Markets · Venture
a16z says a16z Crypto is now a16z Frontier, widening its new fund to other early-stage technology while it keeps investing in crypto.
Andreessen Horowitz is renaming a16z Crypto, its crypto investing arm, to a16z Frontier and said in a post on its website that the move is an expansion, not an exit. The firm's new fund will now back startups beyond crypto, so founders in other early-stage technology can pitch it.
"Today we're announcing that we're expanding the scope of our new fund beyond crypto startups to the broader category of frontier startups," managing partner Chris Dixon wrote in a post on the firm's site at 11:45 a.m. ET. "This is an expansion: we will continue to invest in crypto and related ventures and advocate for sensible crypto regulation." [1] The Information reported the planned rename earlier Thursday.
The firm's reasoning is that the crypto label is fading. "Wall Street and fintech companies now regularly launch products built on blockchains," Dixon wrote. "It makes more sense to define companies by what they do rather than by the technologies they use." [1] The post names areas such as new uses of AI, autonomous machines, biology and medicine, and "networks built for machines," and still gives blockchains a role as "money rails that are fast, cheap, global, and programmable." [1]
Dixon will lead the fund with founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz and general partners Eddy Lazzarin and Guy Wuollet [1]. The post gives no fund size and says nothing about the firm's existing crypto funds.
In Le Coin's view, the rename matters more as a read on where crypto sits than as a change in who gets funded. The objection is fair: a16z says it will keep investing in crypto and keep advocating for sensible crypto regulation, and nothing in the post moves money away from the sector. But when a16z's crypto arm stops calling itself crypto, it tells founders the word alone no longer sells.
What is not yet known is how much of the new fund goes to crypto. The tell is whether a16z Frontier's next deals and filings name crypto companies at the rate a16z Crypto did.
Holding the Corner.
Not financial advice.