Where to find real LMM PE and search fund data — the studies and databases worth citing, and their limits.
Data on the lower middle market and search funds is thinner and more scattered than large-cap PE data — most deals are private, unrated, and never covered by financial media. These are the sources actually worth citing, and what each one is (and isn't) good for.
Search funds specifically
- Stanford GSB Search Fund Study (biennial). The closest thing to a canonical dataset on search fund returns, timelines, and outcomes — aggregate IRR/MOIC distributions, time-to-acquisition, and failure rates across a large, long-running sample of North American search funds. Start here before quoting any search-fund return statistic.
- IESE Business School Search Fund Study. The equivalent survey for search funds outside North America (Europe, Latin America, and beyond) — useful for anyone benchmarking an international search rather than a US/Canada one.
Lower-middle-market PE and deal terms
- GF Data. A subscription service aggregating actual LMM transaction multiples, leverage levels, and terms directly from contributing PE firms — one of the only sources with real, deal-level LMM pricing data rather than large-cap comps applied downward.
- PitchBook. Broader private-market data (fund performance, deal volume, valuations) with LMM-specific cuts in its quarterly PE and M&A reports — most useful at the macro/trend level rather than for pricing an individual small deal.
- ACG (Association for Corporate Growth) and its local chapters publish regional M&A market updates and host events that are often a better source of current, ground-level LMM sentiment than any single report.
Financing and lending data
- SBA lending data (published by the U.S. Small Business Administration) — useful for understanding actual 7(a) loan volume, average loan size, and default rates, directly relevant to how most sub-$5M-EBITDA search fund and independent-sponsor acquisitions get financed.
- RMA Annual Statement Studies. Industry-level financial benchmarking data (margins, working capital ratios, leverage) used by lenders and often worth cross-checking a target company's financials against.
This community's own data
WhoBoughtWho tracks a growing public record of real acquisitions — acquirer, target, price where disclosed, and sponsor/investor attribution — plus a directory of active PE firms, search funds, and marketplaces, at whoboughtwho.com/deals. It's not a substitute for the studies above, but it's useful for finding comparable transactions and seeing who's actively acquiring in a given space right now.
A pattern worth internalizing: most LMM and search-fund statistics you'll see quoted in pitch decks or forum posts trace back to one of the sources above (usually the Stanford study). When you see a number, trace it to its source before repeating it — the sample sizes in this market are small enough that context matters a lot.
