Venture capital titan Andreessen Horowitz plans to start two new crypto funds worth a total of $4.5 billion to support its expansion in the digital asset space.
As reported by the Financial Times, the firm says it plans to raise $3.5 billion for a new crypto venture fund and $1 billion for a fund focused on seeding startups centered around digital assets.
Citing someone with knowledge on the matter, the Financial Times says that the venture capital behemoth plans to finalize the two new funds by March.
The report comes weeks after Bloomberg revealed that venture capital firms across the world poured a staggering $30 billion into crypto assets last year, which is more than all previous years combined and quadruple that of the previous high of $8 billion set in 2018.
Bloomberg also cites data from market research firm PitchBook showing that Andreessen Horowitz itself has made 40 crypto-related deals between 2016 and December 2021. Coinbase Ventures, the investment arm of digital asset giant Coinbase, leads all US-based crypto venture capital with 68 deals over the same time period.
In May last year, Andreessen Horowitz announced that it was planning to raise up to $1 billion to invest in cryptocurrencies as well as crypto startups.
2021 also saw Andreessen Horowitz investing in crypto projects as the company struck deals last year with popular smart contract platform and Ethereum-competitor Solana (SOL), leading non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea and blockchain-based gaming startup Sky Mavis, the studio known for creating NFT-focused metaverse game Axie Infinity (AXS).
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