When Victor Peltier and Stefano Demari set out to create a search fund, the model was barely known in France. Together, they connected with experienced investors, raised capital, and launched the sixth search fund in France – a model that pairs ambitious operators with the mentorship and backing needed to acquire and lead established businesses.
After an extensive search, the team identified JD2M, a profitable, fast-growing SaaS platform that now serves over 50,000 property owners as France’s leader in real estate accounting software. In the three years since the acquisition, the business has nearly doubled revenue, expanded operations, and completed a strategic acquisition, all while reinforcing its core strengths.
To provide their friends and family the opportunity to invest in the acquisition, Victor and Stefano turned to Roundtable. Setting up an SPV via the platform made it easy for them to group together approximately 25 investors, kept the cap table clean and eliminated the legal and administrative headaches of traditional structures. With Roundtable’s turnkey setup and hands-on support, the fundraising process was fast, secure, and efficient.
Below, Victor shares in-depth advice on search funds, his experience with JD2M, and how Roundtable made it possible to bring their closest supporters along for the ride.
Key takeaways:
- Victor Peltier and Stefano Demari leveraged the search fund model to identify, acquire, and take over JD2M – a profitable company on a growth trajectory – even before this model was popular in France.
- The search fund structure is now gaining traction in France; the model connects aspiring general managers with experienced investors, providing not just financing but mentorship and support throughout the acquisition and transition phases. Search funds also open up opportunities to target larger, profitable companies and accelerate the careers of highly motivated and driven entrepreneurs.
- Under Victor and Stefano’s management, JD2M nearly doubled its revenue, expanded its team, and completed a strategic acquisition, all while maintaining profitability and building on the company’s solid foundations.
- Roundtable enabled the team to set up a dedicated SPV for their friends and family, keeping a clean cap table and reducing admin overhead and complexity. Thanks to Roundtable’s turnkey SPV setup and expert support, the fundraising process was fast, smooth, and efficient.
Roundtable: Could you tell me about yourself, your background, and JD2M?
Victor Peltier: I started my career in strategy consulting, then became COO of a startup called Stuart, which was later acquired by La Poste Group.
In 2020, I teamed up with Stefano Demari, a classmate from business school, who came from a background in investment banking and private equity. Together, we launched a search fund – a relatively new concept in France at the time, with only five teams before us.
A search fund is a company acquisition model that started in the US in the 1980s. The idea is to enable motivated individuals to take over and grow a business, even if they don’t have the capital themselves. It begins by raising money from long-term investors who not only provide funds, but also mentor and support the entrepreneurs to help make the acquisition a success.
Our goal was to find a strong SME in France – a healthy, growing company ready to continue its story with new leadership. We reached out to about 3,000 companies, spoke with over 300 entrepreneurs, and had in-depth discussions with about ten of them.
In the end, we came across Je Déclare Mon Meublé (JD2M), which we acquired and joined in January 2023. We succeeded Fabrice and Cyril, the original founders, who are still involved. They reinvested alongside us and now sit on our board of directors. We meet once every quarter to discuss company performance, strategy, and ongoing projects.
As for the company, JD2M is France’s leading tax filing software dedicated to real estate. Today, we help more than 50,000 clients manage their tax and accounting obligations with the French administration.
Our platform allows owners of furnished rental properties to handle their accounting and submit tax filings electronically. The régime réel is a favorable tax regime that can save property owners an average of €2,000 per year, but it requires full accounting, which is exactly what our software simplifies and automates.
Roundtable: The search fund model is still relatively new in France. Could you walk us through how it works and what makes it unique?
Victor Peltier: In a nutshell, a search fund is about finding driven, curious people and matching them with a solid company that’s doing well and is ready for the next stage of its growth.
It was created in the U.S. in the 1980s, primarily for MBA graduates, who often faced two main challenges: they’re young and don’t yet have general management experience, and they’re short on capital after paying for an expensive MBA.
It’s essentially an institutionalized approach to company acquisition. In France, there have always been independent buyers, often former executives with enough capital to buy a business themselves. The search fund model formalizes this process, giving you access to more capital and allowing you to target larger companies.
The model is structured in two main phases.
The first phase is raising initial capital to finance two to three years of searching for a company to acquire. But, more importantly, this funding connects you to a community of experienced investors who support you throughout the process, helping you avoid major missteps and increasing your chances of success in your first real leadership role.
Then, the second step is the actual search phase, typically lasting two to three years. Honestly, that’s a really challenging period. And after that, you move into the operating phase (managing the company), which is open-ended.
If you want an example, the “Google of search funds” is Asurion, a US-based company that provides phone insurance. Originally, they were a roadside assistance service, helping people when their cars broke down. Over time, they completely pivoted their model, and now Asurion is one of the biggest success stories out there. I’m not sure how many billions in revenue they generate today, but back then, they were just a small business turning over a few hundred thousand euros. More than 20 years later, it’s still run by the same team.
