Every two years this study gets published, and the same number goes viral. This time it's a 33.9% aggregate IRR and a 4.75x return across U.S. and Canadian search funds since 1984. Those numbers are real. But they're not the part worth sitting with. Here's the one that is: among search funds launched between 2021 and 2024, only about 48% have gone on to acquire a company so far. Historically, since Stanford began tracking in 1996, that number sits closer to 58%. That's a real drop in a short window. For theredactedcohorts, the figure was 86%. A few things the study points to as separating the searches that close from the ones that don't: Partnered searches tend to outperform solo searches (58% vs. 43% acquisition rate in theredactedcohort) Searchers with more than two years of post-graduation experience closed more often than those with a year or less (55% vs. 40%) Businesses with recurring revenue and predictable cash flow tend to show higher returns after acquisition Returns overall are heavily skewed. A small number of exceptional deals carry most of the industry's results. Strip out the funds that returned 10x or more, and the 4.75x falls to about 2.8x. None of this means search is getting worse. It means the bar to actually close is getting higher, even as more capital and more searchers enter the space. The returns story is still a good one. But it's worth remembering that the study is measuring outcomes for people who found a way through the hardest part: getting a signed deal at all. Question for the group: for those further along, what's the biggest reason you saw deals in your own search stall out before getting to a close?