Ibrahim Abdel Rahim, Founder of Moonbase Capital, returned to Search Funded: The ETA Podcast with host Nick Lall for his third appearance – five years after Moonbase launched, and five years after his very first podcast conversation with Nick. A lot has changed since then, both for Moonbase and for the wider ETA ecosystem.
In this episode, Ibrahim discusses how Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition has evolved from a niche, largely Western European and US strategy into a genuinely global asset class – and why that growth is putting pressure on the parts of the model that matter most: investor behaviour, board quality, and the discipline required to scale without diluting what makes search work.
1. From Europe-focused to “Moonbase Global” Moonbase’s first vehicle was roughly 90% Western European searchers. The current portfolio is far more balanced, with active searchers across Brazil, Mexico, the US, India, China, Singapore and Malaysia. Europe remains the firm’s core market (Spain in particular continues to deliver some of the strongest deal flow outside the US) but the footprint has widened considerably.
2. Why emerging markets are accelerating now Ibrahim walks through how different geographies behave differently: Brazil is “on steroids” with a maturing local investor base and recent exits validating the model; India has gone from almost no activity to roughly eight searchers in two years; Portugal is punching well above its size; and markets like Japan, Germany and France each require their own cultural playbook. Moonbase’s country selection comes down to three things: exit potential, macro and currency stability, and founder receptivity – not just market size.
3. The investor layer is under pressure Five years ago, Europe had perhaps six or seven serious search fund investors. Today there are many more – which Ibrahim sees as a healthy development, but with a caveat. Search fund investing is not a passive asset class. Tickets are small (roughly €0.5M–€2M), but the value an investor has to add (during the search, through diligence, and on the board) is significant. New capital that doesn’t understand this risks hurting searchers and, eventually, itself.
4. Boards are the single most important driver of outcomes This is the part of the conversation where Ibrahim is most direct. Boards are increasingly being composed based on check size rather than merit, leading to under-engaged directors, over-representation of purely financial profiles, and fragile governance – which only becomes visible when a company hits difficulty. His framework for building a board that actually works:
5. The scaling question As ETA globalises, the central tension is how to grow the number of searchers backed without eroding the quality of support that defines the model. For Moonbase, this is the operational priority: keeping firmly in the top tier of support per searcher, through advisor access, the Searchers Roundtable, and direct operator involvement – even as the portfolio scales.
Search is becoming a global asset class. The model works — but only if the investors building it resist the temptation to treat it like private equity.
The next phase of ETA will be defined less by how much capital enters the space, and more by whether that capital shows up on the boards.
Ibrahim Abdel Rahim · Moonbase Capital
