund and the month it closed, which few backers do
- Assigns a coverage geography to each partner on the team page, so a searcher knows who to write to
- Filters its portfolio by year, country, sector and whether the holding is active or exited
Cons
- No check size, cap-table share or search unit price published anywhere
- The count of teams supported is a firm-wide figure with no breakdown by market or year
- Nothing published about what happens when a search ends without a deal
What Searchers Say
One of the larger dedicated search fund investors in Europe by its own account, with a fund close announced on its own news 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