[ad_1]
The departing Andreessen Horowitz partner Katie Haun aims to raise at least $900m for a pair of cryptocurrency investment funds, in what would be one of the largest debuts for a new venture capital firm.
Haun planned to raise $300m for a fund making early investments in cryptocurrency start-ups and $600m for another fund investing in larger companies and digital tokens, said three people briefed on her plans. Andreessen had committed $50m to the funds as an anchor investor, two of the people said.
Some people familiar with Haun’s new funds said she planned to set fresh, higher targets after receiving strong early demand from wealthy investors. Haun planned to begin targeting institutions next week, the people said.
The fundraising haul would add to a flood of money for funds making early wagers on cryptocurrency start-ups, a growing area of focus for established venture capitalists and for a new breed of investors willing to take even greater risks than incumbents.
Paradigm, led by former Sequoia Capital partner Matt Huang and Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, raised $2.5bn for a cryptocurrency venture fund in November, doubling their original expectations. The announcement came five months after Andreessen debuted a $2.2bn fund, co-led by Haun, that it called the “largest crypto fund ever raised”.
The debut of Haun’s new firm, which goes by the name “KRH”, would be one of the largest for any new venture capital group. New US-based firms raised $41.3bn last year, according to PitchBook data.
A former federal prosecutor with a focus on cryptocurrency crime, Haun joined Andreessen as the firm’s first female general partner in 2018 and helped raise its first fund dedicated to digital assets.
Along with Chris Dixon and other Andreessen partners, Haun has helped to promote the concept of “web3” — internet applications organised by cryptocurrency tokens — which has created controversy among some software developers.
Weekly newsletter
For the latest news and views on fintech from the FT’s network of correspondents around the world, sign up to our weekly newsletter #fintechFT
A spokesperson for Haun said Andreessen and KRH would “collaborate to support founders and projects in the space and continue the web3 policy program they built this year”. Haun would help to invest the rest of Andreessen’s most recent $2.2bn fund, the spokesperson said.
Haun’s investments at Andreessen included OpenSea, a non-fungible token marketplace whose value has rapidly soared with the boom in the blockchain-based collectibles. Paradigm and the investment firm Coatue Management led a $300m investment that valued OpenSea at $13.3bn this week, after investors valued the start-up at $1.5bn last July.
KRH also participated in the round of funding, a spokesperson for Haun said, calling it “a special moment for the team”. The spokesperson said she had no other details to share about the fund.
“When Chris and I started our first crypto fund in 2018, it was a moonshot experiment. Thanks to the hard work of many, it has exceeded both of our wildest expectations,” Haun said in a statement announcing her departure last month. “Today, it’s more apparent than ever that web3 will transform the internet.”
[ad_2]
Source link
