What is Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Venture Capital? The Investment Style of A16z.

Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, is an investment fund name that is probably too familiar to brothers in the crypto market. It is not an exaggeration to say that this is the largest and most active crypto investment fund in the crypto market today, with many large investments and huge amounts of funds invested in projects.

What is Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)?

Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz established the investment company Andreessen Horowitz (also known as a16z) in 2009. This investment company is based in Silicon Valley, California, and it specializes on funding early-stage technology companies.

From the seed round to the Series A, B, C, and D rounds, Andreessen Horowitz invests in the project over time. Over the course of its 13 years in business, A16Z has spent billions of dollars in numerous initiatives and funds.

The guiding idea of Andreessen Horowitz is to comprehend the difficulties faced by founders when managing a startup. A16z’s general partners, or fund operators, have all served as CEOs and CTOs of well-known technological firms, therefore this investment fund is aware of the challenges faced by the businesses they fund. prompt assistance

With the above operating principle, the investment vision of the project is extremely long-term. Andreessen Horowitz has been investing in crypto since 2013 and starting out as a Venture Capital and not a hedge fund, they target investments with withholding periods greater than 10 years.

They invest in crypto projects regardless of the market situation, because they believe that no matter how the short term plays out, the market will grow in the long term. They support startups in a variety of ways: recruiting, operations and technical expertise, legal issues, communications and marketing, and general administration.

A16z team

Founders of a16z

Marc Andreessen

Marc Andreessen (full name is Marc Lowell Andreessen) was born on July 9, 1971, was born in Cedar Falls, USA, and grew up in New Lisbon, whose parents both worked in incubation companies for business development. .

About Marc’s experience:

• He graduated in computer science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and interned at IBM in Texas.
• He is the founder of Netscape and Loudcloud – two companies that were acquired for $4.3 billion and $1.6 billion, respectively.
• Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have become super angel investors, totaling more than $80 million in many startups including Twitter and Qik.
• On July 6, 2009, Andreessen and Horowitz established a16z investment fund, with an initial fund of $300 million. This number has multiplied 9 times, becoming $ 2.7 billion three years later (due to more investment in the fund), with a portfolio of many famous companies such as Facebook, Foursquare, GitHub, Pinterest, Twitter,…

We can see that Marc Andreessen has been very successful in the field of investment and technology startups since the 2000s, which makes his position in the investment field very good. With such a good position, he easily led a16z to enter crypto early and is the largest investment fund, leading in the market.

Ben Horowitz

Ben Horowitz (full name is Benjamin Abraham Horowitz) was born on June 13, 1966, born in London, England and raised in Berkeley, California.

About Ben Horowitz’s experience:

• He graduated from Columbia University in computer science in 1988 and graduated with a Master’s degree in computer science from the University of California, Los Angeles.
• In 1990, he began his career as a computer engineer at a computer hardware and software manufacturing company in Silicon Valley. Then he and Marc Andreessen joined Netscape as Product Manager, and together became the founder of LoudCloud, before founding an a16z investment fund, with an initial fund of 300 million dollars.

Senior managers at a16z

Ali Yahya

Ali Yahya has worked at many large technology companies such as Google X and Google Brain as a software development engineer, working with algorithms to interact with robots and composing open-source AI libraries for robots. Google, TensorFlow.

At a16z, he works closely with the foundation’s portfolio of Layer 1 projects such as Dapper Labs and Flow, Compound, Avalanche, Near, Rally, and Dfinity.

With a long time working in technology companies like Google, and starting to work at a16z and crypto investment in November 2017, Ali Yahya has a lot of experience not only in crypto investment but also in the field of crypto investment. techniques of software developers.

Arianna Simpson

Arianna Simpson is General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Prior to joining Andreessen Horowitz, Arianna founded Autonomous Partners, an investment fund focused on cryptocurrencies and digital assets. She also helped found Crystal Towers Capital in 2015.

As you can see, Arianna Simpson has a lot of experience working in different investment funds. It can be said that she is the first to participate in the crypto market

Chris Dixon

Chris Dixon has been a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz for the past six years, investing in companies from the seed stage to later rounds. Previously, Chris was the co-founder of two startups, SiteCity, and Hunch, which were acquired by McAfee and eBay. Prior to joining Andreessen Horowitz, Chris was also a co-founder of Founder Collective, a venture capital fund that has made investments in various technology companies.

