For investors
Back the next generation of Trojan owners.
The search fund model runs on people who will take a call from a stranger, tell the truth about a deal, and write a check on conviction. USC has thousands of them and, until now, no structure connecting them to its students.
Ways to engage
From ninety minutes to a full check.
Not every useful thing an investor can do involves capital. These are roughly in order of lift, and the first two matter more than people expect.
- Speak to the class. Ninety minutes on a deal you did, including the parts that went badly. The failures teach more than the wins.
- Mentor a student or searcher. A standing thirty minutes a month with someone seriously considering, or actively running, a search.
- Open your deal flow. Let students screen live opportunities and sit in on diligence.
- Take a board seat. Serve on the board of a company acquired by a Trojan searcher — where most of the real value gets added.
- Invest. Back a USC searcher directly, or help capitalize the fund when it stands up.
The ambition
A course today. An ecosystem next. A fund after that.
Every school with a real search presence followed the same sequence. A class creates informed students. Informed students become searchers. Searchers become alumni who invest in the next searchers. The capital arrives last, because it has to.
The long-term goal is a USC-affiliated vehicle that backs Trojan searchers at the moment conviction is worth the most — before there is a deal to underwrite. Stanford, Harvard, Chicago Booth, and MIT have institutional search ecosystems. Los Angeles has none, next to one of the largest lower middle markets in the country.
We are early and we say so. If helping build that is interesting to you, this is the right moment to be involved.
The wider ecosystem
Search runs on more than capital.
Intermediaries
Brokers, M&A advisors, and bankers in the lower middle market: our students are trained to be good counterparties, and they will be calling you. We would rather introduce them properly.
Lenders
SBA and conventional lenders active in acquisition finance — help students understand what a bankable deal looks like before they waste your time with one that isn’t.
USC alumni
If you have acquired a company, invest in the space, or simply know the market, we want you in the network. That is the whole thesis of doing this at USC rather than anywhere else.
Business owners
Thinking about what comes after you.
If you own a profitable company and have no obvious successor, a searcher is worth understanding before you talk to a private equity firm or a strategic buyer.
A searcher is one person who wants to run your company — not a fund adding a line to a portfolio. They intend to move to your city, keep your team, and operate the business for the next five to ten years. Owners frequently choose a searcher over a higher offer for exactly that reason: what happens to the people and the name after the closing actually matters to them.
We are not brokers and we take no fee. But if you want to understand the option, or speak with an owner who has already sold this way, we can arrange it.
Contact
Get in touch.
Tell us who you are and how you would like to be involved. We read everything and reply to all of it.
Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies
USC Marshall School of Business
Bridge Hall, 3670 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles, CA 90089