Felicis

Felicis was founded in 2006; by 2025 it had spanned 20 years and ten funds.⁠[1]

Founder and managing partner Aydin Senkut grew up in Turkey and was Google’s first product manager.⁠[2]

Felicis initially launched with $4 million from Senkut’s own pocket.⁠[3]

Felicis Ventures II, L.P. made its first sale on May 28, 2010 and raised $40 million from 17 investors; Senkut was managing director of its general partner, and the issuer was based in Palo Alto.⁠[4]

The third fund made its first sale on April 27, 2012 and raised about $70.54 million from 16 investors.⁠[5]

The fourth fund made its first sale on July 23, 2014 and raised about $120.6 million from 11 investors; besides Senkut, Renata Quintini, Sundeep Peechu and Wesley Chan were listed as managing directors of the general partner.⁠[6]

Felicis Ventures V and Felicis Side Fund V made their first sale on March 17, 2016 and together raised about $200.6 million from 34 investors.⁠[7]

The sixth fund made its first sale on July 18, 2018 and raised $270 million from 40 investors, with the issuer’s address now on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park.⁠[8]

In September 2018, Felicis launched its Founder Pledge, adding 1% in non-dilutive capital on top of each first check for founders’ personal and professional development, such as executive coaching, mental health support and leadership training; it had earlier pledged in 2014 to always vote with founders.⁠[9]

The seventh fund made its first sale on February 28, 2020 and raised $505 million from 67 investors, with Victoria Treyger newly listed as a managing director of the general partner.⁠[10]

In August 2021, Felicis announced a $600 million early-stage fund and a $300 million opportunities-type fund, saying its funds had produced 6x cash-on-cash returns including losses; its general partners were Wesley Chan, Sundeep Peechu, Victoria Treyger and Niki Pezeshki, with Viviana Faga incoming.⁠[3]

Fund IX made its first sale on February 16, 2023 and raised $825 million from 111 investors; its listed managing directors were Senkut, Victoria Treyger, Niki Pezeshki, Viviana Faga and Sundeep Peechu.⁠[11]

On March 2, 2023, Felicis announced the $825 million core fund, saying its portfolio companies had seen more than 100 exits and $220 billion in market value over the previous 15 years.⁠[12]

In January 2024, Astasia Myers, who had been on Redpoint’s early-stage enterprise team and most recently a partner at Quiet Capital, joined Felicis as a general partner focused on the earliest-stage infrastructure and AI companies.⁠[13]

On January 30, 2025, Felicis announced Peter Deng as a general partner; he had been OpenAIOpenAIOpenAI is an artificial intelligence research and product organization founded in 2015 that develops the GPT model series, ChatGPT, Codex and a developer API, and conducts research on image, speech, video and intelligent agents. After its 2025 restructuring, the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation continues to control the for-profit OpenAI Group PBC. Its growth has involved large-scale fundraising and compute partnerships, and has also been accompanied by controversies over governance, copyright, privacy and AI safety.Open the full entry’s VP of Product overseeing ChatGPT and ChatGPT Enterprise, spent a decade at Facebook, and worked at Uber and as Airtable’s chief product officer.⁠[14]

Felicis Ventures X, L.P. made its first sale on May 29, 2025 and raised $900 million from 96 investors; its listed managing directors were Senkut and Sundeep Peechu, with an address in Menlo Park.⁠[15]

On June 10, 2025, Felicis called it its largest fund, saying more than 50 portfolio companies were valued at $1 billion or more and more than 125 had been acquired or gone public; the fund focuses on AI, cybersecurity, infrastructure, global resilience including defense and energy, and health and biotech.⁠[1]

In January 2026, AI model evaluation platform LMArena announced a $150 million Series A at a $1.7 billion post-money valuation, co-led by Felicis and the university’s fund, UC Investments.⁠[16]

As of October 2026, Felicis’s website describes it as a venture capital firm that backs founders starting at seed and shows portfolio companies including Shopify, CanvaCanvaCanva is an online design platform company headquartered in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 2012 by Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht and Cameron Adams and launched in 2013, it offers template-based drag-and-drop design tools for non-designers and later expanded into team collaboration, video, email, forms and generative AI features.Open the full entry, Adyen, Notion, RunwayRunwayRunway (Runway AI, Inc.) is a New York–based artificial intelligence company that grew out of the ITP program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2018. It develops video generation models and tools for the film, advertising and creative industries, has released the Gen-1 through Gen-4.5 series of models, and has extended its research to “general world models” that simulate the world in real time.Open the full entry, Crusoe and Mercor.⁠[17]

Felicis: Official website: https://www.felicis.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[17]

X: Official account: https://x.com/felicis (opens in a new window)⁠[17]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Official account: https://www.linkedin.com/company/felicis-ventures/ (opens in a new window)⁠[17]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Official account: https://www.youtube.com/@felicis_ventures (opens in a new window)⁠[17]