Venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz announced on Thursday that it has raised a new $515 million fund focused on the cryptocurrency industry, dubbed the Crypto Fund II.
According to a blog post announcing the fund, a16z plans to deploy the capital across a number of high-potential verticals including payments, modern stores-of-value, decentralized finance (DeFi), web 3.0 and digital goods.
“Investments made in internet technologies over the last several decades have given rise to products and services used every day by billions of people, including messaging, video conferencing, ecommerce and everything in between,” said a16z partners Chris Dixon and Katie Haun. “We think it’s important to keep investing in the long-term development of the internet to address the needs of the coming decades.”
Notably, a16z references gaming items as part of the unique ways in which value can be created and distributed between content creators and users.
“Today the video game industry is on the leading edge of this trend, experimenting with things like digital goods that can be traded on secondary markets and transferred between games,” added Dixon and Haun. “In the near future, we expect crypto monetization models to be applied to other creative activities –– including writing, music, podcasting, programming, design and more.”
a16z previously raised $350 million for its first crypto fund in 2018. The capital has been invested in both equity and tokens, including the purchase of 6% of Maker’s (MKR) total token supply last year.
More: a16z Crypto Fund II Announcement
Related: FT: Andreessen Horowitz Is Raising $450 Million for Its Second Crypto Fund
Disclaimer: This article’s author has cryptocurrency holdings that can be tracked here. This article is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Always conduct your own due diligence before making investments.
