Ibrahim interviewed by Ryan Miller of the “Making Billions” podcast
Ibrahim Abdel Rahim joined Making Billions with Ryan Miller, a fund-manager-focused private equity and venture capital podcast built around conversations with the people actually raising and deploying capital. Host Ryan Miller is a venture and angel investor who previously served as CFO of an InsurTech company and has since mentored hundreds of emerging fund managers on capital raising, giving the show a practitioner’s lens rather than a purely academic one.
The conversation covered the search fund community from the ground up: how the asset class works, what separates it from traditional private equity and venture capital, and the practical investment tips Ibrahim has picked up building Moonbase Capital’s portfolio. A recurring thread was the question of what actually makes a great search fund entrepreneur — less about pedigree and more about the operating instincts and resilience needed to run a small business day to day, long after the acquisition is closed.
Key takeaways
- Search funds sit in a gap most investors don’t cover. Between early-stage venture and large-cap private equity is a wide field of profitable, founder-owned SMEs too small for traditional buyout funds — exactly where search fund capital operates.
- The entrepreneur matters more than the deal. Because searchers step into an operating role immediately after acquisition, Moonbase weighs a candidate’s operating judgment and grit as heavily as the numbers in the target business.
- Investment tips for the space favor patience. Search fund returns play out over a multi-year hold, closer to the private equity timeline than the faster cycles fund managers elsewhere on the show are used to.
- Community matters as much as capital. Ibrahim’s emphasis on the search fund community reflects how tightly the network of investors, searchers and advisors operates — deal flow and hiring both run heavily on referrals within it.