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.
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?
Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Aydin Senkut
Aydin’s Favourite Book: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
