Caroline Hyde

Look, I sit as a British person who, luckily enough, works in America.

Do we need more immigration?

Kleiner Perkins, the half-century-old venture capital institution, has raised $3.5 billion to make bets on AI startups and current portfolio stars innovating across autonomy, transportation, professional services, and space, for example.

Kleiner Perkins' partner, Ilya Fushman, I'm pleased to say, joins us for more.

And look, you've got $1 billion dedicated to what is your 22nd early-stage fund.

You've then got $2.5 billion going in the growth areas.

Just tell us about what excites you, why this amount of money, why now?

Where excites you the most?

Is it putting the money into fresh new startups that haven't even been designed now?

Or is it backing, say, a star performer?

Anthropic, we know, is looking to be IPO-ing.

You've got standout names like SpaceX on the books as well.

But where are you thinking about where you can follow on your capital?

Ilya, according to people familiar, I'm told that you managed to raise this amount of money pretty fast and it was oversubscribed.

And I imagine LPs were excited because of the opportunity and the delivery of liquidity, unlike a lot of other funds that you've delivered when it comes to the Figma IPO.

We saw the Windsurf acquisition.

We might see enormous returns if SpaceX and indeed Anthropic and maybe even a Databricks or a Waymay do go public.

Is that what locked in the LP base?

How do you think about the need for the markets to open in 2026?

Elio, we've talked about this, but public market sentiment might be at an all-time high for tech.