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The Forbes 2026 Midas List, published on 27 May 2026 in partnership with TrueBridge Capital Partners, ranks the 100 most effective venture capital investors of the year. Three private companies — OpenAI, SpaceX and Anthropic — account for the bulk of the capital force behind this edition. Their combined trajectory toward public markets has reshuffled who sits at the top of global venture, pushed a record 25 newcomers onto the list, and concentrated the industry’s largest unrealised gains in a narrow group of investors who bet early and held on.
The Person at the Top: Vinod Khosla’s Repeat Claim on No. 1
Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures holds the No. 1 rank on the 2026 list. The placement echoes his position on the inaugural 2001 Midas List, when he was then a Kleiner Perkins partner credited with early bets on infrastructure companies underpinning the early internet. His return to the top spot in 2026 rests on a single, defining decision: writing what Forbes describes as the first institutional check for OpenAI in 2019, when OpenAI was still structured as a not-for-profit research laboratory.
The 2026 list marks the ranking’s 25th anniversary. It has been produced annually since 2001 using a data-driven methodology based on submissions from investors at hundreds of VC firms, Forbes reporting and public data.
Holdings: Who Controls the Positions That Matter
The portfolio positions driving the 2026 rankings cluster around a small number of companies. According to Forbes, the three that matter most are OpenAI, SpaceX and Anthropic — all approaching or planning public market debuts at valuations that would have been implausible for private companies even five years ago.
Peter Thiel (No. 5, Founders Fund) backed Elon Musk through Founders Fund more than 22 years before this edition. Luke Nosek (No. 18, Gigafund) left Founders Fund in 2017 to start his own vehicle and has since invested over $1 billion into SpaceX alone, holding a board seat in the company. His stake is described by Forbes as having made him a billionaire. Antonio Gracias (No. 32, Valor Equity Partners) and Steve Jurvetson (No. 62) also sit on SpaceX’s board and appear on the list as direct beneficiaries of the company’s valuation surge.
On the AI side, Ravi Mhatre (No. 16, Lightspeed Venture Partners) led back-to-back Anthropic rounds — first at a $60 billion valuation in March 2025, then at $180 billion in September 2025 — making Lightspeed one of the company’s largest shareholders. Alfred Lin (No. 11, Sequoia Capital) and Pat Grady (No. 25, Sequoia Capital) carry OpenAI exposure. Neil Shen of HSG holds the No. 2 position with ByteDance as his noted deal.
Assets: The Valuations Behind the Rankings
Forbes reports that SpaceX’s merger with xAI has pushed its valuation to $1.5 trillion, with a planned IPO targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation in June (as reported at the time of publication, May 2026). Anthropic, the maker of AI chatbot Claude, is described as being in talks to raise at a valuation exceeding $900 billion — a figure that reflects the scale of movement from the $5 billion valuation at which Spark Capital’s Yasmin Razavi (No. 13) led a 2023 round.
Lior Susan’s Eclipse fund holds the standout hardware position. Eclipse’s stake in AI chipmaker Cerebras was valued at $2.5 billion when the company listed on the Nasdaq in May 2026 at a $56 billion valuation — described by Forbes as the largest-ever IPO valuation for a semiconductor company. Foundation Capital’s Steve Vassallo (No. 17) and Altimeter Capital’s Brad Gerstner (No. 21) also derive ranking credit from the Cerebras exit, as does Benchmark’s Eric Vishria, who sits at No. 3.
On the cybersecurity side, Google’s $32 billion acquisition of Wiz benefited Cyberstarts’ Gili Raanan (No. 4), Index Ventures’ Shardul Shah (No. 10) and Sequoia’s Douglas Leone (No. 8). A separate deal — Nvidia’s acquisition of much of Groq’s assets and staff in a $20 billion licensing deal in December 2025 — lifted General Catalyst’s Jeannette zu Fürstenberg onto the global Midas List for the first time.
Deals: The Bets That Defined the 2026 Edition
Several transactions stand out as the direct engines of movement on this year’s list.
- OpenAI (Khosla Ventures, 2019): Khosla’s first institutional check, placed when OpenAI was a non-profit, is the deal credited with returning him to the No. 1 position after 25 years.
