Andreessen Horowitz Says Crypto Is 'the Future of Finance' — Launches $2.2 Billion Crypto Venture Fund

Andreessen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, has announced the launch of a $2.2 billion crypto fund. The firm is “radically optimistic about crypto’s potential to restore trust and enable new kinds of governance.”

Andreessen Horowitz Launches $2.2 Billion Crypto Fund

Andreessen Horowitz announced the launch of a new $2.2 billion crypto venture fund Thursday. The Silicon Valley venture capital firm, also known as “a16z,” was founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz in 2009.

Chris Dixon, Katie Haun, and Ali Yahya, partners on the crypto team at Andreessen Horowitz, explained the new fund in a blog post titled “Crypto Fund III.” They wrote:

The size of this fund speaks to the size of the opportunity before us: crypto is not only the future of finance but, as with the internet in the early days, is poised to transform all aspects of our lives.

“This fund allows us to find the next generation of visionary crypto founders, and invest in the most exciting areas of crypto,” the a16z partners explained. “We invest in all stages, from early seed-stage projects to fully developed later-stage networks.”

Haun told CNBC Thursday that the fund is not a hedge fund but a venture fund. She clarified that the fund invests in tokens and protocols as well as businesses.

The company’s first crypto-focused fund was launched three years ago during a crypto winter when the value of bitcoin plunged roughly 80% from its 2017 highs.

The partners further detailed:

We believe that the next wave of computing innovation will be driven by crypto. We are radically optimistic about crypto’s potential to restore trust and enable new kinds of governance where communities collectively make important decisions about how networks evolve, what behaviors are permitted, and how economic benefits are distributed.

“That’s why today we’re pleased to announce a new $2.2 billion fund to continue investing in crypto networks and the founders and teams building in this space,” the partners emphasized.