a16z raises new $2B fund and says the firm's 150 employees are being registered as financial advisors, so they can go deeper on riskier bets, like buying crypto
Emerging from the financial crisis in 2009, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz laid out their campaign to take on Silicon Valley. Tweets: @bizcarson , @zalzally , @bizcarson , @bizcarson , @alexrkonrad , @alexrkonrad , and @alexrkonrad . Thanks: @alexrkonrad Tweets: Biz Carson / @bizcarson : Some great Uber and Lyft history in here: Andreessen Horowitz almost led Uber's Series B, but whiffed on it at the last moment. “They tried to surprise us,” Travis Kalanick wrote his investors. “So here we are. The next phase of Uber begins.” https://www.forbes.com/... Zal Bilimoria / @zalzally : Love that @pmarca cited the HBO show “Succession” in this 10th anniversary piece on @a16z: “If you can't ride two elephants at the same time, what are you doing at the circus?” http://www.forbes.com/... Biz Carson / @bizcarson : Ben Horowitz somewhat regrets the firm's early stance of rebuilding the venture model and fixing a broken industry: “I kind of regret it, because I feel like I hurt people's feelings who were perfectly good businesses. I went too far.” https://www.forbes.com/... tip @Techmeme Biz Carson / @bizcarson : Andreessen Horowitz is blowing up the venture capital model again. This time, it's by re-registering its entire firm as financial advisors so it can take riskier bets — and renouncing its status as a venture capital firm entirely. http://www.forbes.com/... Alex Konrad / @alexrkonrad : .@Forbes takes you inside Andreesen Horowitz's financial returns that have LPs happy but have spurred doubts among peers. And we looked at @a16z's service model and its impact on VC — what's been copied, and what may not be working. http://www.forbes.com/... tip @Techmeme Alex Konrad / @alexrkonrad : Across 50 interviews with partners, founders, backers and ex-employees, @Forbes takes you inside Andreessen Horowitz as the VC firm plans for the next 10 years, from a new growth fund to a radical move to register all 150 employees as financial advisers. http://www.forbes.com/... Alex Konrad / @alexrkonrad : That move, which allows Andreessen Horowitz the flexibility to invest more in crypto, secondary shares and other risky bets, embodies @pmarca's words to me in his first sit-down interview in 2 years: “The 21st century is the century of disagreeableness.” http://www.forbes.com/... Thanks: @alexrkonrad
Context & Ripple Effects
This 2019 move reads differently against a16z's own arc: the same firm that almost whiffed on Uber's Series B has since grown its investment team faster than Sequoia or Accel (headcount up 170% in four years), scaled fund sizes to a $7.2B haul across late-stage, gaming, and American Dynamism vehicles by 2024 (that raise), and leaked decks now show $25B in net returns since 2009 (per Newcomer).
Registering all 150 employees as financial advisers is the structural hinge: it converts a16z from a pure equity venture shop into something that can hold riskier balance-sheet assets directly — crypto chief among them. That posture was later reinforced politically, with Marc Andreessen's millions flowing to a pro-crypto dark money group.
First-order effects
- a16z gains regulatory clearance for its entire staff to buy and hold crypto tokens and secondary shares directly, so the new $2B fund is no longer limited to traditional startup equity.
- Every employee-adviser now carries individual compliance obligations, making the firm's regulatory footprint — and its cost of staying aggressive on risky assets — a permanent operating line.
Second-order effects
- Rivals like Sequoia and Accel face a template where firm-wide adviser registration becomes a competitive capability, forcing them either to replicate the structure or concede crypto and secondaries dealflow.
- Crypto-native startups gain a dedicated, deep-pocketed buyer whose appetite no longer depends on structuring workarounds around venture-fund rules.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the line between venture firm and registered asset manager keeps dissolving — with fund size growth (from this $2B vehicle toward the later multi-billion raises) and regulatory positioning doing more competitive work than sourcing alone.
- A venture industry that lobbies alongside its investments — as a16z's PAC and pro-crypto spending show — points toward regulation itself becoming a strategic arena where the largest firms shape the rules they register under.
The trend: Top-tier venture firms are restructuring into SEC-registered asset managers so they can chase crypto, secondaries, and ever-larger funds beyond classic startup equity.