- The flagship crypto fund of a16z recorded a lack of 40% within the first half of 2022.
- Fund Supervisor Chris Dixon stays undeterred by the market downturn.
- The VC agency has poured tens of millions into a number of funding rounds within the crypto business this month regardless of the crypto winter.
- Dixon had acknowledged earlier that the crypto bear market is “extra interesting” for web3 investments.
The crypto bear market appears to have caught as much as the favored enterprise capital agency Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).
As per a report printed by The Wall Avenue Journal, a16z’s flagship crypto fund recorded a lack of round 40% in the course of the first half of 2022. The loss has prompted the agency, identified for its bullish stance on crypto, to decelerate investments within the sector. Knowledge from Pitchbook exhibits that the third quarter of this 12 months noticed the VC concerned in simply 9 crypto startup offers as in comparison with the 26 offers it made throughout This autumn of 2021.
Along with limiting investments, the agency has adjusted the valuation of Crypto Fund II and Crypto Fund III in keeping with the present market outlook. A16z had raised $515 million and $2.7 billion for these funds respectively.
Crypto ventures by a16z
Andreessen Horowitz is a well known enterprise capital agency in Silicon Valley which has backed in style names like Twitter and Meta (previously Fb). In 2018, crypto maximalist Chris Dixon satisfied the agency’s founders to arrange a devoted fund that might make investments completely in blockchain-related tasks. This led to the creation of the a16z’s preliminary crypto fund with a battle chest value $350 million. Since then, the agency has raised $7.6 billion for crypto-related investments.
Regardless of seeing a market-wide selloff in Might this 12 months, a16z doubled down on their crypto gamble and introduced their newest fund, dubbed the Crypto Fund 4, which raised a document $4.5 billion.
The crypto market has solely gotten worse since then, however Dixon continues to pour tens of millions into crypto tasks. The fund supervisor instructed WSJ that he’s enjoying the lengthy recreation and that mass adoption for blockchain companies is but to return.
What I take a look at shouldn’t be costs. I take a look at the entrepreneur and developer exercise, that’s the core metric.” Dixon mentioned.
This month alone has seen the agency collaborating in a number of funding rounds. The fund led the Sequence B funding spherical of web3 information startup Golden, which raised $40 million. The fund participated within the newest funding spherical of DeFi trade UniSwap as effectively, which raised $165 million. A16z additionally led a $14 million funding spherical for web3 commerce startup Rye.
Earlier this 12 months in August, Chris Dixon participated in a podcast hosted by the Financial Times the place he acknowledged that he regarded on the market downturn as a possibility to speculate. In response to Dixon, the downturn had “made Web3 investments extra interesting.”