This year’s Fortune 500 list came out yesterday, with Walmart topping the list and newcomers like Oscar Health and Palo Alto Networks debuting at 437 and 470, respectively.
The relationship between Fortune 500s and startups often functions like a two-way street. Startups work hard to land Fortune 500 companies as customers—and in rare cases, eventually become giants themselves. (Google, Meta, Amazon, DoorDash, Salesforce, Oscar, Palo Alto Networks, and Airbnb are just some examples of F500 companies that started as venture-backed dreams.)
Few people have a better view of that bridge than Scott Lenet, a longtime venture investor who now helps large companies invest in startups—some of which, in the runaway best-case scenarios, eventually join their ranks. In the AI boom, it’s easy to imagine future Fortune 500s emerging. It’s just hard to know which ones.
“Part of the question that as an industry we have to ask is: What are we really doing to produce companies that are enduring, can actually create a defensible lead position in their niche? This is where I think the corporates can add a lot of value, because we bring revenue by being a customer,” said Lenet, now partner at Cerity Partners. “We bring distribution through networks that are already established, that may have taken decades and billions of dollars to build. We bring some scientific expertise to make your product better, supply chain benefits, and marketing power. Those are things that when I was a traditional VC, I didn’t have the power to do.”
Lenet, once a managing partner at DFJ Frontier, holds a unique spot in the VC ecosystem—for more than a decade, he’s provided venture capital as a service to massive companies, advising on strategy, diligence, founder relationships, and M&A opportunities. Last year, Lenet’s CVC advisory firm Touchdown Ventures merged with wealth management firm Cerity Partners. They saw potential to cross-pollinate their client bases, as Cerity CEO Kurt Micinski put it: “Increasingly, as business leaders see things and they’re acting in the capacity of their professional role, they can’t help but get curious about [investments].”
We first connected last fall, and Lenet and I kept up since as the CVC landscape has continued to evolve.
“What we’re seeing in the market, generally, for corporations right now is profits, growth, dividends—the blocking and tackling of being a business,” said Lenet. “Investing is going to continue to focus on what’s real, that proves value, versus what’s maybe hype. And that’s interesting for venture capital generally, because there’s always a risk that we get caught up in a hype cycle. And AI can be either, right? We’ve seen this through investments that we tend to make with our corporate partners: How is this going to generate economic value? How fast can we prove it? What referenceable customers can tell us that’s likely to be true? How do I know it’s not just a toy or a fad?”
Large corporations and CVCs have a translation problem.
“Corporations and startups can help each other, but they don’t speak the same language,” said Lenet. “They’re not good at the same things, and it really takes assistance to figure out what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and how we do it.”
Rob Martens, president of Allegion Ventures, a client of Touchdown’s and now Cerity’s, said that for CVCs and entrepreneurs, the relationship can make serious sector-specific sense. (Allegion, which makes locks and other security products, has a market cap of about $12 billion and is in the S&P 500).
“[When launching Allegion Ventures in 2018] we were asking: How do we break out of this innovator’s dilemma? How do we interact with these more modern entrepreneurial voices?” Martens told Fortune. “What we found was that if we can create a structure where we can create a faster connection between entrepreneurs and the leaders of these sometimes 100-year old businesses—the knowledge that can be transferred within a 15 or 20 minute phone call is pretty huge.”
The Fortune 500 shifts each year, but one thing remains: A handful of tomorrow’s entrants are today’s startups—helped along by the ones already on the list.
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
X: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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Venture Deals
- Aerones, a Riga, Latvia-based robot-powered wind turbine inspection and maintenance services provider, raised $62 million in funding. Activate Capital and S2G Investments led the round and were joined by Carbon Equity, Overlap Holdings, existing investors Lightrock, Blume Equity, Metaplanet, and others.
- OatFi, a New York City-based B2B payments platform, raised $24 million in Series A funding. White Star Capital led the round and was joined by existing investors Portage and QED.
