Scott Kurnit is an investor and advisor at the cross-section of media and technology. Scott founded and served as chairman and CEO of About, Inc. as it grew to a public market value exceeding $1.7 billion (About is now owned by The New York Times Co.). During his tenure, About was the fifth most visited Web property and first among newsand entertainment sites. About is the third company Scott has founded.
Scott, a holder of four patents, led the team that put the first Web browser into an online service, started the first Pay Per View cable network and co-led the team that implemented the first use of national caller ID. He was also the youngest program director in the PBS system and served as program director for Qube, the world’s first fully interactive cable system.
Employed directly or through joint ventures, Scott has worked at the highest levels of Warner, Viacom, News Corp., PBS, IBM, and MCI.
Scott, named one of Advertising Age’s annual “100 superstars of U.S. marketing,” has been inducted into the American Advertising Federation’s Hall of Achievement and won the prestigious Vanguard Award from the National Cable Television Association. He won an Emmy as producer of a weekly television news magazine; Upside recognized him as one of the “Elite 100” leading the digital revolution; and, he was cited three times as “a strategist to watch” by the Journal of Business Strategy.
Scott received his bachelor’s of arts in sociology and communications from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.
| Company | Date | Round | Size | Participants |
| ChallengePost | 8/11 | Series A | $500k | 11 |
| Smarterer | 6/11 | Unattributed | $1.25M | 8 |
| AdKeeper | 9/10 | Series A | $8M | 10 |
| Factual | 2/10 | Seed | $1M | 14 |
| About.me | 12/09 | Seed | $425k | 8 |
| Hot Potato | 11/09 | Series A | $1.42M | 15 |
| MashLogic | 6/09 | Seed | $500k | 4 |
| appssavvy | 10/08 | Series A | $3.1M | 2 |
| SendMe | 6/06 | Series A | $1.5M | 3 |
| Surphace | 4/05 | Series A | $500k | 9 |
