Meridian Ventures launched a $35M fund focused on MBA-deferred startups

Meridian Ventures was born out of a shared experience: delayed MBAs. Now, founders Devon Gethers and Karlton Haney have raised $35 million to support seed and seed companies started by people like them.

Gethers, 29, told TechCrunch the idea for the company arose after meeting Haney in a Harvard MBA. delayed admissions program in 2020.

Gethers grew up in poverty in Washington State, studied behavioral science and economics at the University of Utah, then moved into private equity before starting his own company (which he later exited). During that time, Haney grew up on a farm in Arkansas, raising chickens, birds, and “anything that flies,” Gethers said of his business partner.

Haney, 28, went on to study industrial engineering at the University of Arkansas and worked as an investment banker at the family office, the Stephens Group. The two met in 2023 with the idea of ​​setting up a company that caters to people with MBAs, which is skewed towards those who have dropped out.

“Our idea goes against the grain, what you hear in Silicon Valley that MBAs don’t make good founders,” said Gethers, referring to the belief that an MBA prepares students for corporate culture, not the flexible, freewheeling world of Silicon Valley.

To prove their point, Gethers and Haney went out and called themselves less likely prospects and knocked on doors until they got $2.5 million as a proof-of-concept fund to back 45 companies.

The pair attended Harvard Business School in the summer of 2023 and about a year later decided to try to raise their first fund. The money was tight, but the pair raised $35 million from LPs, including publicly traded banks, family offices, and Fortune 500 executives, Gethers said. He graduated from Harvard Business School in 2025.

The new fund will support technology startups in the United States. Meridian is agnostic, Gethers said, noting that the company has already invested in companies in fintech, logistics, healthcare, and, of course, AI. The size of the check will be $500,000 for pre-seed and $750,000 for seed, and the center expects to be deployed over the next three years.

“We saw a growing gap between startups wanting to develop frontier technologies and the capital needed to help advance those goals,” Gethers said. “With this $35 million fund, our goal is to close that gap.”

This article has been updated to ensure that the company also supports latecomers.