About
Patient capital. Permanent intentions.
323 Capital pairs hands-on ownership with capital that never needs to leave.
Michael L. Williams
The founder
Michael Williams
Michael was born and raised in the Chicagoland area, and learned the value of hard work watching his father launch a venture that provided funding for small Eastern European businesses after the Iron Curtain fell.
At Taylor University in Indiana he studied finance and accounting, served on the student-led endowment team, and started for three years on the men’s soccer team.
He then spent a decade in finance, much of it in institutional asset and investment management: ETF portfolio management at Invesco, and work as an associate portfolio manager at City National Rochdale. He is a CFA charterholder, and much of that work supported business owners navigating their goals after selling their companies: a preview of the conversations he now has from the other side of the table.
At Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, he found the path he had been circling: entrepreneurship through acquisition. After his MBA he founded 323 Capital and went searching. Not for a job, but for a company worth giving a career to.
He found it in Midwest Information Systems, makers of PAXIT. Since the acquisition closed on New Year's Eve 2024, he has owned and led the company alongside the team that built it, serving the laboratories that depend on the product.
The name comes from Colossians 3:23: In all things, work as for the Lord and not for man. That verse is the pillar of the holding company. It sets the standard for how we work, how we treat people, and how long we intend to stay.
The family behind the firm
Built on more than balance sheets.
Michael and Courtney met on the soccer field at Taylor University and married in 2017. They have four children: Brooke Lillian, born in 2022, Lydia Joan, born in 2024, and twins Luke and Maggie, who arrived in 2026.
Courtney is an account executive at a technology company and grew up inside a family business of her own; her father is a second-generation owner of a Midwest manufacturer. Entrepreneurship runs on both sides of the house.
Away from work you will find them in a recreational soccer league together, working through a bucket list of top-rated American golf courses, and giving time to their church community.
How we operate
The standards we hold ourselves to.
Show up
Ownership is not a spreadsheet exercise. We stay close to the work and the people doing it.
Keep promises
Commitments made at the closing table, to sellers, employees, and customers, are kept long after it.
Think in decades
No fund life, no deadline to sell. Decisions get made the way owners make them: for the long term.
Start with a direct conversation.
Owners hear back from decision-makers, not a process. Every serious note gets a reply within two business days.
Start a conversation