Search funds allow entrepreneurs without capital to buy small businesses. However, only an exclusive club can access the financing to do so and are often forced to re-sell their businesses. We’ve put a twist on the search-fund model to make it more inclusive and long-term.

A flowchart outlines a five-stage Inclusive Search Fund process, listing each stage’s duration and activities on the left, with corresponding barriers—such as investor bias and lack of networks—detailed in colored boxes on the right.

“We’re concerned that search funds lack diversity, industry experience and appropriate incentives. According to research from Stanford, approximately 95% of searchers are men and 80% are MBA educated. Very rarely do searchers have prior experience in the industry or the community they buy into.”


Share with a friend

Related reading

Three professionally dressed people walk together on a city sidewalk, smiling and talking about employee ownership trusts FAQs. One woman holds a notebook, another gestures while speaking, and the man carries a bag.

Four reasons our economy needs employee ownership now

Employee ownership offers a timely solution to some of Canada’s most pressing economic challenges, writes Deborah Aarts in Smith Business Insight. Evidence shows that when employees share ownership, businesses become more productive, innovative and resilient. Plus, beyond firm-level gains, employee ownership can help address the coming mass retirement of business owners, protect local economic sovereignty, boost national productivity and reduce wealth inequality. There is enough data about the brass-tacks benefits of employee ownership to sway even the most hardened skeptic.

The image shows the tall clock tower and stone facade of the Canadian Parliament building in Ottawa, featuring Gothic Revival architecture against a partly cloudy sky—an inspiring setting for discussing employee ownership trusts FAQs.

Advice to the public service: Five ways to confront monsters and chaos

Canada's political and bureaucratic leaders are quickly trying to re-wire the federal government to confront a belligerent Unites States, but systems can’t deliver what they were not designed for. This is a time like no other in our history, writes Matthew Mendelsohn, and those making decisions have not been trained for this—because we haven’t experienced anything like this before.  Drawing on his own time in Ottawa, he walks us through five  priority “machinery of government” changes our public service needs to make to meet the threat of an increasingly authoritarian, imperialist America.

A leafless tree with twisting branches stands before two old, two-story houses under a clear blue sky, their porches and pale exteriors subtly hinting at the history of civic responsibilities in the neighborhood.

How to get single family homes out of the hands of investors | Toronto Star

About 1.3 million homes in Canada that could be family-owned are held by investors—mostly individuals. In The Star, Matthew Mendelsohn, the Missing Middle Initiative's Mike Moffat and Jon Shell explain how a simple tax change could finance new rental construction while also freeing up homes for families to buy. The policy would temporarily allow investors to defer capital gains taxes if they reinvest proceeds into new purpose-built rentals. Many policy changes are needed to fully address the complex Canadian housing crises, and this could be one that puts Canadian capital to more productive uses.

Skip to content