a16z seeks to raise a $10 billion new fund for AI and defense

Silicon Valley's leading venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is reportedly seeking to raise a new fund of about $10 billion (about KRW 13.8 trillion). However, virtual assets (cryptocurrencies) are said to be excluded from the investment targets.

According to the Financial Times (FT) on the 23rd (local time), a16z has begun soliciting investors to form a new fund focused on artificial intelligence (AI) and the defense industry. Of this, $6 billion will go to growth-stage company investments, $1.5 billion to AI applications and infrastructure funds each, and the remaining more than $1 billion will be allocated to defense and manufacturing-related investment vehicles.

It is unusual that a dedicated crypto fund was not mentioned in this plan. a16z has been regarded as a VC that has played a key role in building the global digital asset ecosystem by investing in major projects such as Coinbase, Uniswap, MakerDAO, and Dapper Labs.

In particular, considering that in the '2025 State of Crypto' report released the previous day it stated, "crypto has now established itself as a global market, stablecoins are becoming mainstream, and financial institutions are embracing them," the decision to exclude crypto this time has been met with surprise.

However, a16z has not completely withdrawn from the crypto space. Earlier this month it invested $50 million in Jito (Jito), a Solana-based liquid staking protocol, and in April it invested $55 million in LayerZero (LayerZero), a cross-chain messaging protocol.