Also called a16z, the famous American venture capital fund Andreessen Horowitz was founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. In 2012, Chris Dixon, who has been a coder since childhood, joined the company as a general partner. He helped the company become a central crypto entity. But, after having experienced a good period, the a16z company currently seems to be going through a lean period.
The fat cow period for Andreessen Horowitz
According to a recent article of the Wall Street Journal, Andreessen Horowitz bet heavily on the crypto sector last year during an uptrend. The famed venture capital firm has become Silicon Valley’s biggest digital asset bull, largely thanks to Chris Dixon.
As a staunch supporter of blockchain technology, Dixon was quick to encourage the company to invest in the crypto sector upon his arrival in 2012. Under the leadership of the general partner, a16z has invested around $50 million in crypto projects, in two years.
Interest Dixon’s value for this sector increased sharply with the launch of Ethereum in 2015. Dixon then encouraged Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz to launch a project to create a crypto fund. Andreessen Horowitz first launched a $350 million crypto fund in 2018, which helped him maintain his bull spot that year.
In 2020, the company launched another crypto fund, then totaling $515 million. By the end of 2021, the first crypto fund had multiplied its initial investment by 10.6 times to become Andreessen’s top performer.
Towards a decline of the company with the downtrend?
In May 2022, a16z announced the launch of the largest crypto fund ever in the venture capital world. It was a $4.5 billion fund. But with the collapse of prices in the crypto market, the company lost billions of dollars in earnings for its funds.
According to the Wall Street Journal, during the first half of 2022, Andreessen’s largest crypto fund fell around 40%. Now many investors believe that the company overdid it with its May crypto fund.
The general partner of venture capital firm Tenacity Venture Capital issued a statement on the matter. Ben Narasin indeed said:They just took things so far with crypto that I’m not sure they can rebalance“.
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