LA Venture Podcast: Touchdown Ventures' Scott Lenet Has Plans to Upend the 'Secretive' Venture Industry

Minnie Ingersoll
Minnie Ingersoll is a partner at TenOneTen and host of the LA Venture podcast. Prior to TenOneTen, Minnie was the COO and co-founder of $100M+ Shift.com, an online marketplace for used cars. Minnie started her career as an early product manager at Google. Minnie studied Computer Science at Stanford and has an MBA from HBS. She recently moved back to L.A. after 20+ years in the Bay Area and is excited to be a part of the growing tech ecosystem of Southern California. In her space time, Minnie surfs baby waves and raises baby people.
Scott Lenet Touchdown Ventures

On this week's episode of the L.A. Venture podcast, meet Scott Lenet, the co-founder and president of Touchdown Ventures — a firm that helps corporations run professional venture capital programs. Before creating Touchdown, Lenet was a managing partner at DFJ Frontier and has two decades of experience as a venture capitalist.


Touchdown Ventures helps corporate funds manage their venture outreach and streamline their investment program. Lenet says Touchdown is working with companies in health care, media, consumer products, agriculture, security enterprise software and has its foot in the door with two different banks.

Despite being a new company, Lenet says every time Touchdown adds an account, they expand their team. He describes the company as a "growing beast" that's "a corporate venture capital and innovation firm first" and a "recruiting and training firm" second. The firm is hiring right now, which is unusual in the venture world.

Education is a very important part of Lenet's work. He wants to upend the "secretive" venture industry by prioritizing training the next generation of venture capitalists and "demystify what this the industry is about." In addition to his work at Touchdown, Lenet teaches the "How to Be a Venture Capitalist" class at USC and "Corporate Innovation" at UCLA for their respective MBA programs.

Lenet is unique among venture capitalists in many ways, but notably in that he believes business needs more regulation. Within his own company, his view is that venture capitalists need to let entrepreneurs manage their businesses, and help their companies thrive from board positions.

"It's my job to keep you safe," He argues. "I think that that should apply to what our entrepreneurs do with their businesses, and our job to protect them as well as their junior people. And this is a business where we're professional fiduciaries for other people's money. Most of the money that VCs invest is not ours, right?"

Tune in to hear more from Scott Lenet on how he runs Touchdown Ventures, tips from his business classes, why he prioritizes training, and how he wants to use venture funds to create positive social impact.

"So I think that probably to me, one of the biggest myths that are still sitting out there is this idea that you have to choose between being strategic and being financial. And I would say it's like a false Sophie's choice. You should not pick one or the other. You should figure out how to maximize both." — Scott Lenet

Scott Lenet is the co-founder and president of Touchdown Ventures.

dot.LA Engagement Intern Colleen Tufts contributed to this post.

Want to hear more of L.A. Venture? Listen on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

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LA Tech ‘Moves’: Mapp Gains New CPO and CTO, Prodoscore Taps Boeing Exec

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

LA Tech ‘Moves’: Mapp Gains New CPO and CTO, Prodoscore Taps Boeing Exec
LA Tech ‘Moves’:

“Moves,” our roundup of job changes in L.A. tech, is presented by Interchange.LA, dot.LA's recruiting and career platform connecting Southern California's most exciting companies with top tech talent. Create a free Interchange.LA profile here—and if you're looking for ways to supercharge your recruiting efforts, find out more about Interchange.LA's white-glove recruiting service by emailing Sharmineh O’Farrill Lewis (sharmineh@dot.la). Please send job changes and personnel moves to moves@dot.la.

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This Week in ‘Raises’: GITAI Lands $30M, Steno Gains $15M

Decerry Donato

Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.

Raises
Image by Joshua Letona

A local space robotics startup raised fresh funding to expand the flight model manufacturing facilities throughout the U.S. and increase employment, while a remote litigation platform raised more funding to continue growing its footprint in new markets across the country, develop service channels for its clients and continue expanding its tech team.

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Gitai Raises $30 Million to Expand Manufacturing Footprint in Los Angeles

Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

Gitai Raises $30 Million to Expand Manufacturing Footprint in Los Angeles
\u200bPhoto: Gitai

Space robotics company Gitai raised a $30 million Series B extension this week, bringing the total value of the round to roughly $47 million.

The funding will be used to further develop Gitai’s suite of space robots as well as build out its manufacturing footprint in Torrance. Previously Gitai announced it raised a $17.1 million Series B in March 2021; this additional raise is still part of that round.

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