Rob leads 1Sharpe’s Investment Committee and is a member of its Operating Committee. Rob was instrumental in designing the firm’s investment strategy and has been actively involved in strategic loan and real estate investments since 2016. Before co-founding 1Sharpe, Rob spent nearly 30 years investing in bonds, loans, and real estate. Most recently he was a Portfolio Manager at Cerberus Capital Management within their $5 billion mortgage hedge fund. Prior to Cerberus, Rob co-founded Dwell Finance, a lender to investors of single family homes, was sold to a unit of Blackstone, as well as Five Ten Capital where he raised, invested, and successfully liquidated three private equity funds that acquired, renovated, and managed 6,000 single family rental homes across the United States. He spent 12 years at Putnam where he was Head of Fixed Income overseeing $60 billion in assets and cofounded the firm’s absolute return and hedge fund strategies. His career began in the mortgage divisions of Salomon Brothers and Lehman Brothers. Rob is a graduate of Washington University, in St. Louis.
Gregor Watson, an active member of 1Sharpe’s Investment and Operating Committees, spearheads numerous strategic investments for 1Sharpe. Leveraging his extensive network of real estate operators, lenders, and entrepreneurs, he creates significant investment opportunities. Prior to co-establishing 1Sharpe, Watson had an influential role in shaping the single-family rentals sector and the technology underpinning its growth. Gregor founded 643 Capital Management LLC, a private equity firm in the real estate sector, credited with acquiring, renovating, and managing single-family homes throughout the United States. Building on his deep understanding of the single-family housing market, Gregor also co-created Roofstock, Inc., an online marketplace for single-family rental homes. Maintaining his position as Chairman, he has guided the platform to become the industry’s largest, offering comprehensive solutions for investment access, research expertise, and operational support to real estate investors. Companies under Gregor’s stewardship have acquired over 30,000 homes across the US. Gregor’s entrepreneurial endeavors extend beyond real estate. He co-founded Zibo, Inc., a landlord-focused digital bank, Creative Juice, a financial platform catering to digital content creators, and Vellum, a reinsurance platform with an emphasis on AI. He also played a role in establishing Dwell Finance LLC, a finance company for single-family home investors, which was later acquired by Blackstone. On the philanthropic front, Watson is known for co-founding the Flagstone Initiative, a national non-profit organization committed to preventing homelessness and equipping workforce housing tenants and landlords with necessary tools. In his local community, Gregor serves as a board member for the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland, following a stint with the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation. Watson began his professional trajectory as a founding member of McKinley Capital Partners, managing their distressed housing and debt funds. He earned a BA from Regis University in Denver, Colorado.
We love talking to founders and partners who share our vision for a better built world. We will do our best to respond if we see a potential fit to work together.