- Rally UXR, a New York City-based User Research CRM, raised $11 million in Series A funding. Canapi Ventures led the round and was joined by existing investors Stage 2 Capital and Y Combinator.
- GC AI, a San Francisco-based AI platform in-house legal teams, raised $10 million in Series A funding. Sound Ventures led the round and was joined by Fellows Fund, Guillermo Rauch, Gokul Rajaram, and others.
- Archil, a San Francisco-based cloud storage company, raised $6.7 million in seed funding. Felicis led the round and was joined by Y Combinator, Peak XV, Wayfinder, angel investors, and others.
- deepdots, a Copenhagen-based AI-powered customer feedback analysis platform, raised €5.5 million ($6.3 million) in seed funding. Dawn Capital led the round and was joined by Maki.vc and Geeta Schmidt.
- Freeplay, a Boulder-based AI products and agents building platform, raised $5.6 million in seed funding. Renegade Partners led the round and was joined by Next Frontier Capital, PWV, Vermillion Cliffs Ventures, existing investors Conviction and Matchstick Ventures, and others.
- Valla, an Edinburgh-based legal support platform, raised £2 million ($2.7 million) in seed funding. Ada Ventures and Active Partners led the round and were joined by Portfolio Ventures and existing investors Techstart Ventures and the Resolution Foundation.
- Truely, a Singapore-based eSIM technology company, raised $2 million in funding from DG Daiwa Ventures, Goodwater Capital, Disrupt.com, and existing investor Beenext.
Private Equity
- Accel-KKR acquired a majority stake in CareLineLive, a West Sussex, England-based home care management platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Arax Investment Partners, backed by RedBird Capital Partners, acquired Schechter Investment Advisors, the Birmingham, Mich.-based RIA business of Schechter Wealth. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- First Reserve and Fortress Investment Group agreed to acquire a majority stake in Island Energy Services, a Kapolei, Hawaii-based integrated fuel logistics and infrastructure provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Grays Peak Capital and Valore Ventures acquired SencorpWhite, a Hyannis, Mass.-based automation and storage solutions provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Grays Peak Capital and Valore Ventures acquired Tompkins Solutions, an Orlando-based supply chain consulting and automation services provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Swander Pace Capital acquired Maple Donuts, a York, Pa.-based frozen bakery products manufacturer. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Other
- Herc acquired H&E Equipment Services, a Baton Rouge-based equipment rental company, for $78.75, in cash, per share of H&E’s common stock and 0.1287 shares of Herc Rentals common stock.
- Pyx Health, a Tucson-based engagement and care platform backed by a $47.5 million investment from S2G Investments, acquired FarmboxRx, a Boston-based healthcare food company. Financial terms were not disclosed.
- Quadient acquired Serensia, a Paris-based electronic invoicing platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.
IPOs
- Circle Internet Group, a New York City-based stablecoin issuer, plans to raise $896 million in an offering of 32 million shares (60% secondary) priced between $27 and $28 on the NYSE. The company posted $1.9 billion in revenue for the year ending March 31, 2025. Accel, Breyer Capital, General Catalyst, IDG Capital, Oak Investment Partners, and FMR back the company.
- Chime Financial, a San Francisco-based mobile banking services provider, plans to raise $832 million in an offering of 32 million shares (19% secondary) priced between $24 and $26 on the Nasdaq. The company posted $1.8 billion in revenue for the year ending March 31, 2025. DST Global, Crosslink Capital, Access Industries Management, General Atlantic, Menlo Ventures, Cathay Innovation, and ICONIQ Strategic Partners back the company.
- Voyager Technologies, a Denver-based defense and space technology company, plans to raise $319 million in an offering of 11 million shares priced between $26 and $29 on the NYSE. The company posted $148 million in revenue for the year ending March 31, 2025. Dylan Taylor backs the company.
People
- Sierra Ventures, a San Mateo, Calif.-based venture capital firm, added Ashish Kakran as a partner. Previously, he was at Thomvest Ventures.
