The Forbes Midas list is the annual ranking by Forbes magazine of the most influential and best-performing venture capital investors. Described by Kara Swisher as the “Oscars for venture capitalists in tech,” the Midas List uses parameters that include the first-day market capitalization of IPOs and the opinions of a panel of experts.
The name alludes to the mythological King Midas, renowned for his ability to turn anything he touched into gold.
The long freeze for initial public offerings and mergers appears to be thawing and in one corner of the startup market, deals are running white-hot. In 2025, a small cohort of mega startups like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Stripe now command super-sized valuations, rarely seen for private companies. And their earliest backers are now surging ahead in the Midas List, Forbes’ ranking of the world’s top venture capitalists.
Czech-born Jan Hammer is a partner at Index Ventures and ranks at number 50 on the Midas List this year. Hammer led Index’s investment in Dutch payment company Adyen (IPO 2018). The Stripe rival now has a stock market of $56 billion. He was a seed investor in Robinhood (IPO 2021) after over 70 investors had rejected it. (The company’s market cap has surged to over $57 billion along with other crypto-linked stocks.)
Other key investments include international money transfer provider Wise (went public via direct listing in 2021) and French health insurance startup Alan ($2 billion valuation). For years, he has worked with the Tate, the modern art gallery in London, to help expand its Central and Eastern Europe collection.
