Wallet Street Venture Capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz (a16Z) is rallying investors for a $4.5 billion dual fund targeted at making strategic investments in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
According to the Financial Times, $3.5 billion is billed to be earmarked for its newest cryptocurrency enterprise fund, while $1 billion will be reserved for strategic investments in crypto startups seeking seed funding.
The Silicon Valley-based Andreessen Horowitz plan’s to secure the funding by March which will nearly double the firm’s previous crypto fund of $2.2 billion.
While Wall Street may be waking up to the potentials of the cryptocurrency industry, Andreessen Horowitz has long been backing innovations and promising startups in the emerging world. As Blockchain.News reported, the firm tapped the services of the head of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)’s regulatory unit, Anthony Albanese as its new chief regulatory officer while also spearheading its thriving cryptocurrency division as far back as 2020. Former Coinbase vice president of communication, Kim Milosevich, also join a16Z as the chief marketing officer.
If the firm is able to pull the funds as reported, it will be the biggest funds raised in the digital currency world, a record that is currently being held by Paradigm Capital, a joint venture between Coinbase’s Fred Erhsam, and Sequoia Capital’s Huang, which pulled $2.5 billion in funds to back startups in the fast-growing cryptocurrency ecosystem in November last year.
While the a16Z’s plans have not been made public yet, the company is well known for a related fundraiser in the ecosystem. The company pulled $2.2 billion from investors back in June last year to create the Crypto Fund III, the largest at the time.
Renowned for being one of the early investors in big multinationals such as Meta Platforms Inc (formerly Facebook Inc), Twitter, and Coinbase Global Inc, Andreessen Horowitz has also made headlines for backing projects like OpenSea, CryptoKitties, and Helium amongst others. With the metaverse and NFT related innovations taking momentum at present, the proposed $4.5 billion will surely be put to very good use.
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