March 2019 marks SLG’s 8-year anniversary, and from inception, we have incorporated a Crawl, Walk, Run approach to how we wanted to build our platform for the long-term to support our mission focused investment thesis.
In the Army, we learned to train using the Crawl, Walk, Run approach. We started out with a chalkboard or sandbox planning exercise. We then moved to a daylight walk through using blank ammunition. Ultimately, we progressed to a nighttime live fire exercise under the most realistic and challenging conditions we could create in training to simulate the demands of the battlefield. March 2019 marks SLG’s 8-year anniversary, and from inception, we have incorporated a Crawl, Walk, Run approach to how we wanted to build our platform for the long-term to support our mission focused investment thesis.
In the early days of 2011 during the crawl phase, we knew that we needed to establish trust with our investors and build a track record. We wanted to demonstrate that we could source, structure, and close very unique deals and we accomplished this through a series of Special Purpose Investment Vehicles (SPV’s) and raised capital deal by deal. In 2014, we progressed to the walk phase with our first committed capital Fund I- Stony Lonesome Capital LP. Many of our early SPV investors became Fund LP’s, and we were able to take a portfolio approach to managing the risk of early stage venture investing through diversification. Fund I was a modest $1m, and it allowed us to progress to Fund II that is on track for a $5m closing and has sector focus of Military Medicine, Healthcare, and Veteran Care.
Our current Fund III is focused on Cybersecurity and Big Data, and we are targeting a Fund size of $10m-$20m
As we enter our 9th year of investing, SLG is poised to hit our stride and enter the run phase of our evolution. Our current Fund III is focused on Cybersecurity and Big Data, and we are targeting a Fund size of $10m-$20m. Our team has expanded and now includes a Director of Research and a dedicated team of General Partner subject matter experts for each sector focused fund. Most exciting was the addition of Honorable Patrick Murphy, the former Acting Secretary of the Army, as a General Partner for Fund II and Fund III. We have rebranded and re-launched our website and are poised to hit the run phase of growth while maintaining our authentic focus on mission focused investing and Vetreprenuership! Finally, some of our early investments that were made in the crawl phase are maturing and we expect some exciting exits over the next couple of years that will validate our crawl, walk, run approach to building SLG for the long term.