Scott Lenet

Scott Lenet is a Los Angeles-based venture capitalist and entrepreneur with more than three decades in the industry. He began his venture career in 1992 as the first associate at Geocapital Partners, a late-stage technology investment firm. He later took an operating detour as co-founder and CEO of SmartFrog.com — described as the first cash-back rewards program for online shopping — which was acquired by Cybergold, and also held a product marketing role at Trilogy Software in Austin, Texas. He holds an AB in Comparative Literature from Princeton University and an MBA in Entrepreneurial Management from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 2002 Lenet co-founded DFJ Frontier (now Frontier Venture Capital), an early-stage fund making West Coast investments as part of the Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) Network. He served as its managing partner and remains a co-founder and Managing Partner at Frontier, overseeing fund operations, fundraising, and portfolio management, and sitting on the boards of portfolio companies.

In 2014 Lenet co-founded Touchdown Ventures with David Horowitz and Rich Grant, pioneering a "venture capital as a service" model in which the firm partners with large corporations to launch and professionally manage their in-house venture capital programs. In 2024, Touchdown Ventures merged with the wealth-management firm Cerity Partners, where Lenet is now a Partner and President of Cerity Partners Ventures, focused on corporate venture capital including its industrial manufacturing and food & agriculture practices.

Lenet is also a longtime educator and commentator. He co-founded the UC Davis Entrepreneurship Center and taught there for seven years, has been a visiting professor of Corporate Innovation at UCLA Anderson, and is an adjunct professor teaching venture capital and entrepreneurship at USC's Marshall School of Business. He is a frequent contributor to Forbes and TechCrunch and writes about corporate innovation and venture capital on Medium and LinkedIn.

• Invests at seed and early stages, historically through Frontier/DFJ Frontier, with a preference for companies that can build a durable, defensible position rather than chase hype.
• Champions corporate venture capital as a differentiated source of value: large companies can provide "customer revenue, established distribution networks, scientific expertise, and supply chain benefits" that took "decades and billions of dollars to build."
• Wants proof of real economics: startups should demonstrate measurable value, prove results quickly, and have "referenceable customers" rather than looking like "just a toy or a fad."
• On enduring companies (his own words): *"What are we really doing to produce companies that are enduring, can actually create a defensible lead position in their niche?"*
• Recognizes the culture gap he helps bridge: *"Corporations and startups can help each other, but they don't speak the same language. They're not good at the same things."*
• Through Touchdown/Cerity, focus sectors have included media, consumer products, agriculture, healthcare, security/enterprise software, industrial manufacturing, and food & agriculture.