Forbes 2026 Midas List: Top Venture Capital Investors Ranked
Lior Susan
- Firm: Eclipse
- Notable Deal: Cerebras
- Location: Palo Alto, California
Over a decade before investing in hardware like chips, robotics and drones became trendy in Silicon Valley, Lior Susan was already all-in. In 2015, Israel-born Susan teamed up with Sequoia Capital veteran Pierre Lamond to start venture fund Eclipse, which since then has written checks into British self-driving startup Wayve, Redwood Materials and Bedrock Robotics. Lamond would lead Eclipse's initial investment in AI chip startup Cerebras that same year, with Susan writing follow-on checks and taking over Midas alum Lamond’s board seat in 2023. Cerebras listed on the Nasdaq in May with a $56 billion valuation that valued Eclipse’s stake at $2.5 billion.
Luke Nosek
- Firm: Gigafund
- Notable Deal: SpaceX
- Location: San Francisco, California
One of the original PayPal mafia, Luke Nosek joined forces with Peter Thiel when the renowned investor was setting up Founders Fund. There they backed a new venture from another former colleague — Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Founders Fund’s $20 million check in 2008 would make the fund one of the rocket startup’s largest shareholders. In 2017, Nosek left Founders Fund to launch Gigafund, and has since invested over $1 billion into SpaceX alone. He sits on the company’s board, with a stake that’s made him a billionaire. Now, it’s set to go public in a monster $1.75 trillion IPO in June.
Ravi Mhatre
- Firm: Lightspeed Venture Partners
- Notable Deal: Anthropic
- Location: Menlo Park, California
Lightspeed Venture Partners founder Ravi Mhatre has been investing for decades, scoring a string of three comma exits from enterprise startups like Rubrik, MuleSoft and AppDynamics. But last year he made one of the biggest bets of his career. The Menlo Park-based investor led back-to-back rounds for AI startup Anthropic: first at a $60 billion valuation in March 2025, and then at $180 billion in September 2025. That makes Lightspeed one of the largest shareholders in the maker of AI chatbot Claude, now in talks to raise at $900 billion.
Jeannette zu Fürstenberg
- Firm: General Catalyst
- Notable Deal: Groq
- Location: Heiligenberg, Germany
After making her debut on the Midas List Europe in 2024, German venture capitalist Jeannette zu Fürstenberg breaks onto the global Midas List for the first time this year. In 2023, she merged her Germany-based venture fund La Famiglia with General Catalyst, becoming the mega-fund’s managing director for Europe. She’s invested in European unicorns like Mistral and Helsing (and sits on the boards of both), but her biggest exit was in the U.S., with AI chip maker Groq. Nvidia acquired much of the company’s assets and staff in a $20 billion licensing deal in December 2025.
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