Aydin Senkut, a well known angel investor and ex-Googler has closed a new $ 40 million fund for his Palo Alto, Calif.-based four-year-old investment firm, Felicis Ventures. The fund will invest in very stage startups including those focused on consumer Internet and mobile sectors.
The fund was over subscribed, perhaps because of Senkut’s track record which has allowed him to stand out, especially as angel activity has gotten frothy. Felicis Ventures has made over 60 investments in seed stage consumer Internet and mobile companies to date, and within the last 12 months, more than a dozen have been sold. In total, 15 Felicis Ventures start-ups have been acquired by companies like Google, Microsoft, Disney, Intuit, AT&T, Twitter and IAC. He was an investor in Mint, Powerset and Aardvark, three startups that were acquired by Intuit, Microsoft, and Google respectively.
“With this new fund, we plan to expand our reach in two ways: fast growing horizontal markets such as mobile applications and e-commerce, in addition to Internet and mobile companies in four verticals – education, healthcare, personalized medicine and energy conservation. In those four sectors, the market potential is in the tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars,” said Senkut in a press release.
The fund has also attracted investment from the likes of Peter Thiel (founder of PayPal and Facebook board member) and Paul Buchheit (creator of Gmail and co-founder of Friendfeed).
