How Two Gen Z Venture Capitalists Built A $25 Million Fund To Back MBA Grads

Forbes

Peter Thiel famously loves founders who skip (or drop out of) college. Devon Gethers and Karlton Haney are taking a different approach: solely targeting entrepreneurs who have earned, or are earning, an MBA. The duo launched Meridian Ventures in 2023 before they were even students at Harvard Business School. Their tactic: target founders from 10 powerhouse MBA programs in the U.S.—inclu­ding Stanford, Harvard and Wharton. While these schools are powerful feeders into finance and consulting, Gethers and Haney think more of their grads could be starting their own businesses. “It’s kind of a contrarian take,” Haney says. “There are a lot of venture capitalists out there that think business school graduates don’t make for good founders.” Meridian has a portfolio of 45 investments, including tech companies like Cast AI ($900 million valuation) and OneImaging ($250 million valuation). It’s currently deploying a $25 million fund II to co-invest with top firms such as Bessemer, Khosla and Bain Capital Ventures. “The vision is not to build a fund, but to build a durable investment firm,” Gethers says.  Read the full story on Forbes:   Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00In our view, the entire world is being recreated right now.

00:03There's endless opportunities.

00:05I mean, nobody has an excuse not to be starting a business right now.

00:17Devon, Carlton, thanks for joining us.

00:19Thanks for having us.

00:20So tell me, what is happening right now at Meridian?

00:23We are energized.

00:24We started Meridian back in 2023 with our first fund.

00:29And we started that fund with a proof of concept vehicle.

00:32And we have this thesis that we wanted to validate.

00:35And we did that over the course of a couple years with the vision to not build a fund,

00:40but to build a durable investment firm.

00:43And so today what that looks like is we just closed on our target for $25 million,

00:51shooting towards our hard cap.

00:52We're making a series of investments in technology businesses that we think are

00:57going to transform humanity and transform the world.

00:59We're working closely with our limited partners in order to help serve our founders and

01:06utilize the ever evolving world of technology with AI and build it into our our business

01:13in unique ways and try to provide value where we can.

01:16Now, Carlton, what was the different thesis he's talking about?

01:18The difference is the type of founders we're looking for.

01:21And so we think there's kind of two ways to build a venture capital fund.

01:25You can either have sector expertise.

01:27You can be the most intelligent FinTech investors that exist or you specialize in supply chain.

01:34Or you can build a fund around a certain kind of founder profile,

01:36like a talent segment, if you will.

01:38And that's what we've done with Meridian.

01:40So we fully we are 100% focused on a very specific founder profile.

01:45And that is somebody that has an MBA from one of 10 business schools in the US.

01:49It's kind of a contrarian take.

01:50There's a lot of venture capitalists out there that actually think business school founders

01:54don't make for good founders.

01:56But if you look at the data and there's actually a professor at Stanford that has done all of this

02:00research and published it, it's quite clear business school founders do make excellent founders.

02:05And so our job is let's become the best fund in the world at investing in business school founders

02:10and make sure we have airtight coverage.

02:12No opportunity comes through that we don't see.

02:14And then we find the people that we think are the highest potential founders and

02:18buy a bit of their company at the earliest stage.

02:20How do you decide?

02:21You said there's only 10 schools.

02:22How do you get that special circle?

02:25The 10 schools is based on the research that was published out of Stanford.

02:29And so it's the professor who did the research

02:31basically dissected all of the venture backed billion plus dollar tech companies in the

02:37country over the last 20 years or so.

02:40And he has a lot of statistics and he's able to tie the success rates to those schools.

02:44And so you can see a pretty clear stack ranking of which schools produce the best tech founder

02:50profiles.

02:51And so we've kind of focused on this.

02:53Yeah.

02:53So in terms of how we did it in 2020, I launched early admin.

02:59It was the first company that I had started.

03:01And our first go to market product was admissions consulting specifically for deferred MBA.

03:07This was a fundamental transformation in the MBA market in 2020,

03:10whereby instead of your two to four years of professional work experience,

03:15and then you matriculate to full time program,

03:17you actually gain admission your senior year of college.

