Aydin Senkut

Background

Aydin Senkut is a Turkish-American venture capitalist and the founder and managing partner of Felicis Ventures, a venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California ¹. He has been named to the Forbes Midas List for twelve consecutive years (2014-2025) and was recognized on the New York Times Top 20 Venture Capitalists list for four consecutive years (2016-2019) ².

Before founding Felicis, Senkut was the first product manager at Google, where he helped launch Google’s first ten international sites ²¹. He received a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with Honors from Boston University, an MBA in Marketing from the Wharton School, and a master’s degree in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania ². He currently sits on Wharton’s Graduate Board ².

In 2006, Senkut launched Felicis Ventures (named after the Latin word for “good fortune”) as a solo GP with a $4 million first fund ³⁴. He scaled the firm from that initial fund to a major multi-stage platform. The firm raised a $900 million tenth fund in 2025, its largest to date ⁵. A previous ninth fund of $825 million was raised in 2023 ⁵. Under his leadership, Felicis has backed over 50 unicorns ².

Senkut was also named one of the Top 25 Angel Investors by BusinessWeek in 2010 ¹.

Stated Thesis

(Self-reported: These represent what Senkut says publicly about his approach. See Inferred Thesis for analysis of actual investment behavior.)

Senkut positions himself as a deliberate generalist, rejecting sector specialization as a competitive strategy. He has stated that Felicis invests across multiple stages and sectors rather than specializing, arguing that the generalist approach broadens access to more winners ³. He has noted that “not a single unicorn or decacorn investment was led by an expert” in Felicis’s portfolio ³.

Felicis explicitly defines founders as their “customer” rather than LPs and has publicly committed to always vote with founders in board matters ¹. The firm created a “1% Founder Development Pledge” that provides additional non-dilutive capital specifically for founders’ personal development, such as coaching and therapy ¹.

Senkut has described his approach to founder support as deeply hands-on, stating he has “made complicated connections, convinced high-impact advisors and hires to join startups under very low odds, and helped close huge deals in impossible timelines” ¹. He has also said he has “sacrificed some of the firm’s returns to allow an M&A deal to close because he knew what that exit would mean to the founders” ¹.

On investing philosophy, Senkut has stated: “The most underrated aspect of success is proper instrumentation — if you want a daring outcome, make sure to measure what truly matters” ².

On resilience: “Every single good thing happened in my life on the back of some disappointment or failure. Those rejections became rocket fuel” ³.

Felicis currently lists focus areas as AI Investing, Cybersecurity & Defense, Global Resilience & Energy, and Health & Bio ².

Inferred Thesis

Based on 19 verified portfolio companies in the table below. Note: Felicis’s full portfolio includes 436+ companies ⁶; this sample represents approximately 4% and percentages should be treated as directional only.

Sector concentration (of 19 verified investments): - Enterprise SaaS & developer tools: 5 companies (26%) — Shopify, Notion, n8n, Semgrep, Supabase ²⁷ - AI & machine learning: 4 companies (21%) — Runway, Poolside, Weights & Biases, Skild AI ²⁷ - Consumer & marketplaces: 3 companies (16%) — Canva, Rovio, Fitbit ²¹ - Health & biotech: 2 companies (11%) — Guardant Health, Guideline ² - Fintech: 2 companies (11%) — Credit Karma, Adyen ²¹ - Cybersecurity & defense: 2 companies (11%) — Verkada, Vannevar Labs ²⁷ - Energy: 1 company (5%) — Crusoe ³

Stage focus: - Originally seed-focused as a “super angel,” now invests across seed through growth stages ²⁴ - Maintains a portfolio of 50-70 companies per fund ³

Geographic focus: - Global investor with US focus, leveraging international background from Google days ³ - Portfolio includes companies headquartered in multiple countries (Shopify in Canada, Adyen in Netherlands, Rovio in Finland) ¹

Notable patterns: - Strong track record identifying companies that become category-defining platforms (Shopify, Canva, Adyen) ¹ - Willing to invest internationally when others were US-focused ³ - Has evolved from pure seed investor to multi-stage, following winners through growth rounds ⁴

Gaps between stated and actual thesis: - Claims to be a pure generalist, but portfolio shows meaningful concentration in enterprise/developer tools and AI in recent years ²⁷

Portfolio

This table represents 19 of 436+ total portfolio companies. Years marked with ~ are approximate based on founding dates or public reporting.

In Their Own Words

“The most underrated aspect of success is proper instrumentation — if you want a daring outcome, make sure to measure what truly matters.” — Aydin Senkut, Felicis website ²

“Every single good thing happened in my life on the back of some disappointment or failure. Those rejections became rocket fuel.” — Aydin Senkut, The Generalist interview ³

“We have to do things in such a unique, creative way and we have to create a custom playbook that even though we’re in the venture ecosystem, it somehow really separates us.” — Aydin Senkut, 20VC podcast ⁴

“When you try to do something you truly love, you have to commit 110% so you can really be the best in whatever that is.” — Aydin Senkut, 20VC podcast ⁴

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials found. Felicis publicly describes a founder-aligned governance approach including voting shares in line with founders and a 1% Founder Development Pledge for personal development support ¹, but no independent founder quotes about working with Senkut could be located.

Sources