BREAKING: Inside Index Ventures $17B AUM
BREAKING: Inside Index Ventures $17B AUM
"Prices Will Get Higher." | 30 Years of Top Decile Performance
"Prices Will Get Higher."
This VC firm has $17B AUM. 11X DPI on its 2012 fund. 60+ public listings. 30 years of top-decile returns. + $3.5B of current investing capital across seed, venture, & growth
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Major Investments:
Anthropic ($1.5T–$2T IPO Filed), Wiz ($32B acq), Datadog ($93B), Robinhood ($82B), Revolut ($115B), Roblox ($31B), Adyen ($29B), ClickHouse ($15B), Figma ($12B), Duo Security ($2.35B acq), Nginx ($670M acq) & more.
Startups to watch:
@Simile, @Parallel Web Systems, Revel, Cartesia, Flapping Airplanes, Hone & 7AI.
This is a rare look inside Index Ventures, one of the world’s leading VC firms, & the next generation of startups they’re backing.
I sat down with Index Partner Shardul Shah at their NYC office to get into:
› Why startup valuations will keep rising
› How Index invests before founders even have a business plan
› Why Index believes it has underestimated its biggest winners
› Investing over $250M in Wiz
› The next generation of AI companies & agent-to-agent cybersecurity
› Portfolio concentration, IPOs, M&A & delivering returns to LPs
Shardul joined Index in 2008 & has backed category-defining companies across cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure & AI, including Wiz, Simile & Parallel.
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Shardul Shah, Partner at Index Ventures
(00:54) How venture has changed in the last 5 years
(04:00) Index's biggest investments
(05:35) What Index looks for when backing founders
(08:41) Will AI replace venture capital?
(09:17) What’s durable when AI moves this fast?
(11:35) Why Index doesn't worry about valuations
(15:12) "We're no longer an underdog"
(16:33) The hardest part of winning deals
(17:22) Inside Index's investment committee
(18:25) The founder who proved his investor wrong
(21:13) The lessons behind saying no and thinking bigger
(22:59) The next wave of AI founders
(26:10) Inside Flapping Airplanes
(26:47) Did Wiz sell too early?
(30:56) How much money do startups really need?
(33:55) Concentration vs diversification
(35:43) Why venture fund cycles are getting shorter
(37:13) The changing IPO and M&A environment
(39:41) What 3 decades of returns look like
(41:25) The person behind Shardul's biggest decisions
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A Rare Look Inside Index Ventures, the Quiet Firm With 3 Decades of Top Decile Returns
Index Ventures at 30, $3.5B in Fresh Capital & 93 People
Index Ventures was founded in Geneva 30 years ago with 3 people. It now has 93, and Bloomberg last reported its AUM at roughly $17B.
“When we started Index 30 years ago, it was 3 people, and today we’re 93. So I spend more time thinking & sweating & dreaming about our people than our AUM.”
On July 31, 2026, the firm announced $2 billion in new capital across 3 funds: a new $400 million seed-focused fund, a new $900 million venture fund, and a $700 million addition to the $1.5 billion growth fund raised in 2024. That brings the growth pool to $2.2B and total fresh investing capacity to $3.5B.
Index has offices in San Francisco, New York, London, and Geneva. Shardul Shah first joined as an intern in 2004, returned in 2008, and leads investments in cybersecurity, AI, enterprise software, and infrastructure.
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An 11X DPI on the 2012 Fund Against a 1.5X Industry Average
Cambridge Associates reported in 2024 that the average DPI for funds started in 2012 was 1.5X. According to Bloomberg, which cited 2 people familiar with the figures, Index’s 2012 fund had a DPI of 11X as of last year. That fund held stakes in Figma. A $780 million growth fund Index raised in 2015 returned a DPI of 5.1X.
Index declined to comment on its financial results, and Shah did not confirm the figures on tape. He separates outcomes from the judgment calls behind them and notes that returns can reflect how strong the market is in a given period.
“The consistency of top decile performance over 3 decades is something we are really proud of. And it sets a really high standard of what we need to do for the next 30 years.”
Shah treats DPI as the core measure of what the firm returns to limited partners from their 60+ IPOs and countless M&A exits.
A Hall of Fame Spread Across 12 Partners
Index’s most important investments include Revolut, Datadog (NASDAQ DDOG), Wiz, Adyen, Robinhood, Figma, ClickHouse, and Roblox. Shah describes Revolut as likely the largest technology company ever built out of Europe.
