Aydin Senkut on Why Valuation Lags Traction by Years
Felicis founder Aydin Senkut explains why chasing underlying demand beats chasing hot rounds, pointing to Supabase's 3,000x growth.
Chasing Demand in Early-Stage Venture at Felicis – Aydin Senkut (EP.526)
With Ted Seides, Aydin Senkut · Monday, November 9, 2026
Aydin Senkut, founder of Felicis, joins Ted Seides to discuss the evolution of early-stage venture capital over the firm's 20-year history. Senkut breaks down his strategy of chasing demand rather than hype, Felicis's pivot toward capital-intensive sectors like robotics and physical AI, and how the firm engineers exits and scales internal decision-making to generate outsized venture returns.
Key takeaways
- Felicis targets companies capable of delivering at least 100x top-line growth from entry, a threshold required to outpace public equity returns before broad market discovery. Read more →
- Felicis is moving capital away from asset-light software toward physical AI and robotics after 20 years of early-stage investing. Read more →
- Felicis dedicates 10% to 20% of its operational time directly to engineering exits rather than leaving liquidity to passive market timing. Read more →
- Felicis generated its largest historic returns by backing infrastructure layers, including Shopify for digital storefronts, Adyen for global payments, and Credit Karma for consumer credit data. Read more →
- Felicis guarantees founders that the firm will never vote against them, surrendering traditional governance leverage to eliminate concealment during operational crises. Read more →
5 articles from this episode
Aydin Senkut on Why Physical AI Beats SaaS
Felicis founder Aydin Senkut explains why capital-heavy robotics and physical AI offer larger, more defensible revenue than commoditized SaaS.
Aydin Senkut on Why Corporate Buyers Cap M&A at 2 Percent
Felicis founder Aydin Senkut reveals why tech acquisitions cap at 1 to 2 percent of buyer market cap and how to engineer exits.
Aydin Senkut on Why Infrastructure Drives Venture Power Laws
Felicis founder Aydin Senkut explains why backing database and rails infrastructure beats picking winners in the application layer.
Why Felicis Promises Never to Vote Against Founders
Aydin Senkut explains why Felicis gives up board voting leverage, involves platform teams before writing checks, and races against the capital tax.
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