- Anthropic Series round, 2023 (Spark Capital): Yasmin Razavi led a $75 million check at a $5 billion valuation. Forbes separately reported that stake has grown to an estimated $3 billion in value as Anthropic’s talks value the company above $900 billion.
- SpaceX (Founders Fund, 2008): Founders Fund’s $20 million check in 2008 established it as one of SpaceX’s largest shareholders. The company’s xAI merger and $1.5 trillion valuation have since magnified that position across multiple investors who hold SpaceX exposure.
- Cerebras IPO, May 2026: A $56 billion Nasdaq debut — the largest for any semiconductor company — generated liquid gains for Eclipse (stake valued at $2.5 billion), Benchmark, Foundation Capital and Altimeter.
- Wiz acquisition by Google, $32 billion: The largest software takeover on record at time of publication lifted Gili Raanan, Shardul Shah and Douglas Leone up the rankings.
- Groq asset acquisition by Nvidia, $20 billion licensing deal, December 2025: The exit brought Jeannette zu Fürstenberg onto the global Midas List for the first time, after her prior appearance on the Midas List Europe edition in 2024.
Capital: How the Rankings Are Constructed and Who Qualifies
The Midas List applies a defined methodology. To be eligible, an investor must have backed companies that either went public or were acquired for at least $200 million in the past five years, or that have at least doubled in private valuation to $400 million or more during that period. The list tracks active partners from venture capital funds investing on behalf of third-party limited partners. Corporate balance-sheet investments and personal angel investments do not qualify.
Deal credit can be shared between up to two investors per transaction. Forbes and TrueBridge place greater weight on liquid exits than on unrealised gains, though both early-stage investors generating high multiples and later-stage investors returning substantial cash can qualify. Top-ranked investors typically hold a track record spanning a dozen or more qualifying deals.
This year’s edition also expanded its scope to include major venture names that did not formally submit investment data — among them Coatue co-founder Thomas Laffont and Thrive Capital founder Josh Kushner (No. 33), whose notable deal is OpenAI.
The full ranked top 50 as published by Forbes, with firm and notable deal, is below.
| Rank | Name | Firm | Location | Notable Deal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vinod Khosla | Khosla Ventures | Portola Valley, US | OpenAI |
| 2 | Neil Shen | HSG | Hong Kong, China | ByteDance |
| 3 | Eric Vishria | Benchmark Capital | Atherton, US | Cerebras |
| 4 | Gili Raanan | Cyberstarts | Michmoret, Israel | Wiz |
| 5 | Peter Thiel | Founders Fund | Los Angeles, US | SpaceX |
| 6 | Elad Gil | Gil Capital | San Francisco, US | OpenAI |
| 7 | Trae Stephens | Founders Fund | San Francisco, US | Anduril |
| 8 | Douglas Leone | Sequoia Capital | Menlo Park, US | Wiz |
| 9 | Martin Mignot | Index Ventures | New York, US | Revolut |
| 10 | Shardul Shah | Index Ventures | New York, US | Wiz |
| 11 | Alfred Lin | Sequoia Capital | Bay Area, US | OpenAI |
| 12 | Mamoon Hamid | Kleiner Perkins | Atherton, US | Figma |
| 13 | Yasmin Razavi | Spark Capital | San Francisco, US | Anthropic |
| 14 | Micky Malka | Ribbit Capital | Palo Alto, US | Coinbase |
| 15 | Saurabh Gupta | DST Global | Atherton, US | Chime |
| 16 | Ravi Mhatre | Lightspeed Venture Partners | San Francisco, US | Anthropic |
| 17 | Steve Vassallo | Foundation Capital | Palo Alto, US | Cerebras |
| 18 | Luke Nosek | Gigafund | Austin, US | SpaceX |
| 19 | Hemant Taneja | General Catalyst | San Francisco, US | Stripe |
| 20 | Lior Susan | Eclipse | Atherton, US | Cerebras |
| 21 | Brad Gerstner | Altimeter Capital | Woodside, US | Cerebras |