03:20And you're still expected to go work for two to five years.

03:24But we had built a business at early admin that served that community,

03:27developed those relationships and built a network and a community that now we are able to leverage

03:34and to really find these MBA founders up to five years before other venture capitalists.

03:38Tell me about the pipeline because I think a lot of people think MBAs,

03:41they're going on to Wall Street, consulting, tech.

03:45If they are founders, they probably drop out ahead of time.

03:48There's always like, I know a ton of HBS founders that got an idea while in school and

03:52decided to pursue that idea instead of graduate.

03:55What is the pipeline like? And talk to me about how you find the founders.

03:59If you just zoom out on the history of business schools in the US, I think one of the major trends

04:04that you would find is they're actually shifting towards entrepreneurship.

04:07And part of that is led by the Stanford Business School because they've had a lot of success in the

04:12past 20, 30 years of graduating individuals who have started these massive technology businesses.

04:17And HBS and Wharton and MIT want to move in that same direction.

04:21And so you can actually see the profile of individuals they're admitting to the school

04:26is changing. It's becoming more STEM.

04:28It's becoming more tech focused.

04:29And then they're also encouraging more students as they graduate to go start businesses.

04:34And so just focusing on one business school, say Harvard Business School, you would find that

04:38maybe 10 years ago, 5% of people went and started companies.

04:41Today, that's almost 20%. So it's increasing pretty significantly. And a lot of the school is aligned

04:47with providing more resources and encouraging students to go down that path.

04:51We find these opportunities, we think of it as like a three pronged approach, if you will.

04:56The first is we think we have an advantage with meeting this talent early. And that's through the

05:02deferred MBA community. This is what Devon just mentioned. It's an ability for us to meet

05:06individuals three, four or five years before they even step foot on campus in business school.

05:11We build that relationship early. And that way, when they go start a business, we can be the first

05:14ones to take a look at the opportunity. That's step number one. So we meet a lot of individuals

05:19that way. And it's a real advantage. Number two is we've developed a brand for ourselves as one of

05:24the funds that invests in MBAs. And we spend a lot of time getting to know other funds and sharing

05:29deals and becoming really good partners. And so it's pretty common that other funds will send us

05:33opportunities as they see them. So that's kind of the second way we find deals within the MBA community.

05:38And then anything we miss gets caught through some pieces of technology that we've been

05:44spending the past couple months building. And long short of it's an AI tool that scans the web. And

05:50if there's any information that's available about somebody starting a company with an MBA from one

05:54of these schools, then we get notified about it. And then we can reach out.

05:56So you mentioned for a decade now, there's been kind of the cache of dropping out of college or

06:04dropping an MBA and starting a company. Obviously, you guys said there's a Stanford report. There's

06:09data that proves, hey, actually, MBAs are great entrepreneurs. What outside of the data kind of,

06:14what are the skill sets like? What advantage does this kind of graduate founder have off of over

06:22someone else that maybe not have that experience? There are certainly MBA founders that

06:27aren't positioned well for entrepreneurship. We do believe that it's disproportionately the case that

06:32MBA founders are positioned well for entrepreneurship. And some of those underlying characteristics and

06:38what the institutions actually serve for them is number one, a network. It is a, you know, when they

06:44when they say go to MBA, not to learn anything, but to build a network, that's actually very true.

06:49And that network derives value in numerous ways. One being that if you actually look at the buyer

06:55sets for when a company looks to exit public companies, private companies, strategics, many

07:02times those buyers have are actually alumni from that school. And so that helps obviously create that

07:08that value forward piece there. Raising capital, it's incredibly important to raise capital. And today it is

07:17easier if you have some stamp of credibility, some qualification piece that you can call to and the

07:24network part as well. Lastly, I would say talent is incredibly important. And the what these top 10

07:32business schools are really trying to do at the core is to develop leaders that are going to

07:37transform society for the better. And that starts with leadership and leaders can attract talent,

07:42they can retain talent. And we believe if you really combine all those factors, that is what an

07:50institution, an institutional grade university can actually help a founder.

