Show notes
General
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Links about VC scout programs
General stuff about deal sourcing
- LP Corner: How VCs Source Deals
- OpenLP: When Money Isn’t Enough: How to Distinguish Yourself as a VC in a Crowded Market
What Scout Programs Are
- Scout Programmes (#7 edition of The Rookie VC newsletter, published on Substack by Ulysse Laroche)
- Super good
- Established VCs turn to "super angels" to grow their network (Kia Kokalitcheva for Axios)
- Founder Investors & Scout Programs (Elad Gil on his blog)
- A view from the other side: “VCs are exploiting underrepresented people to solve their diversity problems” (Anisah Osman Britton in Sifted.eu)
Examples of Scout Programs At Established Firms
- Sequoia Capital
- Sarah Lacy's 2012 article about Sequoia's scouting program is super good. It explains the strategy of spinning up LLCs for scouts.
- Connie Loizos's 2019 article for TC is also very good.
- Canaan Partners
- Village Global
- A16Z
- Upfront Ventures
- Lightspeed Venture Partners (This year focusing on bringing together people from Black, Latinx, Indigenous and Pacific Islander communities)
- Accel
- Founders Fund
- Index Ventures
- Spark Capital
- First Round Capital
VC Scout Programs Today
- Indie.vc has a wide scouting program. The firm also launched what it calls a Cub Scouting program.
- Spearhead.co basically gives founders a $1M "search fund" they deploy into startups of their choosing.
- Cleo Capital, launched by former Sequoia scout Sarah Kunst, has a scout program primarily comprised of women in business
About The Co-Hosts
- Jason D. Rowley is a researcher and writer at Golden.com. He volunteers with startup outreach for the open-source community and sends occasional newsletters from Rowley.Report.
- Graham C. Peck is a Venture Partner with Cultivation Capital and additionally helps companies build technology development teams in partnership with Brightgrove and other technology development organizations.