Fellowship Spotlight: Measured Capital
“I’ve been around entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship for close to three decades now,” says Founder and General Partner of Measured Capital, Douglas Watson. “My first introduction to entrepreneurship was my father. When I was six, he founded his first company in the basement of our home, so I got a chance to really see up close and personal how to build a company – not only by watching him, but also by eventually working for his company.”
He witnessed his father’s business grow from the basement of their home to a trailer he purchased and then into an entire building he bought in downtown Montgomery, Alabama, all before ultimately selling the business while Watson was in college. “I got to see every stage of being a founder,” he says. This invaluable experience positioned him to eventually become a founder himself.
The Measured Capital Approach
As a VC fund that’s looking to shift the dynamics of how, to whom, and where capital has been distributed to date, Measured Capital aims to invest in the Southeast and in support of Black-founded companies. “The core of our thesis is identifying and empowering founders who are building transformative companies outside of major tech hubs,” Watson explains, “and the focus is on revolutionizing the way we live, work, and retire.”
Within these three broad buckets, Measured Capital has a set of particular focus areas:
Live – HealthTech, Media & Entertainment, Climate & Sustainable Energy
Work – Future of Work, EdTech
Retire – AgingTech, InsurTech, RetirementTech
Targeting approximately 35 to 40 companies at the pre-seed, seed, and series A stages, Measured Capital is writing initial checks between $250K and $750K. Within their pre-seed investing, the fund is particularly focused on Black founders, whereas in the seed and series A stages, they’re aiming for half of the companies they’re investing in to be led by diverse founders.
A Measured Journey from Sports to VC
“I’ve always envisioned creating something to empower diverse individuals,” Watson shares. “I set out to go to college to be a sports agent because I wanted to empower athletes to become entrepreneurs themselves so they could be in control of their own brands. At the time, lots of athletes were having their money taken from them, and I wanted to support them to be the best athletes they could be, without having to worry about their money. Throughout my career, I’ve pivoted my focus, but the theme has always been on empowering individuals.”
While in college, Watson launched two companies – a sports apparel company focused on sports watches and a mobile application geared toward connecting students to police departments in less safe areas surrounding campus. Since then, he’s navigated his way through many different professional spaces, gathering skills and insights along the way that fortified his ability to create a promising VC fund.
Noticing an untapped need among entrepreneurs, he pivoted his focus and transitioned into learning how to build businesses through consulting work. “I learned how to invest by working closely with family offices; how to manage funds by becoming an employee of other venture capital firms; and how to raise money for a fund while leading an early-stage accelerator program.”
At each of these various steps, Watson has employed a measured approach to carefully learning how to build a firm before diving in. “Ultimately, when I decided to step out and build Measured Capital, I thought, I’ve always taken a more measured, data-driven approach,” which he says naturally led him to the name of his firm.
Carrying Forward a Legacy of Economic Development Through Entrepreneurship
“We’re always taught that you have to learn a skill to really be a thriving person within this society,” Watson reflects. “Part of that is developing the skills to be entrepreneurial, which for me is really about economic and workforce development, too. I think about how my father modeled that for me, and I want to be able to do that for my two sons. I don’t want them to be pigeon-holed into just one career; I want them to be able to go out and build the world that they envision.”
Throughout his own career, he’s seen that one particular demographic group has had more access to the resources and opportunities – relative to both capital and information – that position people to pursue entrepreneurship. “I’ve seen others who look like me lack access to the information to know what’s possible simply because they weren’t introduced to it.” Having grown up in the Southeast, Watson’s life experiences and perspectives have been shaped by his particular context, and he’s committed to doing his work in the region he calls home – which also happens to be home to the largest concentration of Black Americans.
“We’re headquartered in Atlanta and Birmingham, two cities where a lot of historical civil rights events have happened. I wanted to build here specifically for that reason,” he emphasizes. “There’s a wealth of knowledge and history on how this country moved forward through what happened in this region during the Civil Rights Movement, and I want to be a part of the next generation of movement that’s pushing access to capital for Black founders and other diverse founders.”
Even before building Measured Access, Watson was taking steps to create more access. As Managing Director of the Prosper HealthTech Accelerator based in Birmingham, he saw how he could play a role in expanding access. “We recruited from all over the country,” he shares, “and through the work we did, we showed them all the possibilities that the South had to offer.”
Many of the companies in the accelerator had never stepped foot in any part of the South. “We introduced them to opportunities that they didn’t have in their own cities, and through that, I helped relocate several companies to the state of Alabama,” he says, as an example of how his work is creating a positive impact in his beloved home region. “We helped push them beyond what they would have done if they stayed where they were previously located.”
A Comprehensive Platform
Measured Capital is nestled under the work of Measured Access, an economic development organization committed to facilitating access to capital; providing networking and mentorship opportunities; and fostering sustainable economic growth. “We’re really creating a community around access to capital,” Watson points out, clarifying that the fund is just one element of the firm’s community building effort.
The Measured Access Black Founder Fellowship Program is a key component of this effort, supporting the firm in working toward their mission of shifting the demographics of VC. As Watson explains, “By focusing on both financial backing and holistic business growth support, the Black Founder Fellowship seeks to level the playing field and foster a more diverse and inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem.”
The Fellowship Program connects Black founders with otherwise difficult-to-secure pre-seed investment and offers comprehensive support – including mentoring and networking connections; business development tools; and training services – to nurture the growth of their companies. “The emphasis is on providing early-stage Black founders with hands-on opportunities to grow their companies,” Watson shares, “from finding non-dilutive funding that will help them scale to intimate, individually focused strategy sessions that go beyond what we offer at the seed and series A stages.”
The firm’s broader effort also includes the pre-accelerator fellowship they’ve run multiple times; their soon-to-launch investment fellowship, for which they’re currently raising funds; and their student internship program. “With our HBCU Fellowship Program,” he explains, “we train and develop student interns from HBCUs in Alabama. We partner with the schools to pay for interns for our portfolio companies.”
This partnership both introduces entrepreneurship to students and provides high-quality interns for the companies in Measured Capital’s portfolio, free of charge to the founders themselves. “We use this as a sourcing mechanism,” Watson acknowledges, “but also as an educational platform to empower the next generation of entrepreneurs, who will hopefully launch businesses that we’ll be able to invest in down the line.” The 8-week business initiatives support interns with ideation, mentorship, coaching, and funding to assist students in developing marketable solutions and enhance key business competencies.
Participating in the VC Include Fellowship
“I had the fortune to talk to previous VC Include fellows before I joined,” Watson says, “and they encouraged me to join.” His experience in the fellowship lived up to the positive recollections from those who’d participated before him.
In addition to how impressed he was with how accessible our staff has been and how impactful the resources shared have been, he lifts up his peers as the most powerful element of the fellowship. “It’s been great being around other like-minded individuals who are building firms just like me. A lot of times, this work is lonely and can be siloed; having other people along the journey that you can reach out to leads to organic connections, which is how I really like to connect.” He elevates in particular the openness and willingness he’s experienced on behalf of former fellows. “They’ve been open to have candid conversations that I don’t think I’d get if I met them randomly at a conference.”
We look forward to seeing how much more access Measured Capital will create as Watson leverages the new connections he’s already made, and those he’ll continue to build up as his work progresses.
