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The Twenty Minute VCAydin Senkut: How I Scaled from a $4M Angel Fund to $900M AUM | 20VC #890
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At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Aydin Senkut Explains Building Felicis From Scrappy Solo to $900M
- Aydin Senkut recounts his path from leaving Google to starting Felicis as a solo GP with a $41M debut fund and scaling it into a $900M AUM, multi-stage, global venture franchise.
- He explains how unorthodox strategy, flexible ownership, and an obsession with backing the world’s best companies—rather than optimizing for price—have underpinned the firm’s performance.
- The discussion covers today’s high-valuation early-stage environment, competition from crossover funds, portfolio construction, and the importance of diversification across stage, sector, geography, and vintage.
- Senkut also digs into firm-building: hiring for extreme growth mindset, running with “success with empathy” as Felicis’s operating principle, learning from misses, and scaling support for founders.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasOptimize to back the best companies, not to win the lowest price.
Senkut argues that over a decade-plus, paying 2–4x more on entry is inconsequential if the company ends up 10–20x bigger than expected; being in the outliers matters far more than perfect entry valuation.
Use flexible ownership strategies to get into great deals, then build stake.
Felicis sometimes starts with small, ‘strategic’ checks when that’s the only way in, then earns the right to increase ownership by demonstrating value and doubling or tripling down in later rounds.
Design fund size and pace from a model, not from LP demand or ego.
Each Felicis fund is sized via a deployment and portfolio-construction model (target number of companies, stage mix, ability to lead rounds) rather than simply raising as much as LPs will give.
Diversify across sectors, geographies, and vintages—not just company count.
Senkut believes 40–50 companies per fund, spread across different markets, regions, and years, creates a healthier, more resilient venture portfolio than hyper-concentrated 15–20 company strategies.
Hire for extreme growth mindset and cultural fit, not just pedigree.
He finds picking people even harder than picking companies and emphasizes that high talent without a growth mindset and cultural alignment does not work at Felicis.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesYou cannot copy and paste your way to the top of competition.
— Aydin Senkut
I would rather sacrifice valuation and ownership than sacrifice being in the world’s best companies.
— Aydin Senkut
We think picking companies is hard; I think picking people is a hundred times harder.
— Aydin Senkut
Our guiding principle is success with empathy. Empathy doesn’t mean it’s all Kumbaya.
— Aydin Senkut
You cannot build a great franchise just turning down companies. You have to say yes to some great companies.
— Aydin Senkut
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
