Andreessen Horowitz (A16z), one of the most significant Venture Capital firms in crypto, announced the launch of a $4.5 billion cryptocurrency fund for blockchain-based projects. It is the fourth cryptocurrency fund from the VC giant, bringing its total investment in the field to around $7.6 billion to date.
The fund’s announcement comes when the crypto market is witnessing a blood bath and even the whispers of ‘buy the dip’ are being silenced by the volatility and the turmoil the sector is facing. A16z, an early investor in startups like Facebook, Twitter, Coinbase, Airbnb and Stripe, views the current market slump as an opportunity to expand.
“What we’ve seen is that many of the best protocols and companies are built during periods of market instability or downturns. Because it allows people to focus on the technology and building rather than being distracted by short-term price fluctuations,” said Arianna Simpson, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz.
The fourth crypto fund from the firm will focus on several critical fields in the crypto environment, including blockchain games and decentralized finance, by committing around $1.3 billion from the fund for early and seed stage funding of startups and $3 billion kept aside for venture investments.
A16z puts its money behind WEB 3
In a blog post, Chris Dixon, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, “We think we are now entering the golden era of web3. Programmable blockchains are sufficiently advanced, and a diverse range of apps has reached tens of millions of users. More importantly, a massive wave of world-class talent has entered web3 over the last year. They are brilliant and passionate and want to build a better internet.”
In June last year, the VC giant announced a $2.2 billion fund for the crypto market. It raised $9 billion through three new funds to invest across startups, but the recent announcement of $4.5 billion made on May 25, 2022, is the largest fund announced for the crypto market.
Stating the objective of the investment Dixon in his blog post, has said, “We’ve been investing in crypto since 2013, and today we’re announcing our fourth crypto fund, totaling $4.5B. Of that, approximately $1.5B will be dedicated to seed investments and $3B to venture investments. We’re going to use these funds to invest in promising web3 startups at every stage.”
