Welcome toLateral Capital!
Located in Sarasota, Florida, Lateral Capital is a Micro Venture Capital Limited Partnership. We have invested in more than 100 Early Stage companies across the U.S. since 2003.
We invest in Early Stage companies led by paranoid optimists of impeccable character with these characteristics:
- A completed product or service with compelling Benefits – and ideally one customer.
- Proprietary technology with issued or filed patents – to protect the company while it grows.
- Logical strategic buyers who will want to buy the company – in the next 5-7 years.
- Business models which lead to cash flow breakeven - while the company waits for a buyer.
- Contribute to the Greater Good – businesses which can help to “save the world” profitably.
Lateral Capital has made investments in a wide range of technologies... across 23 states
Lateral Capital has made investments in a wide range of categories – from health care to industrial products; from specialty B2B software to a cure for Alzheimer's. We do not invest in distribution-driven categories like food and beverage, location-dependent businesses like restaurants or startups of any kind.
Most investments are made in conjunction with Angel groups across the U.S., including Band of Angels (Palo Alto), Seraph Group (Atlanta), Golden Seeds (New York), Gopher Angels (Minneapolis), Tamiami Angels (Naples), Central Texas Angels (Austin), Tech Coast Angels (Southern California) and companies which have presented at the annual BIO, SXSW and the Angel Capital Association events.
Lateral Capital is run by long-time Procter & Gamble executive and former Pillsbury Company CEO, John Lilly. Now investing its Sixth Fund, Lateral Capital is supported by a group of accredited investors in a Limited Partnership structure. This group includes CEOs, CFOs, investment bankers and other investors who target consistent financial returns, with gross returns around 2.5X their money (MOIC) with a rate of return around 20%.
Useful Perspectives For Early Stage CEOs
For years, we have collected quotes from history's great thinkers, perspectives that speak to the challenge, frustration and exhilaration of being an Early Stage CEO. Some are serious, others funny and most fit well into company presentations or investor pitches.
- Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
- The power of compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world.
- Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.
- If I’m the smartest guy in the room, I’m in the wrong room.
- Design is an agent of change, which can help us to make sense of what is happening and to turn it to our advantage.
- I never read. I just look at pictures.
- If you think you’re too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room.
- If you can’t stand the heat, don’t tickle the dragon.
- Give me a place to stand, and I will move the earth.
- The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
- When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
- When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.
- An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
- Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.
- Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.
- Terrible is the temptation to do good!
- Adversity doesn’t build character, it reveals it.
- Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.
- Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.
- They say the secret of success is being at the right place at the right time, but since you never know when the right time is going to be, I figure the trick is to find the right place and just hang around.
- It’s not a good strategy until it costs you something to pursue.
- God gave us 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason.
- I don’t try to reinvent the wheel. I just try to change the spokes.
- I just invent, then wait until man comes around to needing what I’ve invented.
- Never judge the characters you play… That’s the first rule of acting.
- To understand a company, spend time with its customers.
- Be careful – a little success can create a whole lot of overhead.
- About right now is better than exactly wrong later.
- It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.
- Success is easy if you think of it like rust: It’s inevitable if you keep at it.
- Make sure that the best thing to happen to your customer today is you.
- There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time.
- It does not matter how slow you go so long as you do not stop.
- You have undertaken to cheat me. I won’t sue you, for the law is too slow. I will ruin you.
- Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
- The power of compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world.