Written by: Surf

Compiled by: TechFlow

Watching venture capital funds can help you spot new trends early, and of all the crypto VCs, A16z is one venture capital firm you must pay attention to.

Here are a16z’s investments so far in the first quarter of 2023:

Cryptocurrency

Their largest portfolio positions are:

  • $UNI - $74.4 million;

  • $COMP - $8.82 million;

  • $MKR -$2.59 million.

Here are A16z’s top 5 cryptocurrency investments for Q1 2023:

Story Protocol

Funding raised: $29.3 million seed round;

Lead investor: A16z;

Other investors: Hashed, Mirana Corp, DAO5, Samsung Next, etc.

Introduction of Story Protocol:

• Story Protocol is a Web3 technology that aims to revolutionize the way narrative worlds are created.

• It provides a way to create, manage and license intellectual property on-chain.

• Has the potential to change the way we create and consume stories.

Project Twitter: https://twitter.com/StoryProtocol

LayerZero Labs

Funding raised: $120 million Series B;

Lead investor: A16z;

Other investors: Circle Ventures, Sequoia, OpenSea, Christie's.

LayerZero Labs Introduction:

• It is a blockchain messaging protocol developer that allows dApps to operate across chains

• It solves the problem of cross-chain communication by providing a way for dApps to communicate with each other without having to worry about the underlying blockchain.

Project Twitter: https://twitter.com/LayerZero_Labs

Capsule Wallets

Funding raised: Not disclosed yet

Lead investor: A16z

Other investors: Spice Capital, Celo, Sommelier Finance.

Capsule Introduction:

• Capsule Wallets is a cryptocurrency money infrastructure provider focused on helping developers create wallets with interoperable transactions.

• Provides an SDK that allows developers to easily create wallets that can interact with multiple blockchains.

Town( HNT Labs)

Funding raised: RMB 25 million in Series A;

Lead investor: A16z;

Other investors: Benchmark, Framework Ventures.

Town＆HNT Labs Introduction:

• Here Not There Labs has developed a fully decentralized online community chat protocol.

• They are the developers of Towns, a protocol and web-based chat application designed to facilitate self-owned and self-governing online communities.

Stelo Labs

Funding raised: $6 million seed round;

Lead investor: A16z;

Other investors: First Round Capital, Opensea Ventures, Chainforest.

Stelo Labs Introduction:

• Stelo Labs is a software company that protects users from phishing, fraud, and scams.

• They provide a solution that allows users to avoid phishing attacks and understand transactions before signing them.

Project Twitter: https://twitter.com/stelolabs

Top 5 non-cryptocurrency investments in Q1 2023:

It can be seen that AI is still its top priority.

OpenAI - $300 million

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is developing generative AI solutions and is backed by Microsoft, Tiger Global, Seia, and others.

This is an AI-based narrative.

Orbital Therapeutics - $270 million

Orbital Ther is a biotechnology company developing new treatments for eye diseases. They use gene therapy to deliver drugs directly to the eye, which could potentially cure or slow the progression of many eye diseases.

Character AI – $150 million

Character AI uses artificial intelligence to create realistic and engaging characters for video games and other applications. They use machine learning to generate visually appealing and emotionally resonant characters.

Pinecone - $100 million

Pinecone is a company that develops a platform to help businesses collect and analyze customer feedback. They make it easy for businesses to create surveys, collect feedback, and analyze the results.

Replit - $97.4 million

Replit is an integrated development environment (IDE).

This is part of a growing trend of investments in generative AI technologies, such as Replit, a code-generating AI tool called Ghostwriter for its IDE (integrated development environment).