That’s really the DNA of search funds: it's a long-term, almost evergreen investment. What we’ve seen is that the longer you hold, the greater the returns.
Roundtable: You mentioned that the search phase is very challenging. What would you say are the biggest difficulties?
Victor Peltier: The hardest part is staying motivated and not getting discouraged. You have to avoid wasting time on “empty” companies or sellers who aren’t really looking to sell. You need to learn how to filter quickly, how to say no, and how to figure out whether a seller is serious or just stringing you along. Otherwise, you risk working for nothing.
Two years might sound like a long time, but it goes by really fast. And as a searcher, your most valuable asset is your time. To search efficiently, find the right deal, and get it done, every day matters.
Roundtable: Got it. And in terms of legal or operational complexity, are there specific difficulties there, or is it similar to a standard acquisition?
Victor Peltier: Legally and operationally, it’s not more complex than any other M&A deal. The model is actually pretty well-structured.
Everyone in the community relies on the Search Fund Primer published by Stanford, a practical step-by-step guide that answers the most common questions around search funds. It lays everything out: the framework, the structure, best practices, and more.
So that part isn’t too complicated. The real challenges are the usual M&A ones: finding the right financing, securing the deal all the way through, negotiating with banks, and so on.
Roundtable: And once the acquisition is done, does the search fund itself continue to exist?
Victor Peltier: No, once you’ve acquired a company, you dedicate 100% of your time to running it. You don’t go back out to look for another target. You’re not building a portfolio or running a fund.
We often say it’s like a one-off private mini-SPAC. You raise capital to pursue a single project. Once that’s done, you “throw the SPAC out the window” and go all-in on the business you’ve acquired.
Roundtable: How do you assess whether an opportunity is right? What are the key criteria you pay attention to?
Victor Peltier: You’re looking for a company that’s doing well. That’s the baseline. The classic investor pitch in a search fund is: you want a company that’s doing so well that even if the people who take over screw up a few things, it’ll still perform well.
That leads to a few key criteria:
First is recurring revenue. You want a clear recurring trajectory, so that rules out project-based businesses like construction, for example. Why? Because recurring revenue gives you predictability in both revenue and cash flow.
Second is profitability. The company has to be making money. You’re likely going to finance the acquisition via a leveraged buyout, so you’ll need to repay debt.
Third is growth. The company needs to have growth potential. That was really important for us. If you’re committing to an adventure like this, you want it to be exciting, and there’s nothing more exciting than being in a growing market or business.
And finally, a fourth, more technical point is return on invested capital. You want a company that generates strong returns, which means it needs to be capital-light. Since you’re entering an industry you don’t necessarily know very well, you don’t want to be in a position where you’re constantly buying machines or reinvesting heavily in R&D. You want the recurring revenue, once generated, to translate directly into cash. That’s what fuels your whole operation.
Then, there are other factors, like shareholding structure. You want a business that’s independently owned, i.e. held by individuals and not a subsidiary of a large group or a portfolio company of a fund.
Roundtable: And once you’ve acquired the company, how do you ensure it remains profitable? What are the first things to put in place?
Victor Peltier: The first thing is humility. You’re taking over a business that’s already working well, so the priority is to understand what’s working, build on it, and reinforce it.
You have to learn the fundamentals of the company and figure out how to turn those fundamentals into even greater strengths for the future.
So, first and foremost: you should not make any radical changes. There’s a saying: in the first six months, just listen, take notes, and learn. And it’s absolutely true.
Roundtable: How have things been for JD2M since the acquisition?
Victor Peltier: Everything is going great. In just under three years, we’ve nearly doubled the company’s revenue: the business continues to grow and remains profitable. We even made a small acquisition of a boutique accounting firm that was operating in a similar segment.
Currently, we’re developing new capabilities, building out the team, and expanding. And, most importantly: we’re having a great time. That’s essential.
Roundtable: It’s impressive to see that you’ve accomplished all that so quickly. Looking back, what advice would you give to someone who’s thinking about launching a search fund?
Victor Peltier: First, you need to do your homework and really ask yourself if this is the right fit for you.
Start by reading the Stanford Primer – it’s the go-to reference. It even includes questionnaires that help you evaluate your own fit, with questions like:
- Am I willing to relocate anywhere in the country?
- Am I ready to work hard and go through two or three years of highs and lows?
- Do I have the grit and the right mindset to push through?
- Am I humble enough to learn from business owners who might be very different from me?
Once you’ve answered those honestly and you still think, “Yeah, this sounds like me,” then you need to take action: reach out to current searchers, ask questions, and see if their day-to-day resonates with you.
