NextGen Growth Partners
At a Glance
A legitimate third path between self-funded and traditional; take it for the platform and the risk transfer, not the equity math, and model all three paths before choosing.
- Pricing
- Custom Pricing, Not a fee or a fund investment in your entity: EIRs are brought into the firm's structure with compensation and equity terms set by the firm; understand exactly what you would own before comparing it to running your own search.
- Best For
- Aspiring owner-operators who want the searching experience with a salary, committed capital, and infrastructure, and who accept firm economics in exchange
- Track Record
- Founded in 2016; the entrepreneur-in-residence model, from EIR to CEO.
- Lane
- Employed
- Funds
- The search phase and the deal
- Based
- Chicago and Austin.
- Invests
- Publishes no investing scope; worth asking directly.
- Buys
- Founder- or family-owned mission-critical B2B services businesses at $5M to $50M of revenue and $2M to $8M+ of EBITDA, in facilities services, niche contracting, professional and technical services, and business process services.
- 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
- Up to 25% of the equity by vesting, plus the option to put up to 10% into your own search.
- Roadmap Stages
- 1. Learn & Choose Your Path
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Removes the fundraising and personal-runway burden entirely; capital is committed before you start
- Institutional sourcing, diligence, and operating support around the EIR
- A credible path for operators without the network or savings a self-funded or traditional search demands
Cons
- You are an employee-entrepreneur inside the firm's economics, not the owner of your own search vehicle
- Equity outcomes are structurally smaller than a successful self-funded purchase and different from traditional-search vesting; compare the three paths on paper
- Thesis and deal selection are shared decisions with the firm
What Searchers Say
Frequently listed among the employed-searcher and accelerator-style models in community roundups. Sentiment is generally positive on the experience and honest about the trade: less risk, less ownership.
How to Approach
Firms do not publish a term sheet you can prepare against, so this is how employed searcher (salary model) capital comes in, what it weighs, and how to arrive ready.
The Typical Arc
- A recruiting process more than a fundraise: you are applying to a program.
- A case or deal exercise and a panel with the partners who would back you.
- A salary and committed capital, in exchange for most of the equity.
What It Weighs
- Whether you can operate, since the firm is hiring a CEO.
- Fit with the firm's playbook and the cadence its portfolio runs at.
- Why you would trade ownership for a salary and a built-in backer.
How to Prepare
- Know the firm's thesis and portfolio cold. Investors
- Weigh salary and equity against owning outright. Path Economics
- Bring a real deal, underwritten end to end. Underwrite a Deal