Andreessen Horowitz Doubles Down on Crypto Investments With New $515M Fund

Andreessen Horowitz’s (a16z) second crypto fund exhibits the enterprise capital agency is focusing on particular areas to spend money on the cryptocurrency area.

The corporate stated Thursday it had raised a complete of $515 million – greater than the unique $450 million goal – for a second fund referred to as “Crypto Fund II,” devoted to cryptocurrency and blockchain initiatives. It is also greater than $150 million raised for VC’s first crypto fund, which launched again in the summertime of 2018.

Within the weblog submit asserting the brand new fund, a16z says it’s trying into initiatives touching next-generation funds, decentralized finance (DeFi), new monetization fashions and Web3 (the idea of a decentralized web).

On DeFi, the place complete worth handed the billion-dollar milestone earlier this 12 months, a16z stated it noticed excessive potential within the composability of property. “DeFi opens the elements of finance to the identical recombination and experimentation that makes open-source software program so highly effective,” it stated.

This marks a distinction to a16z’s first crypto fund. In its preliminary funding thesis, the VC talked about a handful of what it noticed as attention-grabbing use circumstances, together with stablecoins, monetary inclusion and the tokenization of real-world property.

Nevertheless, it included the caveat that “we’re nonetheless early within the crypto motion. The infrastructure must be improved and the functions are troublesome for non-early adopters to make use of. Many crypto functions nonetheless get dismissed as toys.”

Thursday’s weblog submit suggests a16z now considers the trade could have reached essential mass.