- Andreessen Horowitz has raised $2.2 billion to invest in crypto, in what has been described as the largest crypto fund ever, even as markets look bearish.
- The firm has also made new hires, with the most notable being William Hinman, a former SEC executive who’s most famous for declaring that BTC and ETH were not securities.
One of Silicon Valley’s most iconic and successful investor has raised $2.2 billion to invest in cryptocurrencies. Andreessen Horowitz announced the fund recently, which is being identified as the largest crypto fund ever. This is the company’s third fund and comes at a time when crypto markets aren’t performing as projected. However, the VC firm has a history of doubling down when markets are plummeting, and making billions for it.
Founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the California company has been among the most successful in the past decade. Known in the tech world as a16z, the company has invested in some of the most successful tech companies including Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, Stripe, Instagram and Lyft.
The new fund will invest in all things crypto, Katie Haun and Chris Dixon stated. The two are senior partners at the VC firm who run the crypto arm and who will administer the new fund.
In a blog post, the two stated, “This fund allows us to find the next generation of visionary crypto founders, and invest in the most exciting areas of crypto. We invest in all stages, from early seed-stage projects to fully developed later-stage networks.”
The two are optimistic about the future of crypto. They stated:
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.
Investing in the bear market and hiring former SEC executive
a16z has launched its fund at a time when cryptos are performing dismally. Bitcoin has lost over 15 percent of its value in the past week, and half its value since hitting over $64,000 in April. This has done little to dissuade the VC firm, with the two partners stating that they are “radically optimistic about crypto’s potential.”
“We believe that the next wave of computing innovation will be driven by crypto,” they wrote.
The company has a history of investing when others are shying away. In its early years, it invested in Skype at a time when most VCs dismissed the startup, which they believed would be crushed by Apple and Google. In crypto, a16z raised its first fund, worth $300 million in 2018, back when the market was going through the infamous ‘crypto winter.’ It invested in several companies that today are worth billions, including DeFi king Uniswap.
One of the first crypto companies a16z invested in was Coinbase. When the exchange went public this year, the VC firm reportedly netted over $440 million.
The firm has invested in many of today’s most successful crypto companies, and tokens. One of these is Dfinity, the company behind the Internet Computer, a project whose token at one point shot up into the top five largest cryptos in the world.
Read More: What is the Internet Computer (ICP)? The crypto that shot to top five, four days after launch
Other companies in a16z’s portfolio include Facebook’s diem; Dapper Labs, the company behind NBA Top Shot and is now worth $7.5 billion; DeFi heavyweight Compound; NFT platform OpenSea; and institutional crypto platform Anchorage.
a16z has also announced that it hired some renowned executives, the most notable being William Hinman, a former SEC executive. Hinman is most famous for declaring that Ethereum and Bitcoin were not securities. This has become one of the main items that the SEC and Ripple are fighting over in their legal battle.
Related: Judge grants Ripple’s request for SEC’s internal trading policies as fair notice fight continues
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