07:56You guys are both MBA grads and founders. Tell me how you both met and how you decided to launch this

08:03firm together. Yeah, so it's a crazy story that honestly, looking back, is a product of a lot of luck.

08:11And a lot of just crazy timing. I'm originally from a small town in Arkansas. And then I went to the

08:18University of Arkansas. So I grew up in a very different world than the one I'm in today.

08:22Razorbacks, here we go. Razorbacks, that's right. And I studied engineering in undergrad.

08:28And I happened to have a professor who invited me to take a leadership class with them. And as part of

08:34that class, we had to read these series of leadership books. And one of them in particular was written

08:39by a guy who was a professor at Harvard Business School named Bill George. And he described the

08:44classroom experience of being at HBS. What was the book called? It's called Discover Your True

08:47North. Okay. And that book single-handedly changed my life because I'd never heard of Harvard Business

08:51School before. I had no exposure to this world. I'd never met someone from one of these programs.

08:56And so I was curious to learn more. It sounded awesome. And so I literally am on the website learning

09:01about Harvard Business School. And there's a targeted ad that pops up on the website for this program

09:07called The 2 Plus 2, which is deferred admission to HBS. And so I bookmarked the webpage. And then

09:14I started studying for the GMAT. And I threw my name in the hat thinking I would never make it. And

09:19to my surprise, I got in. And that day fundamentally changed the entire trajectory of my life. And two

09:25days later, I met Devon. And meeting Devon is one of the major reasons it changed because Devon and I have

09:31been best friends for five years now. And we've been able to go on this amazing journey for

09:34coming up on three years. And I never would have met him if it wasn't for that program.

09:40Can I say Devon, how'd you meet? You're not from Arkansas.

09:42I'm not from Arkansas. I mean, the common theme between Carls and I is that we have arrived

09:50really in the point in our journeys by a lot of fortune, by a lot of hard work. But the theme is that

09:58we're non-traditional. We're not your traditional venture capitalists. We're not your traditional

10:02Harvard Business School graduate. And my story started in Tacoma, Washington. I was fortunate to

10:07grow up with a mother who raised three kids all by her own. Three kids by 17 years old. No father

10:13figure in the picture. We grew up in complete poverty. And it was challenging. And it taught me a

10:18lot of life lessons, principles that really guide my life. And I became a salesperson very early on.

10:24I used to go to the dollar store, buy assorted candies, develop a sales script, walk miles,

10:29knocking on doors, selling candy for a profit. I had a lawn care business that I ended up starting

10:36when I moved to Utah. But we talked about this earlier. After the great financial crisis,

10:41my mom couldn't afford to take care of all of her children. My grandparents moved to American Fork,

10:45Utah. She asked my grandparents, could you take Devon with you? So I moved there. And it was

10:50completely different demographically, politically, socially. But it was an opportunity for me to

10:54reinvent who I wanted to be. I met a family in 2014 that changed my entire life. They were very

11:01instrumental in my career. They taught me that education could really be a platform to unleash

11:06my potential in the world. And so I started slow to go fast. And I enrolled at Utah Valley

11:10University. I majored in behavioral science and worked full-time simultaneously and then transferred to

11:15the University of Utah. And I was fortunate to get into the same program that Carlton got into,

11:19which was the HBS 2 Plus 2 Deferred. And he had reached out. And he said, you're working in this

11:26occupation called private equity. What in the world is that? But it sounds pretty cool. And the first

11:32conversation we had was, what has carried interest? And we start to develop a relationship beyond

11:37professional. And we had a couple events in Salt Lake City, Utah. And we really built special

11:45friendship. And one day, I called him and said, I have a crazy idea. And I want you to be a part of it.

11:55We're going to launch a venture capital firm.

11:57This is when you guys are in as students together?

11:59We were not students. So this was six months before we attended Harvard Business School.

12:04Wow. Okay.