Then, and this is a fantastic way to gain experience, you can try to support as an intern someone who’s already in the search phase. That gives you a real taste of the day-to-day and helps you decide whether it’s something you truly want to commit to.
It’s not a minor decision. You’re committing two or three years to traveling around the country, and if you don’t find a company, nothing happens. It’s intense, and the pressure is real.
So in short, my advice is to:
- Read as much as you can about search funds
- Talk to people in the ecosystem
- Reach out to investors and institutional players
Regarding the last point, there are more and more active funds in Europe, such as Relay Europe, Istria, Vonzeo, … These are institutions that know the model well, so it’s worth talking to them to see if they believe you have the right profile for a project like this.
Roundtable: You mentioned you were among the first search funds in France. How has the search fund community evolved since then?
Victor Peltier: Yes, we were the sixth team in France. The very first was Bruno Léa: hats off to him for convincing foreign investors to back a search fund here, which wasn’t easy at the time. We came in at a time when things were starting to open up – the groundwork had already been laid.
I’ve lost the exact count of French search funds, since we’re less connected to the community than we used to be, but I’d say there are about 15 searchers currently looking for a company in France.
Roundtable: Could you now walk me through how the financing works once you’ve found the right company? What are the steps after the search phase?
Victor Peltier: So, as I mentioned, you first raise initial capital to fund your search. Once you’ve found a company, the investors who backed your search typically have what’s called a right of first refusal. That means they can invest in the acquisition in proportion to what they initially put into the search phase. In most cases, everyone follows: if you’ve done a decent job, most are happy to continue.
But if there’s a funding shortfall (what we call an equity gap), you need to raise additional capital. That might come from new investors, such as institutional players or individuals, to complete the round.
Usually, you also put together a LBO structure, which means raising debt from banks or credit institutions. It’s a fairly standard financing process.
Roundtable: And in your case, what did this process look like?
Victor Peltier: We had 90% of our original investors follow us, which is a great result. For the rest, we raised additional funds to complete the round.
That’s also when we wanted to give our close network of friends and family the chance to join the adventure. Of course, the ticket sizes were smaller, but we really wanted them to be part of it.
So, we decided to syndicate them into a dedicated SPV, which we structured with Roundtable. It was the perfect solution to bring in that type of investors.
Roundtable: Talking about investors, could you tell me a bit more about their profiles, both in that SPV and more broadly?
Victor Peltier: Overall, we’ve got a diverse investor base. Everyone holds a minority stake, and most of them are quite seasoned in the search fund world.
We have institutional investors who are well-known names in the community: Relay Investments, TTCER, Miramar, Alza,... people who really matter in this space, and whose support was important to us.
And in the Roundtable SPV, it was very much friends and family – our parents, siblings, classmates, former colleagues, and so on: people who believed in us and wanted to support us, and who were able to do so thanks to Roundtable.
Roundtable: How and why did you choose Roundtable for the setup of the SPV?
Victor Peltier: I think we must have been one of the very first to work with them. And we got along so well! Everything was so easy and smooth. What we really appreciated was their ability to build a turnkey solution – something where we didn’t have to research dozens of legal or technical questions. Everything was very well packaged and managed.
That was key for us. We were going to onboard our friends and family into this vehicle, so we wanted it to be handled by people who knew exactly what they were doing. We didn’t want to take any legal or tax risks, nor deal with 25 micro-shareholders on our cap table, and we needed to group everyone together.
Managing all that ourselves would’ve been exhausting, and there just wasn’t a good solution on the market. We would’ve had to find someone willing to take on the structure, but no one had the time or the skills to do it.
So Roundtable really saved us on that front.
Roundtable: If you had to sum up the key benefits of using Roundtable, what would they be?
Victor Peltier: First, speed of execution. Second, reliability. Everything’s airtight and well-managed. And third, simplicity, for both us and the SPV investors.
Roundtable: How was your experience working with the Roundtable team?
Victor Peltier: Honestly, it was great. We already knew the two founders, which helped – they went to the same engineering school as Stefano and me, one year below us. But it’s not just that, of course: the entire experience was very positive.
Roundtable: I was going to ask if you’d go through Roundtable again if you ever launched a second search fund… but it sounds like that’s not really on your radar?
Victor Peltier: Honestly, I think this might be my last entrepreneurial venture. But who knows what the future holds.
That said, if I did launch another search fund, I’d absolutely go through Roundtable again, whether for fundraising or structuring. Without any doubt, that’s the best solution out there.
Without them, we wouldn’t have been able to include our friends and family. It would’ve been way too complicated.
And when you’re in the middle of fundraising, you just don’t have the time to deal with that kind of setup. The fact that Roundtable offers a simple, well-managed, and reliable solution was invaluable for us.
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