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Trilogy Search Partners

At a Glance

A strong boutique counterweight to the scale anchors on a cap table; the operating-executive model is the differentiator to probe in the first conversation.

Pricing
Custom Pricing, Investment terms, not fees: standard traditional search-fund economics, negotiated per the model's conventions.
Best For
Traditional searchers who value operator depth: a smaller, partner-capital firm whose support model centers on experienced executives rather than fund scale
Track Record
Founded in 2014; over $240M of committed capital across 90-plus completed transactions and over 80% participation in acquisitions, by its own count. Its home page counts an eleven-person team while its team page lists twelve on the investment side and nine operating executives.
Lane
Traditional, Self-Funded
Funds
The search phase and the deal
In the Round
Says it will either lead or join, depending on the deal.
Based
Mercer Island, Washington, and San Francisco.
Invests
No mandate sentence anywhere on its site. Its own portfolio holds three Canadian companies and one in the Dominican Republic beside the United States ones, which is the only thing it publishes about where it will go.
Buys
Its front page names SaaS, healthcare and healthcare IT, tech-enabled services and B2B services. Its portfolio page adds a belief in traditional B2B services purchases, and says its job is to help find a great business whatever the industry. No size band or earnings floor anywhere on the site.
Before A First Call
A placement memorandum, and it supplies the tool to write one: a partnership with Grata gives prospective searchers guided access at no cost while they complete it.
First-Time Operators
Five stages of what the firm does for a searcher, from thesis work through the first hundred days, and a line that entrepreneurs may move into entirely new industries during a search. The home page wants leaders with distinctive backgrounds, and one partner's biography describes the people it backs as newly-minted MBAs or mid-career professionals with distinctive experience in finance, consulting or operations, which is a profile rather than a bar. Every case-study buyer came from consulting or the military, and nothing conditions on having run a company.
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
Helps form the board and plan the move into leading the business as a deal approaches its close.
Roadmap Stages
1. Learn & Choose Your Path3. Set Up & Fund the Search

Deals It Has Backed

Purchases this firm's own pages evidence, from the Search Acquisitions Record. Not a portfolio: a deal joins that record only when two independent parties have published enough to verify it, so this is the part of the firm's work that can be checked rather than all of it.

Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Nine named operating executives across finance, HR, marketing, technology, recruiting and go-to-market, and partners who take the board seat
  • A Searcher Slack community, a quick-start guide and negotiated pricing on common search tools, on its own approach page
  • Joins self-funded searchers at the deal as well as backing traditional searches, on its own case studies

Cons

  • Traditional search economics apply, as everywhere in the category
  • A smaller team than the scale players, with the capacity limits that implies
  • Terms and process are not published

What Searchers Say

Regularly listed among the core traditional-search investors, with community mentions emphasizing the operating-executive support and the partners' operating backgrounds. Its footer states that advisory services run through TSP Advisors, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser.

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

  1. A first conversation on your background and why search, before any deal.
  2. A deep dive on your plan: industries, criteria, and how you will source.
  3. Backing for the search itself, then a fresh underwrite when you bring a live deal.
  4. 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

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