Morning Minute: a16z Raises $15B, Targets AI & Crypto

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. Subscribe to the Morning Minute on Substack.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors flat over the weekend; BTC at $90,600

• XMR jumps to $600 overnight and new ATH, up 33% on week

• Jerome Powell releases message claiming charges are due to his not complying with Trump, gold+silver spike

• a16z raises $15M across funds to invest in America’s future, AI & crypto at forefront

• X announces plans for Smart Cashtags, showing live charts along with tickers

a16z is back with its biggest fundraise ever.

And crypto is at the forefront.

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) announced it raised over $15B across multiple new funds, one of the largest VC fundraises in years.

Per a16z’s own breakdown, the raise includes: Growth ($6.75B), Apps ($1.7B), Infrastructure ($1.7B), American Dynamism ($1.176B), Bio + Health ($700M), plus $3B in other strategies.

For historical context, a16z has been a top crypto allocator for years, raising dedicated vehicles including:

• $300M for its first crypto fund (2018)

• $515M Crypto Fund II (2020)

• $2.2B Crypto Fund III (2021)

• $4.5B Crypto Fund IV (2022), including $1.5B seed + $3B venture

Some of their notable investments across that time include Coinbase, Solana, Uniswap, OpenSea, and Phantom, plus more recent deals like Kalshi and EigenLayer.

“As the American leader in venture capital, the fate of new technology in the United States rests partly on our shoulders. Our mission is ensuring that America wins the next 100 years of technology.” – Ben Horowitz, a16z cofounder

It’s interesting to take a peek under the hood here to see what a16z is investing in, to get a glimpse of their view of the future:

• AI infrastructure: a16z is leaning into compute, tooling, and platform layers that will power the next decade of software

• “American Dynamism”: defense, housing, supply chains, and other “national interest” categories

• Infrastructure + Apps: the picks-and-shovels layer that can survive multiple market cycles (and typically captures value even when narratives rotate).

For crypto specifically, it’s:

• more stablecoin and payments rails

• more tokenized assets and settlement

• more infrastructure that can onboard institutions

• more crypto x AI convergence

It may be a bit “boring,” but that’s likely an apt way to discuss this next phase of crypto. We’re set up for a boring maturity phase.