Novastone Capital Advisors
At a Glance
The default conversation for a non-US search, and a real alternative to raising your own fund for operators who value structure over autonomy.
- Pricing
- Custom Pricing, Investment terms, not fees: search-fund and acquisition economics negotiated per the model's conventions.
- Best For
- Operators who want the searcher path inside a structured program, and anyone searching outside the United States
- Track Record
- 31 portfolio companies across 11 countries, over $500M of portfolio enterprise value, and a team of 23, by its home page; its portfolio page counts 28 and lists 27, three of them sold with no marker. Partnered with over 70 searchers since its inception in 2019, by its about page; a parent company, Novastone Partners, sits above it, and a North America fund anchored by a family office held its first closing in July 2026.
- Lane
- Employed
- Funds
- The search phase and the deal
- In the Round
- Says it leads or anchors, so it is a call to make early.
- It syndicates each acquisition itself, drawing capital from individuals, family offices and other funds, which is anchoring the ACQUISITION rather than taking a unit of a search. A separate sentence about its own fund being anchored by an outside firm is about its fund and not about a searcher's round. Its program description adds that the program or related funds may at their discretion buy a portion of the ten units, which is a position in the search round it may or may not take.
- Based
- Baar, Switzerland, and New York, by its program description.
- Invests
- Across Europe, the United States and Canada, in its own words.
- Buys
- Companies earning $2M to $7.5M and worth $10M to $50M on its candidates page, where full control can be bought outright. Its program description widens that to $1.5M to $7.5M of EBITDA and $7.5M to $50M of enterprise value with a core of $10M to $30M, at four to six times EBITDA, in business at least ten years.
- Before A First Call
- An application, taken throughout the year and reviewed three times a year, then a published eleven-stage selection. The stages are a profile, an orientation call, an assessment center interview, an open house, a program review, a partner conversation, a thesis call, a panel, onboarding, and the search phase, which its page says can begin immediately.
- First-Time Operators
- States a bar that a first-time operator has to clear, usually having owned a profit and loss.
- How Long The Search Runs
- A search phase of up to 24 months, which its candidates page now says can begin immediately.
- Published Terms
- Investors hold participating preferred with an 8% hurdle, units convert at 2x or come back at 1.5x, and seven of eleven unit holders approve a deal. Each portfolio company pays the program USD 3,500 a month, and the program targets an exit in three to four years, all by its program description.
- What A Searcher Gets
- A search budget of ten units at USD 50,000 raised per search, from which the searcher's living expenses are paid. The searcher pays a USD 10,000 deposit and a program fee worth two units, returned as two units with a 2x step-up that roll into the deal. Carried interest of 10% to the searcher and 3.75% to the program, both doubling above a 35% net IRR; a post-close salary of five times the unit value, capped at 10% of EBITDA.
- After The Close
- Says its CEOs typically run the acquired business for several years.
- Roadmap Stages
- 1. Learn & Choose Your Path3. Set Up & Fund the Search
Pros and Cons
Pros
- A genuinely international program in a US-centric ecosystem, run from Baar in Switzerland with closings on both sides of the Atlantic
- The program model removes the raise: NCA provides structure, support, and capital access
- Succession framing fits the European and Asian owner conversations searchers actually have there
Cons
- Its program terms live in a twenty-two page description linked from the candidates page, headed private and confidential and carrying a reviewer's comments, rather than on a page
- A structured program trades autonomy for support, like every employed-adjacent model
- US searchers focused on domestic Main Street deals may find the fit indirect
What Searchers Say
Named across European ETA coverage far more often than in US searcher discussion, which tracks the geography rather than the quality. Its about page names Novastone Partners as the parent company above it, and its news announces a North America fund anchored by a family office, so the US footprint is growing; read the name on whatever page you land on.
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