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Welcome back to Chain Reaction, a podcast that interviews crypto newsmakers to better understand the technology behind the hype and the people working to build a decentralized future.
In this week’s episode, Jacqueline I met Ariana Simpson, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (aka a16z).
Prior to joining a16z, Ariana founded Autonomous Partners, a crypto-focused investment fund. She also helped launch Crystal Towers Capital, a fund that invests primarily in YC companies.
A16z has delved into the crypto space after launching four boxes dedicated to the industry. The last one closed at $4.5 billion in May 2022, which Ariana thinks is appropriate, given the size of the opportunity.
“I definitely think the ecosystem has grown to a size where it fully supports a fund of this size and that’s why we’ve put together a fund of this size,” Simpson said. We didn’t have to raise any numbers. We chose a number that we thought spoke of the size of the opportunity. The ecosystem has clearly grown tremendously and continues to attract a lot of early stage entrepreneurs who are building across the board.”
When asked if there will be a fifth a16z cryptobox, Simpson said, “I certainly hope so.” She added that a16z “will continue to tailor our fund sizes to the opportunities we see in the market.”
Some of the company’s portfolio companies include the big crypto players we’ve met in the past, such as Alchemy, Avalanche, and Aptos.
Over the years, there has been an expansion of investment opportunities “into a whole new world of consumer applications, experiences, and products that just wouldn’t have been possible because they couldn’t work on blockchains a few years ago, and now they are,” Simpson said. “For me, that’s the really exciting thing: There’s a whole world of apps that consumers can use.”
We talked about Simpson’s background, how its strategy has changed over the years, what it looks for in founders and whether it would launch another VC company in the future.
We also discussed:
- current investment climate
- web3 game space
- Where founders build
- organizational landscape
- Tips for founders
Chain Reaction releases every Thursday at 12:00 PM PT, so be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the latest in web3 and crypto.