No. A private equity (PE) fund has raised a pool of capital (and draws management fees based on the size of that pool) to acquire a portfolio of companies. Most private equity companies need to return this capital to investors in a fixed amount of time. This need to return capital in a fixed amount of time generally requires that PE investors sell their portfolio companies within 4-7 years after acquisition. Transitioning a business to new ownership is always disruptive and more than rarely destroys value. We seek investors who are willing to invest for the long term so that we have the flexibility to do what is best for the company that we acquire. We don’t presume to know what is what best before we have even identified the company we will acquire.

No. In general, independent sponsors do not intend to run the day-to-day operations of the businesses they acquire. We formed LEPbecause we believe strongly that, together, we can add value to the company we acquire by running the company ourselves

No. Holding companies, like private equity firms, operate a portfolio of companies. We believe that industry-focused enterprise software partners need to be laser focused, as such we will focus on efforts on growing a single company.

Simply put we are two friends and business partners who want to run a fast-growing business together. Investment professionals would probably call us “self-funded searchers” and that is a fair characterization. Self-funded searchers are using their own savings to fund a search for single business to operate and grow.There are two primary features that distinguishes us from other self-funded searchers. The first is our focus. We are committed to identifying and acquiring an industry-focused Dynamics partner. Most self-funded searchers are open to “any great business.” The second is our we are two partners.Most self-funded searchers are solo entrepreneurs.We believe that our complimentary skill set will help us grow a company more effectively than going it alone

Great question. And like many great questions, the answer is “it depends.” First of all, like any investor we plan to use a combination of debt and equity. The source, terms, and mix of debt and equity will depend on the specifics of the business we are acquiring. We spend roughly half our time looking for great Dynamics partners to acquire and half of our time speaking to investors interested in us and our investment thesis. If we present a letter of intent (LOI), you can trust that we have had our offer reviewed by debt and equity partners who will provide capital to close the transaction. We can provide letters of support from capital providers upon request. Of course, our LOI will be subject to standard due diligence, including a quality of earnings analysis. We will not use diligence as an opportunity to “re-trade” the deal.

Another fair question. We think the answer boils down to: conviction, experience, and aptitude. We strongly believe that Gen AI is such a game changer for small and medium-sized businesses to the point that not having a capability to draw and act upon insights drawn from proprietary data will be akin to not having email or access to the internet. As such, we believe that in addition to continued flow of migrations from legacy systems to cloud-based platforms there is an impending tidal wave of new SMB ERP adoptions. These new SMB adopters are going to be looking for industry-focused partners to guide them through this major technological transition. This is where our experience comes in. One of us has operated three small businesses, the other has experience in fast-growing tech companies, both of us are former management consultants. We believe these experiences give have a unique ability to become industry experts and provide value added insight to clients while driving long-term improvements in our core offering centered around end user needs. Finally, our aptitude is growth oriented. We know that growth can sometimes feel chaotic, but we have worked together and thrived in challenging, fast-paced environments.