We write the first cheque — then we stay for the decade after it.
Latitude leads pre-seed and seed rounds in technical companies. One partner owns the relationship from the first call to the last board meeting — the same person, not a handoff.
- First cheque
- $250k – $3M
- Time to a decision
- Two weeks
- Companies backed
- 64
Six things we will not pretend to be flexible about.
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i
A fast no is worth more than a slow maybe
You get an answer in two weeks. If it is no, you get the reason in writing, and it will be a real one — not "too early for us." Your time is the only thing you cannot raise more of.
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ii
The partner who backs you is the partner who stays
No associate screens you, and no one hands you off after the wire clears. The person across the table at the first meeting is on your cap table and at your board for as long as you will have them.
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iii
We invest before the market agrees with us
Consensus is priced in. We lead rounds where the thesis still sounds slightly wrong out loud, and we write the memo that says why we are willing to be wrong in public.
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iv
Founders own their companies
We take 10–15% and we do not ask for more later. No option-pool games in the term sheet, no pro-rata bullying, no board seat you did not want. Control is not our product.
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v
Help is only help if you asked for it
We answer within the hour when you call. We do not send unsolicited "quick thoughts" decks, and we do not manufacture work to look useful. The default setting is out of your way.
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vi
We tell you the truth when it is expensive
Including when the truth is that the company is not working, the co-founder is the problem, or the round you want to raise is not the round the market will give you.
64 companies. We led the round in 51.
Every company below took our first cheque at pre-seed or seed. Outcomes are marked plainly, including the ones that did not work.
The terms, before you ask for them.
We publish these so you can decide whether to spend an hour with us. Nothing here changes once you are in the room.
First cheque
We lead most rounds we join and take 10–15%. We are happy to co-lead, and happy to be the only institutional money on the cap table.
Stage
Before revenue is fine. Before the product is fine. Before the co-founder has quit their job is usually too early, and we will tell you that in the first call.
Speed
Two meetings, one reference call, a written memo you are allowed to read. Then a yes or a no, with the reasoning attached either way.
Ask them what we were like in the bad quarter.
“We missed plan for three quarters straight. Not one of those calls started with the number. They started with what I had learned, and whether I still believed the thesis. I did. They wrote the bridge.”
“I pitched eleven funds. Ten asked for a bigger market. Latitude asked what the compiler actually proved. That was the whole difference — they had read the paper before the meeting.”
“They told me my co-founder was the problem. It cost them the relationship for about four months. They were right, and they never once said so afterwards.”
Three partners. No associates.
Each of us leads six to eight companies at a time. That is the ceiling, and it is why the answer comes fast.
Adrian Vessel
General Partner
Built and sold a payments company to a bank he now refuses to name. Leads fintech and anything with a regulator in the loop.
Adaeze Okonjo
General Partner
Fifteen years shipping control systems for grid operators. Leads energy, industrials, and the hard-physics companies nobody else will underwrite.
Marcus Feld
Founding Partner
Wrote the first cheque into 30 of the 64. Spent a decade as a CTO before that, which is why he still reads the codebase.
Under management across three funds
Companies backed since 2016
Rounds we led ourselves
Days from first meeting to decision
No warm intro required.
We read every application ourselves — all three of us, every Monday. Send the deck you already have. Do not build a new one for us.
Cold applications became 19 of our 64 investments. The intro economy is a filter for who you already know, and we are not interested in that number.