Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, also referred to as a16z, has recently announced it raised $9 billion that will be distributed among the company’s new trio of investment funds. The company made headlines last year when it launched a massive $2.2 billion crypto fund and later led a $100 million Series B investment in OpenSea, the largest non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace in the world.
Key takeaways:
- According to the company’s press release, the funds will be distributed among the new lineup of funds – $1.5 bln will go towards the Bio fund investing in biotech-focused companies, $5 bln will be allocated to the Growth fund, and the remaining $2.5 bln to the Venture fund.
- The a16z team wrote that freshly acquired capital will be used to push the company’s vision of a “technology-enabled future.”
- The company will reportedly invest in companies at various stages of development – a16z will be “writing checks as small as $25,000 and up to hundreds of millions of dollars.”
- Andreessen Horowitz is one of the more prominent financial backers in the cryptocurrency space – a16z made investments in some of the more successful crypto projects to date, including Uniswap, OpenSea, Near Protocol, Compound, Avalanche, and many more.
- The company’s $2.2 billion crypto fund launched in June was the third of its kind; the first crypto investment vehicle launched in 2018 was worth $300 million, while the second, launched in 2020, was worth $515 million.
- Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz founded Andreessen Horowitz in 2009, driven by a simple question: “How to win the future?” The company took early stakes in tech unicorns Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Airbnb, and Slack.
- A16z’s first crypto investment came in late 2013 when the company invested $20 million in leading cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. At the time, Coinbase’s valuation was $143 million. Eights years later, Coinbase is a publicly-traded company with a market cap of $46.65 billion.
- Andreessen Horowitz held $18.8 billion in assets under management (AUM), as of August 31, 2021.
David is a crypto enthusiast and an expert in personal finance. He has created numerous publications for different platforms. He loves to explore new things, and that’s how he discovered blockchain in the first place.
