Black-Led Measured Capital Launches Program To Help Birmingham, AL, Community Make Their First Angel Investment – AfroTech

Douglas Watson is helping the Birmingham, AL, community become angel investors.

Watson was 6 years old when his father, who worked for 20 years as a phone technician for BellSouth, started his own business from his basement in Montgomery, AL. That business earned millions of dollars in revenue before he sold the venture during Watson’s sophomore year at college. At the time, Watson was attending the University of Alabama studying accounting, he shared in an interview with AFROTECH™.

“That was my first job … He went from part-time nights and weekends on his lunch break to, again, hiring full-time and ultimately selling it. So I got a chance to see what it was like up close, but also saw the good, the bad, the lack of resources that he had. That kind of started my journey as [an] entrepreneur,” Watson said.

Watson launched a couple of businesses of his own in college, the most successful of which was a watch business, he told AFROTECH™.

When reflecting on the challenges faced by Black business owners as a whole, he acknowledged that access to capital remains a barrier.

“As I grew, went into the workforce, started working with other entrepreneurs, that started to be a common theme, just being in Alabama,” he mentioned.

Watson has held a myriad of roles throughout his career. This includes working as an accounting specialist and business system analyst for his alma mater, then working in management consulting across multiple firms, before later launching his consulting practice. He also briefly was an employee at the auto-tech startup S(w)ervice, he told AFROTECH™.

After stepping away from S(w)ervice, Watson worked with angel investors, family offices, and high-net-worth individuals to source deals before leading operations for an Atlanta-based venture capital firm, SoTech Ventures. From there he joined a healthcare-focused accelerator through gener8tor, where he led funding efforts and partnered with organizations including Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

“We sourced companies from all over the U.S. that are working on healthcare and looking to scale. Did that for a couple of years, and then had the itch to start something else,” Watson said.

Measured Capital

In 2022, Watson launched Measured Capital, a venture capital firm investing across three primary pillars: care, workforce resilience, and financial access. Its portfolio includes Dopl Technologies, a Seattle-based company that leverages robotics and AI to deliver high-quality diagnostics and reduce disparities in healthcare access, according to its website. Additionally, Moxi is a Birmingham-based, mom-founded and parent-led software platform designed to make childcare more affordable.

Measured Capital has invested in 14 U.S.-based companies with a “lens for the Southeast,” Watson noted to AFROTECH™.

“We try to look for ways that all our portfolio companies are connected to Alabama, whether it’s through a customer or partnership or new hires,” Watson explained. “We try to figure out how we can connect them. So for example, with Dopl, we are looking for ways to get them plugged in locally. We also have investors here that will invest in those companies too. So whether it’s through capital or whether it’s through resources, yes, we invest outside the state, but we try to bring some kind of connection to the state.”

Measured Access Scholars

The firm also has a program for students launched in 2025 to introduce them to venture capital, whether by working in a fund or entrepreneurship through direct work with its portfolio companies.

One student fellow is conducting due diligence for a portfolio company and working closely with the syndicate. Two other student fellows are interested in investing in a portfolio company, he shared.

“It’s really creating a flywheel for me and Measured. So if I look at — it could be new investors, but it could also be new founders based on their experience. And so since we work with them, we are typically the first call if they need to raise capital,” Watson expressed.

The program launched with a focus on college students but expanded to reach high schoolers, who will learn how to identify problems they are looking to solve through entrepreneurship, he explained.

Measured Angel Collective

The venture capital firm’s latest initiative is the kickoff of the Measured Angel Collective, which brings together Birmingham residents interested in becoming angel investors, many of whom have already started investing outside the syndicate.

The launch coincided with Sloss Tech Week, the South’s premier tech and innovation conference held June 24-26 in Birmingham.

“The capital is here. It’s just the knowledge of what angel investing is, who’s in this space. So we’re trying to bridge that gap between just knowing what the word is to actually creating angels. And the hope is that they will invest outside of Alabama,” Watson explained.

As for what’s ahead for Measured Capital, he said it’s in the process of raising  Fund 1.