Meridian Ventures, co-founded by Devon Gethers and Karlton Haney, has successfully closed an oversubscribed $35 million fund. This significant capital infusion is specifically earmarked for pre-seed and seed-stage enterprise technology companies across the United States, with a distinctive focus on supporting founders who, like Gethers and Haney themselves, have deferred MBA admissions. The firm’s core mission is to challenge the prevailing skepticism in Silicon Valley regarding the entrepreneurial potential of individuals with MBA backgrounds.

The genesis of Meridian Ventures stems from Gethers, 29, and Haney, 28, meeting through Harvard’s MBA deferred admission program in 2020. Their diverse professional journeys—Gethers’ experience in private equity and prior entrepreneurial ventures, and Haney’s background as an investor at The Stephens Group family office—converged with a shared vision. They identified an untapped pool of talent among deferred MBA candidates, believing these individuals possess unique insights and capabilities for launching successful startups. Before securing this institutional fund, the duo initially raised $2.5 million as a proof-of-concept, which enabled them to back 45 companies, validating their investment thesis.

The new fund will strategically deploy capital over the next three years, targeting average check sizes of $500,000 for pre-seed rounds and $750,000 for seed-stage investments. Meridian Ventures maintains an industry-agnostic approach within the broader enterprise technology landscape, having already committed capital to ventures spanning fintech, logistics, healthcare, and artificial intelligence. This initiative aims to bridge what the founders perceive as a growing gap between ambitious innovators building frontier technologies and the essential capital required to propel their ventures forward.