12:05So I was working for a growth equity firm based out of Salt Lake City, Utah. They were focused on lower

12:11mid-market growth software investments. Fabulous opportunity to learn the art and science of

12:17investing. Carlton was at a family office out of Arkansas, very prominent family. He was doing the

12:22same type of work. And in fact, we actually overlapped and shared work when we were at our

12:27respective firms. I was moonlighting a business on the side when I was at this investment firm.

12:34And I decided to resign to take the business through a sale process.

12:38What was the business?

12:38Early admin.

12:40Okay.

12:41Yep. And we had bolted on other product categories beyond that. It really exploded in growth.

12:4680 employees, large university systems as customers, sold to private equity.

12:50Wow. That's your side job. That's pretty good.

12:52That was a side job. It was a grind. My wife didn't love it, but it was great. And

12:58I had resigned and then sold the business and was thinking about what next. And this was,

13:04there were so many things that were really emerging and there was a light bulb

13:09in the bottom moment for us. And we ended up doing it together. And it was, it's been the best

13:15decision we've ever made.

13:16Wow. So you guys met and partnered and started a VC firm before even your first day at HBS.

13:22Yes.

13:22And then how, tell me how that worked. You went to school and then you ran that,

13:26moonlighted the VC firm. Like tell me how that got started.

13:29So in January, 2023, we set out to raise a million dollars for this proof of concept fund.

13:37And we went out and fundraised. And that was, that was an amazing experience because we learned it from

13:44the ground up. I mean, we didn't have a network of capital. We took zero attribution from our prior

13:48firms. We didn't, we didn't have a tier one resume. We mapped ecosystems. We built a sales funnel. We

13:56learned how to fundraise. And really one of the most challenging economic environments for an emerging

14:02manager. 80% of the capital of total VC dollars were actually going to establish firms. And of the 20%

14:08of capital, those were going to tier one spin outs. So we weren't trying to be a part of that

14:14herd mentality. We had to go to the areas where others weren't actually willing to venture. We raised an

14:21oversubscribed round that closed. We had our final close in early August, 2025, which was right before we

14:28attended HBS. We managed that fund. We deployed that fund. We helped our founders. And we went and

14:36raised a second fund during business school. We did that simultaneously. And it was challenging in many

14:41respects. But we learned quite a lot, I'd say quite a lot. What's the biggest lesson you guys learned from

14:48that? Time management.

14:51What's the trick to time management? Everyone's juggling work-life balance. What is your time

14:57management advice? Ruthless prioritization. If you just ask yourself at the beginning of each day,

15:03what are the two to three most important things that I could get done today that would really move

15:07the needle? And then you have to focus on those. And you're going to get bombarded with 300

15:12notifications a day. And you just have to find a way to keep those out.

15:15What is the kind of, right now, venture capital is going through an inflection point for many,

15:22many reasons. What are you seeing now? What is the environment like?

15:26I mean, it's unknown. It's uncertain, which can create a lot of opportunity. And I think there are

15:35good behaviors that are existing in the market right now, such as the advent of AI. We really believe

15:41that there is a tectonic shift that is existing right now in the technology market that is going

15:48to provide the most value capture we've ever seen. While that is true, that can create challenges.

15:55How do you enter in a deal that is fairly priced from a multiple-party standpoint that,

16:01for us, our customer is the limited partner? How can we think about the entry price relative to the

16:07exit price such that we can provide a return to our limited partners? That is top decile. That is

16:13challenging in today's market because you have established venture capitalists that are actually coming

16:18down market and they're competing with emerging managers. And they have the pockets to do so, right? And so

16:25that's creating some tricky dynamics. In the same vein, we are moving from a cottage industry to a

16:34commoditized industry. And I actually believe we're going back to a period of time where you have to

16:41differentiate yourself. And by doing that, you can actually create alpha in the marketplace. And so

16:47that's where we're hitching our wagons. That's where we're seeing a lot of opportunities.

16:52We kind of find that opportunities within AI today are really being corralled in a certain spot. And what if

16:59you can find neglected investment opportunities that some of the other individuals and parties

17:04aren't seeing, can you serve them in a way that can create an outsized return? We see that quite

17:10frequently. Carlton, if you're meeting with a founder and they want to win a deal from you,

17:17what are you looking for? What advice do you have for a founder who's out there raising money right

17:22now and talking to your firm? In our view, the entire world is being recreated right now.

