Bill Priemer, Dan Warmenhoven and Klaus Besier Bring Deep Sector Experience and Fresh Perspectives to Help Drive Value Creation at Lateral’s Portfolio Companies

Lateral Investment Management, LLC (“Lateral”), a lower middle market private equity firm focused on bootstrapped, founder-led technology and technology-enabled services businesses, today announced that it has added three technology industry veterans to its talented team of operating partners.

Lateral’s new operating partners are:

• Bill Priemer – Mr. Priemer served as President and CEO of Hyland Software, the leader in enterprise content management and process management software, where he led its growth into a global market leader with 4,000 employees, 14,000 customers, and more than $1 billion in annual revenue. He currently serves as a director at Lateral portfolio company Morae Global, a technology-based legal solutions provider for large corporations and major law firms.
• Dan Warmenhoven – Mr. Warmenhoven is the former Chairman and CEO of NetApp, a pioneer in cloud storage which he led through its IPO and transformed into a multi-billion dollar data infrastructure company providing unified data storage, integrated data services, and cloud operations solutions to enterprise customers. He is currently a director of Bechtel Group, and has previously served as a director of Cohesity, Palo Alto Networks, and Aruba Networks. He was previously the Chairman, President and CEO of Network Equipment Technologies and is a veteran of Hewlett-Packard Co. and IBM.
• Klaus Besier – Mr. Besier has led and advised more than a dozen enterprise software businesses, collaborating with founders to build and pursue their vision. As President and CEO of SAP Americas & ANZ, Besier grew SAP’s footprint from $50 million to $1 billion in the early days of its presence in the United States.

Lateral’s operating partners are a critical element of the firm’s partnership and value creation approach to transforming and scaling established and profitable bootstrapped, founder-led companies. They work closely with the Lateral investment team throughout the entire deal life cycle – from diligence through exit – providing highly specialized sector expertise and hands-on support to drive strategic and tactical value creation initiatives at Lateral’s portfolio companies.

Richard de Silva, Founder and Managing Partner of Lateral, said, “Lateral only invests in founder-led businesses where we have an edge and can bring our expertise and capabilities to accelerate growth. We are thrilled to bring on like-minded senior executives in Bill, Dan and Klaus to our team. Each of these operators has a track record of success and is passionate about working with high-conviction founders in transforming their companies into market leaders.”

Lateral’s sub-sector focus areas within technology and technology-enabled services include Vertical Enterprise Resource Planning (VERP), Supply Chain Resilience, Vertical Marketplaces, Manufacturing Intelligence, K-12 Education, Office of the CFO, Decarbonization, Risk and Compliance Technology, AI-driven Customer Experience and Mid-market Cybersecurity Solutions.

Mr. de Silva added, “Our investment strategy is grounded in sub-sectors we know well where we bring a combination of institutional capital, growth knowhow, and specialized functional skills. We rely on our operating partners to build on and update our deep sub-sector capabilities which can be deployed in advancing and accelerating the growth of our portfolio companies.”

About Lateral Investment Management, LLC

Headquartered in San Mateo, California, Lateral is a growth-oriented private equity firm that invests in bootstrapped, founder-led technology and technology-enabled services businesses. The firm focuses on profitable, U.S. middle market companies with no prior institutional financing and makes $15 million to $75 million investments to accelerate their growth. By pursuing sub-sector focused proprietary deal origination, founder-aligned partnerships, and a systematic and proactive approach to value creation, Lateral helps to transform its portfolio companies into category leaders. For more information, visit: https://lateralim.com/

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