20VC: Felicis' Aydin Senkut on Scaling Felicis From $4m to $120m, Doing Venture Differently and Why Being A VC Is Like A Jamaican Bobsled Team!
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 11 April 2016
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
1.) How Aydin made his way into the world of VC from being a Senior Manager @ Google?
2.) What does Aydin suggest to all those looking to make the move into VC who have potentially, an unconventional background??
3.) What caused Aylin's shift from angel investor to VC ? What was Aydin's investment strategy look like at the beginning and how has that evolved over time? How does Aydin look to differentiate Felicis from the plethora of seed funds?
4.) How does Felicis' stage agnosticity work in practicality for Aydin and the fund itself? How much of a role does valuation play in Felicis' investment decision making?
5.) Question from Rob Hayes @ First Round: How did the Rovio investment come about? Why do you say you are most proud if it?
6.) Question From Hiten Shah: How do you approach the topic of growing the organisation, whilst still supporting founders with the same time and quality?
Items Mentioned In Today's Episode:
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the 20 minute VC with your host, Harry Stebbings, and if you have not already added me on |
| 0:04.4 | Snapchat, add at H. Stebbings, that's with two Bs, to get an inside peek into the world of the biggest and |
| 0:11.0 | best VCs and start-ups. Now, people often ask me, you always ask VCs who is their mental |
| 0:16.9 | or inspiration in the industry, but what's yours, Harry? And the guest today most certainly |
| 0:21.7 | falls into that bracket. Therefore, I'm delighted to welcome Eiden Senkut, founder and managing |
| 0:26.7 | director of Felis Ventures. Now, I'm going to do a bit of a numbers intro here, but these |
| 0:31.6 | stats are simply too impressive to pass over. So he started Felisus in 2006 with a four million fund, then raised a 41 million fund in 2010, |
| 0:40.3 | then a 71 million fund in 2012, and most recently raised a $120 million fund in 2014. |
| 0:48.3 | But this incredible trajectory is testament to their investments. But what are they? |
| 0:53.3 | Well, they've invested in over 150 companies, |
| 0:56.1 | have a staggering 55 exits and three IPOs, and you might recognize some of the names of their |
| 1:01.5 | incredible portfolio companies. So let's go with Twitch, Fitbit, Shopify, Mint, Brightroll, Dropcam. |
| 1:09.8 | The list really is endless. And I'd also like to say a huge thank |
| 1:13.5 | to Daniel Waterhouse at Balderson Capital for making the intro to Iden today. Very much appreciated. |
| 1:19.4 | And also, before we jump into the show, are you feeling fresh? I am because I spent the weekend |
| 1:24.1 | in my new Lisa mattress. And there's so many great things about it, |
| 1:28.0 | but first it was a fully online shopping experience, which meant I didn't have to traips around |
| 1:33.0 | a showroom, feeling terribly awkward perching on a bed. Then, even better, I did not even have |
| 1:38.1 | to go and collect the mattress itself. It was delivered straight to my office in a matter of |
| 1:42.4 | days. Of course, this is also possible for all residents of the UK, US and Canada. |
| 1:47.5 | Then for the experience itself, the mattress is engineered to perfection with three crafted layers, |
| 1:53.5 | comprising of two inches of memory foam and two inches of latex light foam designed to keep you cool. |
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