# Northspring Partners

Former searchers backing searchers, minority checks.

A search fund investor run by former searchers, an SEC-registered private equity firm making minority investments beside driven search fund entrepreneurs. It backs them from the search through the board years, and its home page publishes investment criteria: $5M to $40M of revenue and $2M to $10M of EBITDA in business services, health care and software across the United States and Canada. Its own site names every entrepreneur it backs on a profile page that carries their fund, and lists a portfolio of a dozen companies with the year it invested in each.

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

## At a Glance

Worth a letter for a traditional search, and worth reading its team page first, since the people who will sit on your board have each sold a [search-fund](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/search-fund) company themselves.

- Track Record: A dozen portfolio companies listed with investment years from 2022 to 2025, and an entrepreneurs index with a profile page per searcher naming their fund. Its partners' own biographies carry two search-fund exits: one company sold to a listed electronics distributor, and one grown from forty million to a hundred million of revenue and sold to a listed logistics company in 2021. An investor portal for a first fund.
- Lane: Traditional
- Funds: The search phase and the deal
- Based: No office; a Twin Cities phone number.
- Invests: The United States and Canada, by the geography line of its investment criteria; the portfolio it lists sits in the United States and one of its searchers is based in Toronto.
- Buys: Its home page's investment criteria: $5 million to $40 million of strong, predictable annual revenue, revenue growth above 15%, $2 million to $10 million of EBITDA at 15% margins, and established businesses in business services, health care, software and more. It makes minority investments and calls itself an SEC-registered private equity firm.
- Before A First Call: A contact form with a required inquiry type, searcher among four choices, and a required message, beside a line that it is always looking to connect with candidates for its next searcher cohort.
- First-Time Operators: A description of the searchers it partners with as a select group with the commitment, grit and experience needed to grow a business, which is a tone and not a bar, and an invitation to candidates for its next searcher cohort. No condition on what anyone has run before.
- 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: Nothing about the years after closing on the pages this review read, whether a hold period, a first-year plan or a board role. Ask how long it expects to own the company before you sign.

## What It Costs

Investment terms, not fees. Nothing about ownership, carry, step-up or the searcher's split is published on its own site, and the one figure it gives investors is that it works only with accredited investors and qualified purchasers.

## Best For

A traditional [searcher](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/searcher) who wants backers who have run a search and an exit themselves, and who will say so in their own biographies

## Pros and Cons

- Pro: Every entrepreneur it backs has a profile page naming their search fund, which is where one deal record on this site found a vehicle no other page carried
- Pro: Its partners' own biographies carry two search-fund exits, one to a listed electronics distributor and one to a listed logistics company, which is a rarer thing to publish than a portfolio
- Pro: Says plainly that it guides searchers through every step, from searching through operating, and invites candidates for its next searcher cohort
- Con: Its criteria are on the home page and nowhere else, and its entrepreneurs index carries no status, so whether a person is still searching lives only in each profile's metadata
- Con: Publishes no terms of any kind, the category norm
- Con: Names no office anywhere on its own pages; its contact page gives a Twin Cities phone number and two partners' biographies give their home cities

## What Searchers Say

Read whole on its own pages. The lane statement, the two exits, the criteria and the portfolio years are the firm's own words.

## Sources

- https://www.northspringpartners.com/about-us
- https://www.northspringpartners.com/our-team
- https://www.northspringpartners.com/entrepreneurs
- https://www.northspringpartners.com/portfolio-companies

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

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