A Silicon Valley-based investment firm is launching a new technological research lab to focus on innovation and problem solving as the world of crypto and blockchain expands and matures.
In a new press release, venture capital titan Andreessen Horowitz announces the birth of a16z Crypto Research to “help bridge the worlds of academic theory with industry practice” within the realm of Web 3.0.
“We’re excited to announce the creation of a16z Crypto Research, a new kind of multidisciplinary lab that will work closely with our portfolio and others toward solving the important problems in the space, and toward advancing the science and technology of the next generation of the internet.”
The head of research will be Tim Roughgarden, a computer science professor at Stanford and Columbia Universities whose field of research is focused on the future of Web 3.0.
Joining Mr. Roughgarden as senior research advisor is cryptography expert Dan Boneh, who serves as a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford University.
The other founding members of the multidisciplinary team are Joseph Bonneau, Benedikt Bünz, Scott Duke Kominers and Valeria Nikolaenko.
The new academic research offshoot will prioritize the implementation of new ideas, and to that end, four dedicated teams will work together by employing the following workflow:
“(1) Generate ideas for solving hard open problems.
(2) Write production-grade code that brings those ideas to life.
(3) Make sure our ideas and implementation are compliant with any applicable regulations.
(4) Share our findings with the broader Web3 community.”
Andreessen Horowitz has been active in the cryptocurrency space throughout 2022. Back in January, it was revealed that the firm planned 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.
Then in early March, the firm invested $70 million into Lido DAO (LDO), a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) centered around staking leading altcoin Ethereum (ETH).
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