Amid crypto market turmoil, Andreessen Horowitz announces $4.5 billion web3 fund

Despite a gloomy outlook for the markets, venture capitalists are not taking their foot off the gas.

The latest fund from the company, which has undergone a bit of a transformation over the past few years, is a whopper. The new $4.5 billion fund is double the size of their last one and shows the widening interest among the firm's limited partners in increasing their exposure to cryptocurrencies. One-third of the new mega-fund will be devoted to seed deals.

It has been less than a year since the firm announced its $2.2 billion Crypto Fund III, and the firm has been through a lot. Recent months have seen the further ascent of firms like Electric Capital which have raised mega funds to challenge the dominance of a16z. The exit of Haun from a16z and her launch of Haun Capital with a billion dollars spread across two funds was a blow to the firm.

Following a16z departure, Katie Haun debuts Haun Ventures with $1.5B in capital to back crypto startups

Chris Dixon has been helmed by a long time GP who has seemed to up his public persona in recent months, getting into occasional spats with figures like Block and Jack Dorsey on social media. The collapse of the Terra ecosystem and its stable coin UST, which caused tens of billions of dollars in value to evaporate in a matter of hours, has caused a lot of skepticism among investors and entrepreneurs.

When asked if the market's cooling will scare traditional firms away from continuing their bets, a16z's Arianna Simpson said that it's likely other firms will pull back.

a16z debuts new crypto research team led by Columbia, Stanford researchers

When a16z announced its last fund, the markets crashed but soon rebounded, pushing the cryptocurrencies to new all-time-highs. As public tech stocks continue to get hammered, the outlook among investors seems less rosy, and watchers predict that turbulent times lie ahead for the tech industry.

With a hefty war chest of fresh capital, the arm of the company is well-positioned to keep scaling operations, but uncertain times ahead have left plenty of new founders concerned about the availability of capital during another potential winter.

Simpson says that they can't predict the future state of the market.

Adam Neumann’s blockchain-based redemption story now sponsored by a16z

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