Demetrius Gray is the Blazer winner in the CEO category for KY Inno's inaugural Fire Awards. To read more about the other Blazer winners, click here.
Entrepreneur Demetrius Gray’s business pursuits are often driven by his intellectual curiosity.
Gray began his career as an accountant in the construction sector, but his interest in learning how the world works led him to building technology companies focused on adapting to climate change, specifically related to natural disasters.
“Sometimes you stumble into a problem, right? Like, why is it that Hurricane Katrina affected the Lower Ninth Ward so badly? Why did it take so long to resolve? That community is still not rebuilt,” Gray said. “And even more relevant to us are the issues surrounding the Western Kentucky tornadoes.”
Gray launched fintech company Captain in 2021 to make money available to policyholders and their contractors after natural disasters so that they can start rebuilding right away, rather than waiting on funds from insurance.
Gray, the CEO, has raised more than $104 million in financing for Captain, including $4 million in a seed round led by NFX and $100 million in debt financing from CoVenture. He said in many ways, Captain is a natural progress from his previous startup, WeatherCheck, a meteorology-focused online platform used to monitor housing properties for damages caused by hail and other major weather events.
“Captain specifically deals with the financial need, and WeatherCheck was dealing with the scientific and atmospheric data-side of the conversation,” he said.
Here's more from Gray in a Q&A:
You raised more than $100 million for Captain already, are you still raising capital?
My goal is to make Captain a $30 billion company right here in Louisville. So, that’s gonna take us a little bit of time. But we’re certainly reaching for that, and we’re talking about employing a lot of people and solving a really, really big problem.
On an annualized basis, there is $92 billion in claims a year for severe weather, and then you think of all the other insurance claims on top of that, it is nearly $450 billion annually.
How many employees do you have now?
Today, we’re at 17. We’re continuing to grow our team and really making longer-term commitments to this community even in terms of office space.
We’re making plans for what the next 10,000 or 30,000 square feet might look like.
Climate change still seems like a polarizing issue. Are you concerned about the political headwinds surrounding the issue?
I have to tell you that people suspend debate when they’ve lost their home. It just sort of goes away. The conversations that we have around greenhouse gas emissions and some of these other things don’t even come up when one of our neighbors loses all that they know.
I’m encouraged by really the unity that we’ve seen after these events, whether that’s Western Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky or Fort Myers, Florida.
What advice would you give to your younger self? Are there lessons you’ve learned over the years that you bring to your new project?
In the same way that an athlete trains for a Monday Night Football game, you as a CEO or an entrepreneur need to really train and get ready for the performance that’s forthcoming. People are expecting you to perform and to execute well.
Really, a lot of things started to look up for me as a leader, when I began to realize that this is actually a performance and there’s a level of expectation.
Other finalists in the CEO Fire Awards category:
Jane Mosbacher Morris
(Lexington, Kentucky)
Jane Mosbacher Morris is founder of Lexington-based To the Market and author of “Buy the Change You Want to See: Use Your Purchasing Power for Good.” Her company, which connects retailers to ethical and sustainable suppliers, has clients such as Bloomingdale’s, Burlington, Nordstrom, Target and TJ Maxx.
Ankur Gopal
(Louisville)
Ankur Gopal, founder and CEO of Interapt, made headlines in September after his Louisville-based tech services firm announced a partnership with CVS Health and Discovery Partners Institute (DPI), a part of the University of Illinois system, to offer a new program, Chicago/Skills, that will provide tuition-free technology training and paid apprenticeship opportunities to as many as 2,500 Chicagoans over five years.
Steven Plappert
(Louisville)
A decade after founding Fantasy Hub, Steven Plappert has grown his new software-as-a-service startup into a $1 million-plus annual recurring revenue company. Since the start of 2022, Forecastr has tripled its revenue and doubled its customer base year-to-date. Plappert was recently named a Business First Most Admired CEO for 2022.
Rachel DesRochers
(Newport, Kentucky)
Rachel DesRochers is the founder of the Incubator Kitchen Collective in Newport, Kentucky, and CEO of the Gratitude Collective. Currently, 45 food-related companies work out of the Incubator Kitchen Collective every month. One of its members is Grateful Grahams a handmade vegan graham cracker company DesRochers founded in 2010.
