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In the Season 3 finale of the Found & Funded Podcast, Carl Lundberg is joined by Jo Cockburn and Sandy Farmer, co-founding partners of Orca Equity Partners.

Orca is an entrepreneurial investment firm backing the next generation of CEO talent to acquire and grow established SMEs across the UK and Europe. Its approach spans traditional search funds, self-funded acquisitions, management buy-ins and roll-up strategies – all centred on bringing together high-quality entrepreneurs and businesses navigating ownership succession.

Jo and Sandy bring extensive experience across private equity, growth investing, M&A and operating owner-managed businesses. Before launching Orca, both played key roles in developing the search fund investment proposition at Ethos Partners, giving them a front-row seat to the rapid development of entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA) in Europe.

In this episode, they join Carl to explore how that market is evolving, what makes an acquisition entrepreneur worth backing and where they see the biggest opportunities over the decade ahead.

They discuss:

• The London Business School career talk that first introduced Sandy to search funds.
• Why a single high-profile success story could accelerate investor interest in the UK search fund market.
• Orca Equity Partners' investment strategy and why it extends beyond the traditional search fund model.
• How the growing availability of search capital is changing the opportunity for equity gap investors.
• How the UK and European ETA ecosystem could develop over the next 10 years.
• What separates a good acquisition entrepreneur from an exceptional one.

Subscribe to the Gerald Edelman channel for more episodes of the Found & Funded Podcast and insights from entrepreneurs, investors and advisers operating across the search fund and ETA space.

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