Venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) raised a whopping $2.2 billion for its much anticipated Crypto Fund III.
The fund was initially rumored to be $1 billion. Later reports put it at $2 billion. The announced amount on Thursday would suggest now’s a good time to be raising money for crypto investments.
“This fund allows us to find the next generation of visionary crypto founders, and invest in the most exciting areas of crypto,” a16z’s Chris Dixon, Katie Haun and Ali Yahya wrote in a blog post. “We invest in all stages, from early seed-stage projects to fully developed later-stage networks.”
The firm’s last fund, announced in April 2020, started with $515 million in dry powder.
A16z has been among the most active investors in the crypto industry in recent years. As an early investor in Coinbase, it reaped enormous profits for its limited partners when the crypto exchange went public in April.
The a16z announcement also included some hiring news for the Silicon Valley firm, led most notably by the addition of former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) official Bill Hinman as an advisory partner. Hinman is best known in crypto circles as the first SEC honcho to classify ether, the native currency of the Ethereum blockchain, as a commodity, not a security.
“As with any new computing movement, crypto has endured a variety of challenges and misconceptions,” a16z wrote. “That’s why we are also bringing together heavy-hitters across several functions to help translate crypto to the mainstream.”