a16z raises new $2B fund and says the firm's 150 employees are being registered as financial advisers, so they can go deeper on riskier bets, like buying crypto
and more company is coming Lauren Feiner / CNBC : One of Silicon Valley's most famous venture capital firms says it will no longer be a venture capital firm Nikhilesh De / CoinDesk : A16z Moves to Place Bigger Bets on High-Risk Assets - Including Crypto Teuta Franjkovic / Coinspeaker : Andreessen Horowitz May Soon Put $1 Billion into Crypto PYMNTS.com : Andreessen Horowitz Shifts Business Model From VC To RIA Pbokelly / Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check : Andreessen Horowitz Is Blowing Up The Venture Capital Model (Again) | Forbes Cromwell Schubarth / Silicon Valley Business Journal : Why Andreessen Horowitz doesn't want to be a venture firm anymore Ana Alexandre / Cointelegraph : Andreessen Horowitz Restructures, Registering Entire Staff as Financial Advisors Megan Hernbroth / Business Insider : Andreessen Horowitz, one of Silicon Valley's most prominent tech investors, is renouncing … Messari Crypto : A16z moves to place bigger bets on high-risk assets - including crypto Tweets: Mati Greenspan / @matigreenspan : All 150 employees will be registered as investment advisors. This will make them a lot more flexible to make investments into crypto and public markets. “it'll again make other firms feel like they have one hand tied behind their back.” -@pmarca http://www.forbes.com/... Ran NeuNer / @cryptomanran : This is way bigger than it seems. It is a clear indication that Andreessen is gearing up for a new type of economy and financial system. The world is changing...fast! http://www.forbes.com/... Downtown Josh Brown / @reformedbroker : What does this mean? Andreessen Horowitz is “renouncing its status” as a VC firm and registering all 150 employees as financial advisors....? @alexrkonrad http://www.forbes.com/... Meltem Demirors / @melt_dem : 1/ so, @a16z is finally becoming an investment bank and charging for services. most people who think VC is a lazy job, being an investor is actually a TON of work, and including: - helping companies raise capital - advising - negotiating transactions http://www.forbes.com/... Dawn Chmielewski / @dawnc331 : Great read from @alexrkonrad on Andreessen Horowitz which contains a juicy nugget about the one that got away (Uber) via @forbes http://www.forbes.com/... Ian Kar / @iankar_ : Holy shittt...this is fascinating. Kinda sorta turns them into an interesting VC/PE/hedge fund hybrid & implies that they realized its probably better off being overregulated and aggressive, than underregulated and get hit with SEC issues (which applies to fintech startups too) http://twitter.com/... 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/... Daniel Tunkelang / @dtunkelang : By becoming a non-VC financial advisory firm, @a16z will be prohibited from publicly bragging about its portfolio or fund performance. Hope the cryptokitties are worth it. http://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 is the moment Andreessen Horowitz formally breaks with the venture model it helped define: rather than staying a VC exempt from adviser registration, the firm converts to a registered investment adviser so all 150 employees can personally trade the assets they back — crypto above all. The move pairs with a fresh $2B fund raised on the same day, giving the new structure immediate capital to deploy.
The conversion reads differently in hindsight. Within two years the firm's investment team had grown to 70, up 170%, outpacing Sequoia, Accel, and Lightspeed, and by 2024 it was raising $7.2B across vehicles including American Dynamism, late-stage, and gaming. The RIA switch was the structural precondition for that expansion beyond classic early-stage equity.
First-order effects
- All 150 a16z employees become SEC-registered financial advisers, freeing them to buy and hold crypto, secondary shares, and public stocks without the venture-exemption constraint.
- The new $2B fund deploys under an RIA mandate, letting the firm take positions in high-risk assets like crypto that its old structure restricted.
Second-order effects
- Rival firms face a forced choice: follow a16z into RIA registration or cede both deal flow and talent to a competitor whose partners can invest alongside the fund.
- Crypto startups gain one of Silicon Valley's most aggressive institutional buyers just as the firm begins backing the asset class politically as well — Marc Andreessen's later Keep Startups in America PAC and millions to a pro-crypto dark money group extend the same bet from balance sheet to policy.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the line between venture capital, hedge funds, and crossover investors keeps dissolving — a16z's scale-up path runs straight through the $7.2B multi-vehicle raise and toward the leaked figures showing $25B in net returns since 2009, the output of a firm no longer bounded by the VC playbook.
- Regulatory posture becomes a competitive weapon: whichever registration structure lets a firm touch more asset classes first sets the template others must copy or argue against with the SEC.
The trend: Top-tier venture firms are abandoning the VC exemption for full registered-investment-adviser status, turning themselves into multi-asset platforms that treat crypto, secondaries, and public markets as core strategy rather than side bets.