By Senad Karaahmetovic
U.S. venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is looking to pour billions of dollars into crypto and blockchain businesses amid the current bear market.
Andreessen launched a fresh $4.5 billion fund to support crypto and blockchain startups, the firm’s fourth fund for backing digital assets. The new fund takes Andreessen’s total funding raised for crypto investments to $7.6 billion, according to CNBC.
The firm introduced its first crypto-oriented fund four years ago amid another crypto bear market, also known as “crypto winter.”
“Bear markets are often when the best opportunities come about when people are actually able to focus on building technology rather than getting distracted by short-term price activity,” said Arianna Simpson, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz.
Earlier this month, the collapse of stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) has rattled investors’ confidence in crypto-assets.
“The technical diligence and the other kinds of diligence that we do are a key part of making sure that projects meet our bar,” Simpson added. “While our pace of investment has been high, we continue to invest really in only the top echelon of founders.”
The crypto market has declined sharply since hitting its highs last year, with bitcoin down over 50% since hitting its all-time high of more than $69,000 in November. The digital assets remain highly correlated to growth technology stocks, which have also slipped sharply in 2022.