Global investment firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has raised a $4.5-billion cryptocurrency fund. Approximately $1.5 billion will be dedicated to seed investments, and $3 billion to venture investments. 

The funds will be used to invest in promising Web3 start-ups at every stage. The firm is excited about developments in Web3 games, decentralised finance (DeFi), decentralised social media, self-sovereign identity, layer one and layer two infrastructure, bridges, decentralised autonomous organisation (DAOs), and Non-fungible tokens (NFT) communities, among others.

“We think we are now entering the golden era of Web3. Programmable blockchains are sufficiently advanced, and a diverse range of apps have reached tens of millions of users,” said Chris Dixon, general partner at a16z. A massive wave of world-class talent has entered Web3 over the last year. They are brilliant and passionate and want to build a better internet, he added. 

It is a16z’s fourth crypto and blockchain fund, bringing the total amount raised for the asset class to $7.6 billion.

The firm has created crypto research, a new kind of multidisciplinary lab, which will work closely with their portfolio and others towards solving problems in the space, and toward advancing the science and technology of the next generation of the Internet.