Andreessen Horowitz rebrands crypto fund as a16z Frontier
Andreessen Horowitz has renamed its digital assets arm a16z Crypto as a16z Frontier and broadened its mandate to back startups in artificial intelligence, robotics and other emerging technologies, the firm announced on Thursday. Managing partner Chris Dixon will lead the fund alongside Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and general partners Eddy Lazzarin and Guy Wuollet.
The rebrand widens the scope of the $2.2 billion fund the firm announced in May, though it said it will continue backing crypto startups and advocating for crypto regulation. Dixon, writing on X, argued that the line between crypto companies and other businesses is blurring as more firms use blockchain behind the scenes. "Does that make them crypto companies? The label matters less now," he said.
The firm had already begun investing beyond crypto before the announcement. In June, a16z Crypto led a $33 million seed round for Ornn, which is developing financial products for the AI computing market, and in October 2025 Andreessen Horowitz co-led a funding round for prediction market Kalshi. Separately, a16z Crypto general partner Ali Yahya has told some investors he plans to leave to launch a startup, according to The Information. Yahya joined in 2017 as the first person working full-time on the firm's crypto team.
The move follows similar expansions by other prominent crypto investors. Paradigm said in July, when it announced a $1.2 billion fund, that its investment approach had started in crypto but would now extend to artificial intelligence, robotics and other emerging technologies. In May, Haun Ventures founder Katie Haun announced $1 billion in new funds, writing that building financial services from the ground up "includes crypto, but is bigger than that tool set alone."
Andreessen Horowitz launched a16z Crypto in 2018 with a $350 million fund aimed at acquiring crypto assets and backing blockchain projects, and went on to raise increasingly large vehicles, including $4.5 billion in 2022. The latest $2.2 billion fund brought the total raised across five funds to $9.8 billion. Its investments have included decentralised exchange Uniswap and crypto custodian Anchorage Digital. Thursday's news marked a reversal from a statement an a16z crypto spokesperson gave Fortune in May, saying its fifth fund was "100% dedicated to investing in crypto entrepreneurs", even as rival firms had already begun expanding into artificial intelligence and other sectors.
