WAD Capital closes debut fund at €67.5 million with €25

WAD Capital has completed the first closing of its debut fund at €67.5 million, with a €25 million investment from the European Investment Fund (EIF). The Ghent-based firm, founded in 2023 by Christopher Tournis Gamble, Steven Coppens and Alain Brossé, focuses on Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition, buying small and mid-sized European companies facing succession challenges and placing them with vetted operators known as CEOs in Residence. The EIF’s backing makes it the largest backer of the fund. The capital will be used to scale the fund toward a €130 million target, with a hard cap of €132.5 million. WAD Capital’s managing partners are contributing 2 percent of the fund’s capital alongside family investors. The firm targets profitable SMEs with EBITDA between €1 and €5 million across Benelux, northern France and western Germany, primarily in healthcare, energy and climate transition, and business services. Each acquisition is led by a CEO in Residence, an experienced manager recruited, vetted and guided from initial screening through to running the acquired company. WAD Capital uses data-driven sourcing and AI-assisted legal due diligence to screen tens of thousands of companies annually, reducing costs for deals too small for conventional advisory. From its first cohort of thirteen CEOs in Residence, eight have completed acquisitions, including Groupe Jordan (HVAC), Mignone (construction), Alsec (security), HBI Tyres & Wheels (tyre distribution), Ausloos and Euro-M (packaging), Kantoor Lardenoit (insurance brokerage), and E-Demonstrations (events). Five additional deals are in final stages of closing. Steven Coppens, Managing Partner at WAD Capital, said the eight acquisitions in under a year, combined with the EIF investment, demonstrate the model’s scalability and European recognition of its importance. He added that hundreds of thousands of European SMEs seek successors but cannot find them, and this capital enables faster matching of CEOs with companies to preserve jobs and local ownership. The fresh capital will fund a second cohort of twelve CEOs in Residence, ten of whom are already confirmed, as WAD Capital aims to double its cohort size and expand its portfolio to 25 companies by the end of 2027. Alain Brossé, Managing Partner at WAD Capital, stated that increasing the CEO in Residence cohort from thirteen to twenty-five will allow the acquisition of twenty-five healthy SMEs with succession challenges, protecting jobs and enabling strong managers to become owners. He emphasized that WAD Capital is not creating another traditional private equity fund but scaling the search-fund model, which has delivered an average IRR of 35 percent over the past thirty years, to build one of Europe’s largest institutional platforms for Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition. The EIF’s investment, supported by the European Commission’s InvestEU programme, validates both the financial return and societal impact of the approach. Robert de Groot, Vice President of the EIB Group, noted that Europe has many SMEs with strong growth potential needing capital and entrepreneurial talent, and WAD Capital’s model helps a new generation of entrepreneurs take over and grow established businesses, supporting continuity, job creation, competitiveness and adaptation to market needs.