Easterly Asset Management Partners with Growth Buyouts Investment Firm Lateral Investment Management

By: Easterly Asset Management via Business Wire

November 01, 2023 at 08:00 AM EDT

Kicking off the strategic partnership, the firms announced the close of a $35M co-investment in Morae Global

Easterly Asset Management (“Easterly”), a multi-affiliate platform for high-performing boutique investment firms, today announced a strategic partnership with Lateral Investment Management (“Lateral”), a private equity firm focused on transformational growth buyouts at owner-operated middle market businesses. Easterly will provide Lateral with its robust platform to elevate the team’s ability to support lower-middle market businesses facing significant growth. Exemplifying the power of their partnership, Easterly and Lateral reported the close of their $35M co-investment in Morae Global (“Morae”). The investment helps accelerate Morae’s trajectory as the market’s leading provider of technology and managed solutions for the global legal industry.

Lateral provides first institutional growth capital to established and profitable lower-middle market companies across technology and business services. Lateral provides creative financing solutions through majority and structured minority equity stakes and strategic support to help transform and accelerate business growth in partnership with high-conviction business owners.

“Lateral is a highly differentiated firm with a track record of turning successful, profitable companies into market leaders,” said Darrell Crate, Founder and Managing Principal of Easterly Asset Management. “We are excited to partner with Mr. de Silva and the Lateral team to scale their unique private equity strategy by unlocking access for investors to allocate growth capital to independent, bootstrapped, and family-owned businesses underserved by typical buyout firms.”

Easterly brings a seasoned client team to help enhance Lateral’s distribution in retail and institutional channels. It will amplify Lateral’s talent and product development goals and enhance its communications and marketing efforts.

“Easterly’s deep experience with boutique firms will accelerate our growth and expand our investor base so that we can execute on our robust pipeline of transformational private equity investments,” said Richard de Silva, Founder and Managing Partner of Lateral. “Joining forces with Easterly enabled us to continue to support Morae’s vision, business strategy, and growth plans for the global legal market.”

About Lateral Investment Management

Lateral is a private equity firm that enables transformational growth at independent owner-operated businesses in the technology and business services sectors. Lateral provides first institutional growth capital ranging from $25 million to $75 million as a value-added strategic partner to established businesses that can become market leaders. Lateral partners with successful business owners who have high conviction in their future growth. Our investments accelerate the growth trajectories of companies that have reached an inflection point where they need substantial capital and support to scale to the next level. Headquartered in San Mateo, California, Lateral believes that profitable and sustainable businesses create a wealth of opportunity for all. Lateral embraces the mission of companies that create high quality jobs, protect the earth, and solve problems for humanity. For more information, visit lateralim.com.

About Easterly Asset Management

Easterly Asset Management (Easterly) is a multi-affiliate platform that celebrates and supports the talent of boutique managers and teams. Easterly is committed to bringing investors innovative investment strategies by partnering with quality managers who possess deep domain expertise and are craftsmen in their respective asset classes and investment processes. We support our partners by delivering best-in-class solutions in marketing, sales, technology, operations, human resources, and finance as needed to scale their businesses. We also offer affiliates, through our platform partnerships, the opportunity to access our operations and compliance platform and retail & institutional distribution services. With over 20 investment professionals, we offer a range of products including separate accounts, SMAs, 40 Act Funds, CITs and private placements. As of September 30, 2023, Easterly has nearly $3 billion in assets under management. For more information, please visit Easterly at easterlyam.com.

About Morae Global Corporation

Morae Global Corporation is trusted around the world for the delivery of digital and business solutions for a constantly changing legal industry. Founded in 2015, Morae has earned wide respect for the expertise and experience of our legal consulting, technology, and operations professionals, many of whom have in-house legal, law firm, or other relevant industry experience. We strive to make a difference every day for our law firm and legal department clients by collaborating closely with them to develop strategy, implement meaningful change, and achieve the business objectives they care about most. This includes offering clients the right people and technology they need to efficiently meet their contracts, discovery, information, and resourcing goals. Learn more about Morae, our approach, and solutions at moraeglobal.com.