Partner
Kleiner PerkinsCheck size: No personal or standard firm-wide check range is published. Ilya's official portfolio spans early and growth investments; Kleiner disclosed that its 2019 Series A investment in Rippling was $25M, but that one transaction is not a general range or personal limit.
Ilya invests in technology and novel business models capable of fundamentally reshaping industries. His portfolio connects AI-native professional work, enterprise operating systems, mathematical and software agents, physical AI, autonomous defense, logistics, healthspan, biotech, and financial infrastructure. A recurring pattern is a product-centric company that can redefine a large workflow and pair a technical discontinuity with a new go-to-market or business model.
Founders who can redefine an industry rather than add a feature, technically ambitious products with elegant user experience, product-led or novel go-to-market models, large markets, and teams that can move between scientific depth, product craft, and commercial scale.
No personal pass list is published. The portfolio suggests weak fit for incremental software, AI without workflow transformation, hard technology without a credible product and market path, or companies whose business model and distribution remain unchanged despite claiming a foundational technical shift.
Explain the industry-level change, why the old workflow or business model breaks now, and the product experience that makes the new approach inevitable. Show technical advantage, distribution, retention, economics, and the expansion path from the first wedge to a system of record or critical infrastructure. For AI, show real outcomes and defensibility; for physical or biological systems, show milestones and deployment evidence.
Identify which established workflow, cost structure, or business model becomes obsolete if the product works, and whether the company can capture the newly created value.
Underwrite product and distribution as one design problem: a new technical capability often requires a new adoption motion, pricing model, or organizational buyer.
Evaluate whether difficult science or infrastructure becomes a product whose simplicity, speed, or leverage is obvious to the end user without exposing underlying complexity.
As consumers delegate discovery to AI answer engines, brands need measurable visibility and control over how those systems understand and recommend them.
No podcast appearances are linked yet. Ask Kit to check for interviews that reveal how this investor thinks.
“Per aspera ad astra.”
— https://www.kleinerperkins.com/people/ilya-fushman/
Ilya joined Kleiner Perkins in 2018 after serving as a General Partner at Index Ventures. Earlier he led Dropbox's product organization through hypergrowth and worked on business development, Dropbox for Business, and the developer platform. He began in science, earning Stanford PhD and MS degrees in applied physics/electrical engineering after quantum-computing and photonics work, plus a Caltech physics degree. His portfolio includes Harvey, Rippling, Profound, NewLimit, Saronic, Motive, Stord, Chai Discovery, Mind Robotics, Slack, Loom, and Intercom.