Aydin Senkut is the Founder and Managing Director of Felicis Ventures. He has been named one of the top 25 tech angels by Businessweek recently and was featured as one of the top 8 up and coming VCs by Forbes' Midas List. Felicis Ventures portfolio encompasses over 50 companies currently including Azumio, Baby.com.br, Clearslide, Dropcam, Chloe & Isabel, Imageshack, Inkling, Justin.tv, Meraki, Room 77, Practice Fusion, Rovio, Shopify, Wildfire and Zaarly. In the last four years, 20 Felicis backed start-ups have been acquired by firms such as Google, Twitter, Groupon, Microsoft, AT&T, Disney, Ebay, Chegg and Intuit.
Prior to starting Felicis Ventures, he was a Senior Manager at Google, responsible for strategic partner development and account management in Asia Pacific (including Japan). Aydin joined Google in 1999 as its first Product Manager to launch Google's first 10 international sites, its first online search licensing products and its first Safe Search. He then became the first International Sales Manager at Google, responsible for world-wide licensing deals
Before joining Google, Aydin was the Product Manager for Data Visualization and Data Mining software MineSet, and led the business development efforts for the financial services industry at SGI.
Aydin received a BS in Business Administration with Honors from Boston University. He also earned an MBA in Marketing from the Wharton School and an MA in International Studies from the School of Arts at the University of Pennsylvania. He speaks five languages: English, German, French, Portuguese and Turkish.
Aydin and his wife are Associate Founders of Singularity University, have backed bio-tech research at UCSF and sponsored a scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania. Aydin is on the boards of Clearslide, Massive Health, Imageshack and the Wharton Entrepreneurial Program.
Aydin has been featured on Businessweek, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Financial Times Germany, and San Francisco Chronicle