17:28Like if you just kind of zoom out, there are moments in time where venture capital does

17:34extraordinarily well because there's some sort of new technological technological innovation that

17:39changes human behavior. And there's all sorts of opportunities that are born in those moments.

17:44We're undeniably in one of those moments, possibly the biggest moment of our lifetime. And so there's

17:50endless opportunities. I mean, nobody has an excuse not to be starting a business right now.

17:55And so my encouragement to them would be think systematically, if you're looking for an idea,

18:00you're looking for the next opportunity, think systematically about the US economy and go

18:06break it down industry by industry. And then within every industry, you can find sub verticals that are

18:10interesting. And within a sub vertical, you can identify some type of white collar job that are currently

18:17being performed by typically middle management or lower entry level jobs. Those most of those within

18:25five to 10 years, it's inevitability that they will be automated. And so if you can bring in a really

18:30great commercial founder, a really excellent chief technology officer, and you go and just hyper focus

18:36on solving that niche problem in a space that's large enough for you to have a good venture exit. So a

18:41billion dollar potential business size, but it's not so big that it's attracting all the attention from

18:47the biggest fish in the ponds, if you will, then you can really create a very valuable business.

18:51And then, and then I would encourage them to think about how they can create a wedge product,

18:56something that is really interesting, that solves a real problem for a business as a way to get their

19:01foot in the door. And then over time, they can map out more and more of what a human's job looks

19:08like. And they can solve more of those adjacent problems. And then that's a way for them to

19:11expand their contract size and really build a giant business.

19:14Devon, we were saying, I was talking to Carlton before about, you know, half your job is you're

19:19out there raising money, you're asking for money. And then the other half of your job is people asking

19:22you for money. What advice do you have as an investor, but also a fundraiser? Advice raising money?

19:30And how has been both sides of the coin kind of, how does that affect how you guys work?

19:35I think in part, it goes to what Carlton says, is think about the opportunity, the idea that you

19:45want to solve a customer need. And by doing that, you have something that's different. And this is

19:50from the founder lens. And so don't be afraid to go down that discovery path and that experimental

19:58process. And don't be afraid of failure in doing that. Build trust with with your investors early

20:07on. I think there's this general concept that founders have that if I put my idea out there,

20:13that it's just going to be stolen, and somebody's, you know, going to capitalize on it. And I'd argue

20:18that a lot of the most successful founders that we've seen in our time and before are the ones who

20:25actually execute a specific playbook and a strategy. And while the idea is big and there's

20:31some timing elements to it and the why now insight, they have really started to think deeply about all

20:38of the different pieces that that they need to fill the puzzle in. Our pitch is that we actually have

20:44a unique model, a why now moment in 2020, something fundamentally changed across the MBA landscape.

20:50Okay, you had to be a deferred MBA, you had to be there in 2020 at the right time, and you had to

20:57have the right investor background. And we had all three of those things. And granted, we weren't perfect,

21:03we, we complemented that and supplemented that with creating the right network of people,

21:10either with gray hair or no hair, who can help us think about some of the missteps and challenges

21:15along the way. But we were well positioned to capitalize on that opportunity. That is unique,

21:21there's no other fund doing that, we can target a specific founder profile that has historically

21:27and continues to be true today, outperformed the rest of the market. We can target them up to five

21:33years before any venture capitalist. Okay, we are non traditional, we don't look like your normal

21:38venture capitalist. And we view that as an advantage, not a disadvantage. The average age of a unicorn

21:44founder is 28. We're not too far off. And so we can speak, we can relate to them, we can familiarize

21:51ourselves with new technology tools that, you know, we think we can come in and add real value to them.

21:58And that is the pitch to our limited partners is if you're looking for something new that has the

22:03ability to create alpha, we're the two people who can, who we believe can do it.

22:08Wow, cool. Devon, Carlton, thank you guys so much.

22:11Thank you. Thank you.

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