Forbes 2026 Midas List Marks 25 Years, Spotlights AI VCs

Forbes, in partnership with TrueBridge Capital Partners, published the 25th-anniversary Midas List on May 29, 2026, ranking the top 100 venture capitalists for 2026. The list was compiled from investor submissions, public data and Forbes research. To qualify, an investor needed portfolio companies in the past five years that either went public, were acquired for at least $200 million, or doubled in private valuation to more than $400 million.

The list highlights multiple investments in artificial intelligence and advanced technology. OpenAI, Anthropic, Cerebras and cloud security firm Wiz appear repeatedly among the notable deals. Forbes reports OpenAI’s valuation at $852 billion as of March 2026. Cerebras’s initial public offering valued the chip maker at more than $56 billion. Wiz was acquired by Google in 2026 for $32 billion. Other portfolio valuations cited on the list include Stripe at $159 billion and SpaceX at $1.75 trillion.

The top 10 includes Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures, an early investor in OpenAI; Neil Shen of HSG, linked to a $3 billion transaction with ByteDance; Eric Vishria of Benchmark Capital, connected to Cerebras’s IPO; Gili Raanan of Cyberstarts, who led seed funding for Wiz; Peter Thiel of Founders Fund, an early backer of Palantir, Stripe and SpaceX; Elad Gil of Gil Capital, a solo investor in companies including Anduril and Figma; Trae Stephens of Founders Fund, co-founder of defense firm Anduril; Douglas Leone of Sequoia Capital, with a long record of tech investments; and Index Ventures partners Martin Mignot and Shardul Shah, both noted for investments that include Anthropic and Wiz.

Twenty-five investors appear on the Midas List for the first time. Notable debuts include Yasmin Ravazi, a partner at Spark Capital who led a 2023 funding round for Anthropic; Steve Vasallo of Foundation Capital, an early investor in Solana and in Cerebras; Luke Nosek of Gigafund, an investor in SpaceX and other ventures associated with Elon Musk; Lior Susan, founder and CEO of AI firm Eclipse and an investor in Cerebras; Antonio Gracias, founder of Valor Equity Partners; and Steve Jurvetson of Future Ventures, known for investments in SpaceX and Tesla.

The 2026 list includes eight women, two fewer than in 2025. Forbes released the full ranking and methodology on May 29, 2026, noting the outcomes and valuations that met its five-year qualifying criteria.