Laura Johnson

Laura Johnson is a venture-debt and specialty-finance investor who is currently a Managing Director at Neuberger Specialty Finance, the specialty-finance arm of Neuberger Berman, based in Redwood City / San Francisco. Her career has centered on structuring debt, equity, and hybrid investments for growth-stage technology and healthcare companies, and she has spent the bulk of it in West Coast private credit.

Earlier in her career she was a Director at ORIX Growth Capital (the ORIX Corporation USA venture-lending business, formerly known as ORIX Ventures), where she supported the firm's investment efforts on the West Coast, leading venture-loan origination and underwriting. Before ORIX, she was Manager of FP&A and Strategy at RichRelevance, a San Francisco SaaS company serving online retail, where she ran sales operations, revenue forecasting, and budgeting. Prior to that she was a Senior Associate at Medley Capital, underwriting and originating direct middle-market deals for the firm's BDC and private opportunities funds, and before that a Senior Analyst at Prudential Capital Group in San Francisco, underwriting direct middle-market private-credit deals (including in Western Canada). Between ORIX and Neuberger Berman she was a Managing Director at Blackstone Credit & Insurance (BXCI), originating investments with late-stage technology companies.

On the education side, Laura holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business (2011–2013, where she co-chaired the Private Equity and Credit groups) and a BS in Finance from the University of San Francisco. She is fluent in Spanish.

• Invests as a lender/structured-capital provider, not an equity angel — senior secured and subordinated debt, unitranche/first-lien and second-lien facilities behind bank capital, plus equity co-investments alongside debt.
• Targets mid- to late-stage growth companies in technology and healthcare, typically with run-rate revenue of ~$10M or greater, good top-line growth, and revenue visibility — not pre-revenue seed startups.
• Looks for companies with strong customer validation and unit economics, a proven management team, sustainable product differentiation, and backing from a seasoned VC or growth-equity sponsor.
• Provides flexible structures — interest-only periods, custom amortization, and delayed-draw facilities — designed to extend runway without heavy dilution.
• ORIX Growth Capital, her former platform, has funded ~$2.7B to ~198 companies since 2001, with individual facilities from $5M to $100M — a good proxy for the institutional scale she operates at.