Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), one of the most vocal financial supporters of crypto, is taking the word out of its fund’s name. The firm is rebranding a16z Crypto as a16z Frontier, and the fund will now cover artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies too.
Chris Dixon, a general partner at the firm, announced the switch in a blog post on Thursday. According to Dixon, the renamed fund will go after startups working on technologies and markets that could need years to mature.
The firm isn’t walking away from crypto. Dixon said a16z will keep investing in crypto companies and lobbying for crypto regulation.
“This is an expansion: we will continue to invest in crypto and related ventures and advocate for sensible crypto regulation,” he wrote.
Dixon argues the crypto label no longer says much
The case Dixon makes for the new name is that blockchains are now so common in mainstream finance that splitting companies into “crypto” and “not crypto” has stopped being a useful distinction.
“Wall Street and fintech companies now regularly launch products built on blockchains,” he wrote. “Does that make them crypto companies? The label matters less now.”
The argument suits a firm looking for room to pursue AI deals. There’s also some truth in it. A bank putting out a product on a blockchain has little in common with the startups a16z Crypto was created to back.
What the fund will back from here
A16z Frontier plans to look at products built on AI, autonomous machines, and networks linking people with AI agents. In that third area, Dixon still sees a role for blockchains as the rails machines use to pay and trade with one another.
The crypto thesis is still there. It just sits beneath an AI thesis now.
Dixon will lead the fund alongside a16z founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, as well as general partners Eddy Lazzarin and Guy Wuollet.
A16z is joining a trend other crypto VCs started
Other crypto-native investors got here first, and a16z’s move isn’t the largest of the year when measured in dollars.
In July, Paradigm raised $1.2 billion for investments in AI, robotics and other technologies. A month earlier, in June, Framework Ventures raised $400 million to branch out into AI, energy, fintech and tokenization. Haun Ventures moved toward AI and financial services in May with a $1 billion raise.
A16z is the fourth firm on that growing list, and it has the longest crypto track record riding on the change.
The backer behind some of crypto’s biggest names
A16z got into Coinbase early. It also funded Solana (SOL) and the decentralized exchange Uniswap (UNI), invested billions of dollars in crypto startups, and became one of the industry’s best-known voices in U.S. policy battles.
With the rename, the same crypto team behind those investments will now split its time with pitches to AI founders.