Morning Minute: a16z Raises $15B, Targets AI & Crypto

Morning Minute is simply a regular newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The investigation and opinions expressed are his ain and bash not needfully bespeak those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s apical news:

• Crypto majors level implicit the weekend; BTC astatine $90,600

• XMR jumps to $600 overnight and caller ATH, up 33% connected week

• Jerome Powell releases connection claiming charges are owed to his not complying with Trump, gold+silver spike

• a16z raises $15M crossed funds to put successful America’s future, AI & crypto astatine forefront

• X announces plans for Smart Cashtags, showing unrecorded charts on with tickers

a16z is backmost with its biggest fundraise ever.

And crypto is astatine the forefront.

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) announced it raised implicit $15B crossed aggregate caller funds, 1 of the largest VC fundraises successful years.

Per a16z’s ain breakdown, the rise includes: Growth ($6.75B), Apps ($1.7B), Infrastructure ($1.7B), American Dynamism ($1.176B), Bio + Health ($700M), positive $3B successful different strategies.

For humanities context, a16z has been a apical crypto allocator for years, raising dedicated vehicles including:

• $300M for its archetypal crypto money (2018)

• $515M Crypto Fund II (2020)

• $2.2B Crypto Fund III (2021)

• $4.5B Crypto Fund IV (2022), including $1.5B effect + $3B venture

Some of their notable investments crossed that clip see Coinbase, Solana, Uniswap, OpenSea, and Phantom, positive much caller deals similar Kalshi and EigenLayer.

“As the American person successful task capital, the destiny of caller exertion successful the United States rests partially connected our shoulders. Our ngo is ensuring that America wins the adjacent 100 years of technology.” - Ben Horowitz, a16z cofounder

It’s absorbing to instrumentality a peek nether the hood present to spot what a16z is investing in, to get a glimpse of their presumption of the future:

• AI infrastructure: a16z is leaning into compute, tooling, and level layers that volition powerfulness the adjacent decennary of software

• “American Dynamism”: defense, housing, proviso chains, and different “national interest” categories

• Infrastructure + Apps: the picks-and-shovels furniture that tin past aggregate marketplace cycles (and typically captures worth adjacent erstwhile narratives rotate).

For crypto specifically, it’s:

• more stablecoin and payments rails

• more tokenized assets and settlement

• more infrastructure that tin onboard institutions

• more crypto x AI convergence

It whitethorn beryllium a spot “boring,” but that’s apt an apt mode to sermon this adjacent signifier of crypto. We’re acceptable up for a boring maturity phase.