What Does Felicis Look for Before Backing a Founder?

Aydin Senkut says Felicis looks for a market every person or every business can use, and for urgency, before it judges the founder. Payments passed that test when the firm backed Adyen. Processing payments is what makes a business a business, and trade has been around as long as people have. A commerce platform that really works did not require him to have been an e-commerce expert. He says none of it was rocket science.

The founder test comes from what he learned at Google. He wants a team that is an outlier in one place: something no other company paid attention to, one area where nobody else has excelled, or one or two secrets other players still have not realized. Felicis then tries to hold a book of companies like that across the waves it thinks will matter. He says the approach has served the firm well.