From an early age, Chris started programming and became a professional programmer after finishing college, at the options-trading firm Arbittrade.

As can be observed, Chris Dixon has extensive experience working in investment funds, as well as in numerous successful startups and diverse financial institutions throughout his younger years. Chris Dixon also spoke extensively about his investment philosophy and viewpoints on the market, including topics like decentralization, NFTs, Web3,…

A16z portfolio overview

Layer 1

Layer 1 projects invested by a16z (besides Bitcoin and Ethereum) include Avalanche, Celo, Chia, Difinity, Near, Oasis Network, Keep Network, Handshake, and Helium.

• Near Protocol: In May 2020, a16z led a $21.6 million investment round in Near Protocol at an unknown valuation.
• Avalanche: Avalanche was invested by a16z in Series A with $6 million in funding in 2019
• Dfinity: a16z invested in Dfinity very early, since the project called for the first rounds. They and Polychain invested twice in this project at valuations of $ 1.3 billion (information is verified) and $ 9.5 billion in February 2018 and the end of August 2018.
• Celo: a16z lead round invested $20 million in Celo in February 2021.
• Oasis Network: a16z led the round of $45 million investment in Oasis Labs in July 2018.

Layer 2

The projects invested by a16z in the layer 2 array are:

• Optimism: Ethereum’s scaling solution was led by a16z in a $25 million Series A investment round in February 2021.

CeFi

Some projects in the CeFi A16z array have invested:

• Eco: Activant Capital and L Catterton are co-leading a new $60 million fundraising round in Eco, other VCs like a16z Crypto, as well as a number of new faces: Lightspeed Venture Partners, LionTree Partners, Valor Equity Partners, and dozens of others.
• CoinSwitch Kuber:  Indian cryptocurrency exchange, CoinSwitch Kuber had raised over $260 million.
• Anchorage Digital: Anchorage had raised an $80 million Series C, led by GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, with participation from a16z, Blockchain Capital, Lux, and Indico.

DeFi

DeFi projects invested by a16z include:

• MakerDAO: In September 2018, a16z invested $15 million to buy 6% of the total supply of MAKER token – the governance token of the MakerDAO project, at a project valuation of $240 million.
• Fei Protocol: Fei Labs announced in March 2021 that it raised $19 million from multiple funds including a16z, Framework Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Naval Ravikant.
• Compound: Compound Finance has two funding rounds attended by a16z.
• Uniswap: Andreessen Horowitz, USV, Paradigm, Parafi Capital invest in Series A of Uniswap $11 million.
• dYdX: Today’s largest decentralized derivatives exchange, completed a Series C investment round in June 2021 with a $65 million funding round, led by Paradigm.
• Yellow Card: Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain invests $1.5 million in this exchange to attack the crypto market in Africa.
• CoinSwitch Kuber: October 2021, a16z and Coinbase Ventures Completed a $260 Million Investment Round at a Near $2 Billion Valuation

Infrastructure

Projects invested by a16z in the field of infrastructure and data include:

• Arweave: Arweave received an investment of $8 million in March 2020.
• Deso Labs: In September 2021, Deso announced they were invested $200 million by multiple funds including Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase Ventures, Winklevoss Capital, Pantera Capital, Sequoia.
• Nym Technologies: Completes next round of funding led by a16z at $270 million valuation.
• WorldCoin: This eyeball-scanning personal identity project successfully raised a private round at a valuation of $1 billion.
• Nansen: Nansen was invested $12 million by a16z and other funds in July 2021.
• Kosen Labs: This Labs just received a $5 million seed round investment
• Aleo: In April 2021, a16z announced they were leading the round with a $28 million investment in Aleo.
• Forta: In September 2021, a16z announced it was the first round to invest $23 million in Forta, an enterprise-grade security platform.
• Alchemy: An infrastructure piece that helps developers develop Dapps has completed a $250 million funding round at a $3.5 million valuation in mid-November 2021.

Verdict

Above is an overview of their A16z fund and Portfolio. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or ideas about the project, please email ventures@coincu.com.

DISCLAIMER: The Information on this website is provided as general market commentary and does not constitute investment advice. We encourage you to do your own research before investing.

Ken. N

Coincu Ventures