Andreessen Horowitz (A16z): A Legend in the Global Investment Landscape Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, a venture capital giant from Silicon Valley, was co-founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz in 2009. They are known for their broad investment vision, innovative investment methods, and all-round support for investment companies. Their investment cases are star-studded, including technology giants such as Airbnb, Facebook, Slack, Lyft, PagerDuty, and Pinterest.
a16z has been active at the forefront of cryptocurrency and blockchain, and they began investing in Bitcoin and blockchain technology in 2013. Its early investments in crypto companies include Coinbase, Ripple, BitGo, and 21 Inc.
In recent years, a16z has been paying close attention to the development and innovation in the crypto field, and based on this, they are actively looking for new investment opportunities and strategies. They have invested in many emerging crypto projects, such as Uniswap, Compound, dYdX, Solana, Celo, Dfinity, Flow, Arweave, and Near. These projects are innovating and making breakthroughs in their respective fields, providing new perspectives and possibilities for the development of the entire crypto field.
a16z not only takes active actions in investment behavior, but also provides important strategic guidance and resource support in the crypto field. They have set up a special crypto fund and hired a group of professionals with rich experience and knowledge in the crypto field to provide all-round help and support to the companies they invest in. In addition, they also regularly publish research reports and analysis on the crypto field, providing valuable reference and guidance for the entire industry.
The Anatomy of an Investment Case: A Changing Focus
In the past two years, as the crypto market entered a bear market, the number of investments by many investment institutions has declined significantly, and a16z is no exception. In their initial entry into the crypto market, a16z mainly focused on infrastructure, exchanges, and wallets.
In 2013, they led the B round of financing for Coinbase, the leading CeFi institution in the market today, and continued to participate in the investment in 2018. Coinbase has now become one of the world's largest cryptocurrency trading platforms, with millions of users and billions of dollars in trading volume. In addition to Coinbase, a16z also led the DeFi project dYdX in 2017. They organized and led the seed round of dYdX, and made additional investments in 2018, successfully raising $10M for it. In the 2021 B round of financing, we can still see a16z. In addition, a16z also led the investment in MakerDAO in 2017 and led the Celo project for three consecutive years (2018-2020).
As the crypto market develops, a16z began to increase the number and amount of investments in the crypto field in the second half of 2020 and 2021, and gradually shifted its attention to emerging fields such as DeFi and NFT. They have always adhered to the model of discovering new projects and exploring new strategies in the crypto field, and sought transformation, so they chose to adopt a token model investment strategy in Uniswap.
As a whale player in Uniswap, a16z holds a total of 15 million UNI tokens and has a huge influence in every public vote of the project. Their voting behavior has attracted much attention, and although there will be various voices in the market, it also reflects a16z's influence and status in the crypto field.
a16z's investment activity reached a peak in 2022. They began to pay more attention to innovative Web3 projects and the NFT field in this year, while their investment in the CeFi field declined. In the first quarter of 2022, a16z took the lead in leading the seed round of Yuga Labs (bored ape), enabling the project to successfully raise $450M in funds at a valuation of $4B. This is one of the highest-funded projects in the NFT and metaverse fields in recent years. In addition, they also participated in leading Opensea's A and B rounds of financing, establishing its position in the NFT trading market.
Entering 2023, in addition to investing in infrastructure and game metaverse projects, a16z has also maintained its focus on emerging fields, including the expanded applications of artificial intelligence, which is currently the hottest field.
It can be clearly seen from their latest two rounds of investment projects, Worldcoin and Gensyn, that their focus has shifted significantly. In addition to their regular focus on projects in the traditional crypto market, they have begun to shift their attention to the field of AI.
Worldcoin is a crypto project created by OpenAI founder Sam Altman. Worldcoin's grand vision is to enable the majority of the world's population to access the global financial system by building the world's largest fair digital identity and currency system. a16z participated in the investment together with well-known investment institutions such as Coinbase, Multicoin Capital, and 1confirmation. The project has raised $125 million in two rounds of financing and is still seeking an additional $100 million in financing.
Gensyn is a forward-looking decentralized AI computing network project. It uses blockchain technology to verify the completion of deep learning tasks and trigger payments through tokens. The goal of this network is to provide more efficient, secure, and reliable computing resources for the training of AI models. Gensyn combines the advantages of blockchain technology, which enables efficient allocation and utilization of computing resources, with the advantages of decentralization, providing higher security and reliability. a16z saw the potential of Gensyn and believed that this project could solve some existing problems in the field of artificial intelligence, so it decided to invest.
Looking to the future: strategic vision and investment direction
Compared with other VC institutions, a16z has maintained a positive attitude towards the market during the bear market in the crypto market and continued to invest in this field. They launched a new cryptocurrency fund in 2022, dedicated to supporting emerging blockchain projects and cryptocurrency innovations, and $1.5 billion in the fund will be used specifically to support seed investments in Web3 startups.
This fund will provide startups with the necessary funds and resources to help them build a sustainable crypto ecosystem. In addition to financial support, a16z will also provide all-round assistance such as business advice, technical support and marketing.
a16z has made extensive investments in the cryptocurrency field in the past, including decentralized finance, digital identity verification, cryptocurrency exchanges, and mining. These investments have not only promoted the development of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, but also brought considerable returns to a16z itself. Artificial intelligence is one of the hottest technology fields at present, and it has a wide range of applications in many fields such as medicine, finance, and manufacturing. By combining blockchain technology and artificial intelligence technology, more innovative applications and business models can be created, bringing more investment opportunities to the crypto VC industry.