At Index, returns are spread across partners, a pattern Shah contrasts with the rest of the industry.
“Usually in venture, there’s the power law that leads to concentration, not only in terms of returns, but concentration of returns amongst very few partners.”
The current generation includes Jan Hammer, Martin Mignot, Danny Rimer, Sahir, Nina Achadjian, Hannah Seal, and Shah. Prior generations include Neil Rimer, Giuseppe Zocco, Mike Volpi, Dominique Vidal, and Bernard Dallé.
Shah describes Index as an equal partnership in which little credit goes to whoever led a given deal. Domain expertise is split across fintech, marketplaces, infrastructure and security, robotics, and consumer.
Wiz, $250M+ Invested Over Time & a $32B Exit
Index invested in Wiz at the seed stage, before the company had a business plan.
“When we invested, we invested on my birthday before there was a business plan. So there wasn’t a market, there wasn’t a business model, there wasn’t metrics to analyze. It was literally all about the people.”
Ten years earlier, Shah had served on the board of Adallom, the founders’ prior company. Microsoft acquired Adallom for approximately $340 million.
Index invested more than $250M in Wiz across multiple funds. Wiz’s rounds included:
› A $21 million seed at a $67 million post-money valuation in February 2020
› A $100 million Series A at $500 million in December 2020
› A $1 billion Series E at a $12 billion valuation in May 2024
Wiz rejected a $23 billion offer from Google in 2024. On March 11, 2026, Google completed an all-cash acquisition of Wiz for about $32 billion, the largest acquisition in its history. Index held about 12% of the company and was expected to receive approximately $3.8 billion.
The 25% Rule on Price
Shah says he does not think about valuations. His view rests on supply and demand. Capital is flowing into private markets in one direction, while the set of large outcomes stays finite.
“One of our sins of omission is being cute on price. And whether it’s GitHub or a variety of other mistakes that we’ve made, when we’ve been cute on price, we haven’t exposed ourselves to the best outcomes.”
When Index is within 25% of a competing price, the firm goes for it. A 2X gap triggers a closer look at what another investor believes about the company.
“When we’re 2X off on price, then the question is, what does someone else believe that we do not?”
Shah’s Seed Bets, Simile, Parallel & Flapping Airplanes
Shah says Index does not screen founders by age or by theme. Still, several of his most recent investments went into very young founders, some before they had picked a business.
Shah led Simile’s Series A. The company was founded by Joon Park, Michael Bernstein, and Percy Liang, and builds AI models that simulate human behavior. It emerged from stealth on February 12, 2026, with a $100 million Series A that also included Bain Capital Ventures, Hanabi Capital, A*, and individual investors. Five months later, Simile closed a $200 million Series B at a $2 billion valuation, bringing total funding to about $300 million. Sourcery’s interview with Joon Park at Simile ran ahead of this episode, and Park ran a simulation of the conversation beforehand.
Shah joined Parallel’s board at the seed stage. The company was founded by former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and builds web search infrastructure for AI agents. Parallel raised a $100M Series A at a $740M post-money valuation, co-led by Kleiner Perkins and Index Ventures. On April 29, 2026, it announced a $100 million Series B at a $2 billion post-money valuation, led by Sequoia Capital, with Kleiner Perkins and Index following on. In his own Sourcery interview, Agrawal described expectations for startups shifting from triple, triple, double, double growth to 1,000X outcomes.
“He did not know the business he was creating, but we had belief in him that went beyond his celebrity.”
Index backed Flapping Airplanes before its founders, Asher Spector, Ben Spector, and Aidan Smith, knew what they would build.
“When all roads pointed to Ben as one of the most special entrepreneurs of his generation, we wanted to invest before we knew what he was working on, and in fact, before he knew what he was working on.”
Flapping Airplanes announced a $180 million seed round on January 28, 2026, at a $1.5 billion valuation, led by GV, Sequoia, and Index Ventures. It later raised $1 billion led by Index Ventures and Lux Capital, with Sequoia, GV, Kleiner Perkins, and Nvidia joining. Index partner Mark Xu joined the board as part of that round. Shah expects the team to break a world record in the next couple of months.
