Two Harvard Business School Students Just Raised $25 Million to Invest in Startups—Here's Why
Devon Gethers and Karlton Haney have raised over $35 million across two investment funds. Their newest fund has $25 million to invest, and they're using it to back early-stage technology startups founded by graduates of top business schools like Harvard, Stanford, and Wharton. The pair are still MBA students themselves—Harvard Business School class of 2025.
In just two years, Meridian Ventures (their firm) has invested in 45 startups. Two of their most successful bets so far: Cast AI, valued at $900 million, and OneImaging, valued at $250 million. These are not yet public companies—these are estimates of what investors think they're worth right now.
Why MBA Graduates?
The traditional model in Silicon Valley has long been to bet on college dropouts or self-taught engineers—people like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Gethers and Haney are betting on the opposite: people with formal business school training.
Their reasoning is straightforward. They point out that the average age of founders who build billion-dollar companies is 28—close to the age of an MBA graduate. More importantly, they argue that an MBA gives entrepreneurs something that raw engineering talent alone may not: experience in managing teams, understanding finances, and knowing how to sell to large companies. In software businesses that sell to other companies (not consumers), these skills can be just as important as brilliant technology.
Cast AI is a good example. It's a tool that helps large companies manage their cloud computing costs—a practical business problem, not a flashy consumer app. Companies like this often succeed or fail based on whether the founder can navigate corporate sales and operations. That's exactly what an MBA trains you for.
The Bigger Picture
The venture capital world has cooled considerably since 2021 and 2022, when startups were raising huge amounts of money with little concern about whether they'd ever be profitable. Today, investors care more about the basics: Can the company actually make money? Does the founder know how to run a business?
This shift may work in Gethers and Haney's favor. If the pendulum has swung back toward favoring operational skill and business discipline over pure technical innovation, MBA graduates become more attractive as founders. That's different from a decade ago, when Silicon Valley often dismissed business school as unnecessary overhead.
There is a real risk to concentrate your entire investment strategy on one group of people. If the economy stumbles, MBA enrollments fall, or the market suddenly favors a different kind of founder, Meridian could find its advantage disappears. But for now, the firm's early track record suggests the bet is paying off.
What makes this story interesting is not that two young investors raised capital—that happens all the time—but that they're successfully arguing for a different kind of founder in a world that has long preferred another kind. Whether this approach proves durable as their portfolio companies mature, and as broader market cycles shift, will take several more years to know.
