Trilogy Search Partners

A search fund is an investment vehicle through which an aspiring entrepreneur raises capital from investors to search for, acquire, and lead a private company. Trilogy Search Partners operates as one of the equity providers backing these searchers. The model was developed at Stanford's Graduate School of Business in the 1980s and has since produced a distinct asset class. Trilogy funds the search phase and provides acquisition equity, taking a majority stake while the operator earns significant equity and assumes the CEO role.

Publicly available information on Trilogy's specific named principals is limited. The firm operates from Bellevue, Washington, and follows the search-fund model where investment decisions involve both the firm's partners—who approve funding for individual searchers and acquisitions—and the operator conducting the search. In the search-fund structure, the operator identifies the target company and presents the acquisition opportunity to investors for approval.

Trilogy's model is fundamentally deal-by-deal—each search fund backed by the firm is a separate entity tied to one operator and one acquisition target. The firm does not operate a traditional blind-pool fund where limited partners commit to a diversified portfolio. Instead, investors in Trilogy's vehicles commit capital to a specific searcher's effort, with funds deployed only upon a successful acquisition.

Search funds typically target companies with enterprise values between $5 million and $30 million, often in fragmented industries with stable cash flows. Trilogy's operators search for profitable, privately held businesses where an owner-operator transition creates value. These companies frequently come to market as retiring founders seek succession, making them inaccessible to larger private equity firms that require bigger platforms. Exact thresholds for Trilogy's deals remain undisclosed in public records.

Trilogy is one of a small group of dedicated search-fund investors that emerged as the model grew beyond its Stanford origins. Other known search-fund backers include Pacific Lake Partners, Relay Investments, and private individuals like Jim Southern. The search fund community is tight-knit, with an annual conference at Stanford and shared best practices among operators and investors. Trilogy's Bellevue base places it in the Pacific Northwest independent-sponsor ecosystem, distinct from the Boston and San Francisco concentrations of search-fund capital.