The Next Wave, Fireworks at $17.5B, Instinct at $2.5B & Revel at $1B
Beyond Shah’s own board seats, Index has spent 2026 leading or co-leading rounds in a new set of AI and hardware companies.
Fireworks AIruns an inference cloud for enterprises deploying open and custom models. Index co-led its $250M Series C at a $4B valuation in October 2025, alongside Lightspeed and Evantic. In July 2026, Index co-led a $1.505B Series D at a $17.5B valuation with Atreides and TCV, roughly 4X the prior round in 9 months.
Instinct is a phone and text AI assistant that completes real-world tasks, including managing calendars, booking rides, and shopping for insurance. Founder Noah Shinn, 23, previously worked at Sierra. In August 2026, Index Ventures and Benchmark co-led Instinct’s Series B at a $2.5 billion valuation, bringing total funding to $350 million. In September, reports said the company was in talks to raise $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation after passing 100,000 users.
Revel builds software for hardware testing and command-and-control systems used in aerospace, defense, robotics, and industrial automation. Its founding team comes from SpaceX, Anduril, and Palantir, and its customers include Impulse Space, Radiant Nuclear, Astro Mechanica, and K2 Space. Index led Revel’s $150M Series B in February 2026 at a $1B valuation, with Redpoint, Thrive Capital, Felicis, Abstract, and Dylan Field participating. Index partner Nina Achadjian joined the board.
Cartesia, the voice AI company where Shah sits on the board, is another company on the list. Index backed Cartesia’s $27M seed round in December 2024, and Cartesia closed a $100M Series A-II in October 2025, bringing total capital raised to $191M. Shah’s early advice to founder Karan Goel was to narrow the business, and Goel did not take it.
“He got upset with me and wanted to prove me wrong, and he was completely right.”
Across the enterprise portfolio, Shah says he had never seen companies sign $5M to $15M annual contracts within their first year of commercialization until the last 6 months.
Checks From $1M to $100M+ & a 3-to-6 Person Committee
Index writes checks from $1M to more than $100M. Its seed, venture, and growth funds can each back both compute-heavy and capital-light companies.
“We will not play a statistical game of creating 1,000 $2 million checks in order to risk mitigate against and have diversity in the portfolio.”
A venture portfolio holds 30 to 35 investments. Founders present to the investment committee for 30 to 45 minutes, the partners deliberate for another 30 to 45 minutes, and then they make a decision. A $1M investment may need a quorum of 3 partners. A $100M+ investment may need 6 or more.
Shah sees concentration as a risk when markets turn. Over the last 12 months, the pace of investing has accelerated across the industry and compressed what used to be a 2.5-year fund cycle.
Agent-to-Agent War & the 7AI Bet
Shah describes today’s security environment as agent-to-agent war.
“We are in an era of agent-to-agent war. The reason it can feel dark is most of the industry that’s defending itself has not stepped up to that environment.”
He puts the combined value of public market security companies at close to $1T. On December 4, 2025, 7AI announced a $130 million Series A at a $700 million valuation, led by Index Ventures. Blackstone Innovations Investments, Greylock, CRV, & Spark also participated. Shah joined the board. It was the largest cybersecurity Series A on record, and it came 10 months after the company launched from stealth in February 2025.
Shah argues that Palo Alto Networks sells its acquired products as a menu, without a shared context layer across them.
“Would I prefer a parachute with loose-stitched fabric together or one clean sheet that has the latest and greatest material science at play? To me, the choice is clear.”
In his view, single-platform companies such as Wiz in cloud security and 7AI in AI security can pull budgets from several categories into one.
Higher Prices, Faster Hiring & an Active M&A Market
Higher valuations and larger raises are helping startups recruit. A lower strike price would give employees a smaller tax bill and more upside, but a higher price signals scarcity, and more candidates accept offers.
“What’s happening in the world today is like a luxury product effect, where a higher price implies scarcity. So there’s actually more demand, which drives conversions.”
M&A has accelerated, with public incumbents buying private companies and more private-to-private mergers. Shah cites Cursor and World Labs alongside Wiz. The timing of the IPO window is outside Index’s control.. well, anyones.
The hardest call comes when a founder holds a strong acquisition offer. Shah’s first Index blog post, Learning to Say No, was written for the Adallom founders, who later turned Google down once before selling Wiz.
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© 2026 Molly S. O'Shea
Los Angeles, CA