Aydin Senkut

Who they are

Aydin Senkut is Founder & Managing Partner of Felicis Ventures — joined Google as employee #63 and its first Product Manager before founding Felicis in 2006, which closed a $900M tenth fund in June 2025.

Person

Aydin started Felicis in 2006 as a self-funded angel operation — he raised the first institutional fund only in 2010, building the firm deliberately rather than racing to scale. Before that, he was Google employee #63 and its first Product Manager, then Senior Manager for Web Search and Syndication — an early insider at one of the defining tech companies of the era. His pre-Google path ran through finance roles, Silicon Graphics, and Hoffmann-La Roche, the kind of varied early career that likely informs his generalist investment thesis. He holds a BS in Business Administration (Honors, 1992) from Boston University and an MBA in Marketing from Wharton (1996), plus a Master's in International Studies from Penn — an unusually broad academic stack. He's an Associate Founder of Singularity University and sits on the Wharton Graduate Executive Board, and supports biotech research at UCSF and a scholarship at Penn. He speaks publicly — on Capital Allocators with Ted Seides, on The Generalist, and at the 2024 Turpentine VC Podcast — on tenacious sourcing, founder-aligned governance, and why being a generalist VC is a competitive advantage. Possibly — fluency in five languages (Turkish, English, French, German, and Portuguese) shapes his appetite for investing across geographies.

Company

Felicis closed Fund X in June 2025 at $900 million — its largest fund ever and its tenth since founding — bringing total assets under management to $3.8 billion. Alongside the fundraise, Peter Deng, former VP of Product at OpenAI's ChatGPT team, joined as a General Partner, a notable hire signaling the firm's deepening bet on AI. Felicis also led both the Series B and Series C for Mercor, an AI-driven recruiting startup, in 2025. More than 60% of investments out of Fund 9 and 10 are seed stage, reflecting a continued early-entry conviction. The firm believes dozens of $100B+ AI companies will emerge this decade, with 70% of its active portfolio already being AI-native startups.

Market

Felicis competes in early-stage venture as a self-described generalist — covering AI, cybersecurity, health, biotech, and global resilience — against both large multistage funds and specialist seed vehicles. Forbes has characterized it as a 'nimble boutique VC, able to move faster than larger funds,' a positioning it reinforces by leading or co-leading 83% of its investments. Its track record includes more than 40 portfolio companies reaching valuations over $1 billion, with names like Shopify, Notion, Canva, and Credit Karma among its notable exits and holdings.

Network

No direct edge data is available for Aydin's immediate working relationships. His named institutional connections include the Wharton Graduate Executive Board and Singularity University, where he is an Associate Founder. Peter Deng, former VP of Product at OpenAI, joined Felicis as a General Partner in 2025 and is the most recently documented colleague.

Peter Deng· General Partner, Felicis (formerly VP of Product, OpenAI ChatGPT team)

How they likely show up

Founded Felicis in 2006 but waited until 2010 to raise an institutional fund → patient, conviction-driven approach; not chasing momentum for its own sake.
Generalist thesis across AI, cybersecurity, health, and biotech → likely resists being pigeonholed; prefers optionality and breadth over category specialization.
Leads or co-leads 83% of investments → high ownership instinct; not a passive follower in syndicates.
Podcast appearances on Capital Allocators and Turpentine VC center on sourcing tactics and founder support → reflects on process openly, suggests he's comfortable being transparent about how he works.
Wharton MBA plus Master's in International Studies plus five-language fluency → thinks in cross-border contexts; Possibly — quicker to pattern-match on founders from non-US markets than most Sand Hill peers.
Long tenure shape (founded and still runs Felicis after 19 years) → thinks in decade-scale arcs, not fund cycles.

Conversation tips

→ Reference a specific portfolio bet — Mercor, Shopify, or Notion — and ask about what the early signal was. He's on record valuing 'tenacious sourcing,' so he'll have a story.
→ He's made a public argument that being a generalist VC is a competitive advantage. Engage with that thesis directly rather than asking a generic question about his focus areas.
→ Five-language fluency and international studies background suggest global sourcing is personal, not just strategic — asking about non-US deal flow or founder geography will land.
→ Don't skip the Google chapter — employee #63 and first PM is a formative credential he's spoken to publicly; it's a natural common-ground opener if you have any product or search context.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on Fund X closing at $900M in June 2025 — it's his largest fund and tenth since founding, and he brought in Peter Deng from OpenAI as a new GP at the same time. Two moves at once signals something about where he thinks the firm needs to be.
Reference his Capital Allocators episode with Ted Seides on 'Tenacious Sourcing and Founder Support' — the title itself is a thesis statement, and asking what 'tenacious' actually means in practice will get a specific answer.
Bring up The Generalist piece on why being a generalist VC is a competitive advantage — it's a contrarian position in an era of specialist funds, and he's defended it publicly. Engaging with the argument rather than just acknowledging the title shows you've read it.

Discovery questions

You've made the case publicly that generalist investing beats specialization — now that 70% of your active portfolio is AI-native, does that tension sharpen or resolve?
Felicis leads or co-leads 83% of its deals. At a $900M fund size, how does that ownership discipline hold when round sizes are inflating?
Peter Deng coming from the ChatGPT team is a specific hire — what's the thesis behind bringing in a product operator as a GP rather than another investor?

Avoid

Don't treat his multilingual background or international studies as a curiosity or icebreaker flourish — he's a 19-year firm builder with a substantive investment record; lead with the work, not the biography.

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