20VC: Scaling from a $4M Angel Fund to $900M, Why Seed May Be The Best priced Asset Class and Not Overpriced At All & The 3 Stages of Fund Scaling and What it Takes To Build a Firm with Aydin Senkut, Founder and Managing Partner @ Felicis

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

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