| 22 | Shaun Maguire | Sequoia Capital | Los Angeles, US | SpaceX |
| 23 | Randy Glein | DFJ Growth | San Mateo, US | SpaceX |
| 24 | Scott Raney | Redpoint Ventures | Woodside, US | Stripe |
| 25 | Pat Grady | Sequoia Capital | Menlo Park, US | OpenAI |
| 26 | Danny Rimer | Index Ventures | London, UK | Figma |
| 27 | Ben Horowitz | Andreessen Horowitz | Las Vegas, US | Databricks |
| 28 | Fred Wilson | Union Square Ventures | New York, US | Coinbase |
| 29 | Tom Stafford | DST Global | London, UK | Revolut |
| 30 | David George | A16z Growth | Palo Alto, US | xAI |
| 31 | Ronny Conway | A.Capital | San Francisco, US | OpenAI |
| 32 | Antonio Gracias | Valor Equity Partners | Miami, US | SpaceX |
| 33 | Josh Kushner | Thrive Capital | New York, US | OpenAI |
| 34 | Topher Conway | SV Angel | San Francisco, US | Stripe |
| 35 | Pawel Chudzinski | Point Nine Capital | Berlin, Germany | Revolut |
| 36 | Chris Dixon | a16z Crypto | Menlo Park, US | Coinbase |
| 37 | Daniel Levine | Accel | San Francisco, US | Scale AI |
| 38 | Xi Cao | Monolith | Beijing, China | MetaX Tech |
| 39 | Neil Mehta | Greenoaks | San Francisco, US | Stripe |
| 40 | Matt Murphy | Menlo Ventures | Los Altos Hills, US | Anthropic |
| 41 | Anna Fang | ZhenFund | Beijing, China | XiaoHongShu |
| 42 | Marc Stad | Dragoneer Investment Group | San Francisco, US | OpenAI |
| 43 | Avi Eyal | Entrée Capital | Tel Aviv, Israel | Monday.com |
| 44 | Peter Fenton | Benchmark Capital | San Francisco, US | ClickHouse |
| 45 | Sam Fort | DFJ Growth | San Francisco, US | OpenAI |
| 46 | Luciana Lixandru | Sequoia Capital | London, UK | Miro |
| 47 | Aydin Senkut | Felicis Ventures | Atherton, US | Notion Labs |
| 48 | Tuck Lye Koh | Shunwei Capital | Beijing, China | SHEIN |
| 49 | Byron Deeter | Bessemer Venture Partners | Atherton, US | ServiceTitan |
| 50 | Ashvin Bachireddy | SV Angel | Menlo Park, US | OpenAI |
Source: Forbes Midas List 2026, published 27 May 2026. Ranks 51–100 are not reproduced in the supplied source for this article.
Succession: Records, Longevity and Who Is Building What Comes Next
The 2026 list carries a notable record for continuity at the top of the industry. Douglas Leone (No. 8) is now tied with former Sequoia co-steward Mike Moritz for the most appearances on the Midas List across its 25-year history, according to Forbes. In 2026, Leone returned to making new investments in his role as Sequoia’s chairman — a position that places him simultaneously in the record books and actively back in the deal flow.
The crop of 25 newcomers this year is the largest in the list’s history, according to Forbes, and their ascent is driven almost entirely by early positions in the three companies now approaching trillion-dollar public market valuations. Yasmin Razavi (No. 13) is the highest-ranked new entrant. Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, who merged her Germany-based La Famiglia fund with General Catalyst in 2023, reaches the global list for the first time after having appeared on the European edition in 2024. Lior Susan (No. 20) represents a generational bet on hardware infrastructure — Eclipse was founded in 2015, at a time when hardware investment in Silicon Valley was considered unfashionable.
The structural question the list raises for those watching VC capital flows is straightforward: the largest positions are still private, and the valuations that powered the 2026 rankings depend heavily on IPOs that, as of the list’s publication date of 27 May 2026, had not yet completed. SpaceX’s planned June IPO and Anthropic’s fundraising talks above $900 billion represent the next liquidity events that will determine whether the paper gains reflected in this year’s rankings convert into the kind of realised capital that defines a Midas List generation.
