Andreessen Horowitz considers launching crypto-centric $1 billion venture fund

Silicon Valley venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) plans to launch a new $1 billion fund focused on investments in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups, several knowledgeable sources told Financial Times yesterday.

Per the report, the firm is looking to raise between $800 million and $1 billion from investors for the new fund, which will become the third a16z’s VC initiative focused specifically on cryptocurrencies.

As CryptoSlate reported, the company launched its first, $300 million fund dedicated to cryptocurrency-related ventures back in 2018.

“We have an ‘all weather’ fund. We plan to invest consistently over time, regardless of market conditions. If there is another ‘crypto winter,’ we’ll keep investing aggressively,” said Chris Dixon, seed investor at Andreessen Horowitz, at the time.

Then, almost exactly a year ago, the company announced its second, $515 million crypto-centric fund on April 30, 2020. Unlike the first one, it was created not only to back crypto-related startups but also to invest some of its capital directly into digital assets as well.

A history of crypto-successes

To date, a16z’s investment portfolio includes numerous highly successful projects such as Ava Labs, Dfinity, Facebook’s Diem (former Libra), Filecoin, MakerDAO, Near Protocol, and Uniswap.

Coinbase alone, the largest crypto exchange in the US, proved to be an extremely profitable investment for a16z. On April 14, the platform went public via a direct listing on Nasdaq and reached a valuation of up to $86 billion. On that day, the worth of Andreessen Horowitz’s stake in Coinbase skyrocketed accordingly, reaching $11.2 billion.

As the crypto market continues to surge, so does institutional investors’ interest in digital assets. As CryptoSlate reported last week, the combination of capital inflows and the increase in prices pushed the total worth of crypto assets under various companies’ management to $64 billion in total.

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