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Aydin Senkut: How I Scaled from a $4M Angel Fund to $900M AUM | 20VC #890

Aydin Senkut is the Founder and Managing Partner of Felicis. An original super angel turned multi-stage investor, he has been named on the Forbes Midas List for the past nine years (2014-2022). Felicis has been an incredible 16-year journey starting with a $4M Fund I back in 2006, their most recent fund in 2021 was $900M. Along the way, Felicis has invested in over 45 unicorns including Adyen, Canva, Shopify, Notion, Opendoor, and Plaid. Prior to starting Felicis, Aydin was a Senior Manager at Google where he spent an incredible 6 years. --------------------------------------------- Timestamps: 0:00 The Founding of Felicis 4:00 How did your mindset change when moving from Angel to VC? 7:45 How do you analyze early stage in current state of the market? 11:00 How important is ownership % with the first check? 13:00 Deployment Pace 15:30 How do you think about portfolio growth at scale when you're a lead? 17:50 What to expect from Tiger in this market crash? 21:45 Are we going to see price inflation in early stage? 24:44 What do you know now that you wish you'd know when you founded Felicis? 27:40 What is the guiding principle at Felicis? 29:40 How do you think about new products? 32:43 What mistakes have you made and were the lessons learned? 36:00 Biggest Misses 38:18 When do you take cash off the table? 41:50 Favourite book? 42:30 What have you recently changed your mind on? 43:07 Most overlooked quality for success in Venture? 44:00 Who's your mentor? 45:00 If Felicis could do one thing better, what would it be? 45:27 Biggest insecurity? 46:16 Most memorable first founder meeting? 47:22 Most recent publicly announced investment? --------------------------------------------- In Today’s Episode with Aydin Senkut: 1.) The Founding of Felicis: How did Aydin transition from a successful angel to the first $41M institutional fund with Felicis? How did Aydin’s mindset change moving from investing personal to LP capital? What does Aydin know now that he wishes he had known when he started Fund I? 2.) Fund Mechanics: Building a Portfolio Why does Aydin believe portfolios need to have 40-50 positions to be diversified enough? Given Aydin being multi-stage, how important is ownership on first check for Aydin and Felicis? Does Aydin believe it is possible to really concentrate capital into your best performers? How does Aydin think through outcome scenario planning? What is his biggest takeaway from this? 3.) Aydin Senkut: The Investor What have been the biggest changes in Aydin’s style of investing over the last 16 years? What was Aydin’s biggest miss? How did it impact his mindset moving forward? What is Aydin’s biggest insecurity as an investor today? How has it changed? Where does Aydin still believe he is weak as an investor? What is he doing to combat it? 4.) The Venture Landscape: Why does Aydin believe that despite the pricing, seed is the best risk-adjusted asset class? How does Aydin evaluate where crossover funds will move with the death of many growth rounds? What segment of the market will be hit hardest by the crunch? What worries with this? What would Aydin most like to change about the venture landscape today? Why? --------------------------------------------- #AydinSenkut #20VC #HarryStebbings #VentureCapital #Shorts

Harry StebbingshostAydin Senkutguest
May 26, 202248mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Aydin Senkut Explains Building Felicis From Scrappy Solo to $900M

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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 ideas

Optimize 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 quotes

You 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

Aydin’s journey from Google PM/sales to founding Felicis VenturesTransition from angel investing to building a multi-stage venture firmValuations, deployment pace, and portfolio construction in today’s marketsCompeting and coexisting with crossover and hedge funds moving earlierFirm-building: solo → team → team of teams; culture and hiring philosophyStrategy focus: optimizing for access to world’s best companies vs ownership/priceExits, distributions, and managing public positions for LPs

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