Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz recently led a $5 million funding round for Arweave, a blockchain firm that’s developing permanent online data storage solutions. The firm, founded by Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreesseen, has been one of the most active mainstream investors in the space with a dedicated $350 million fund launched last year. This funding round is led by Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z Crypto division. Other major investors include Multicoin Capital and Union Square Ventures.
Established in 2017 by Sam Williams, Arweave’s main goal is to permanently host data, web-based applications and pages via its so-called “permaweb.” The investment will reportedly be used to help the company in promotion, outreach and adoption efforts. Arweave’s new partners have joined the company’s other supporters, which include Arrington XRP Capital, early stage token fund 1kx’s Christopher Heymann and Lasse Clausen, and the Techstars global network.
Cryptocurrency to have the most impact in the world
While bitcoin is still the most popular use case for blockchain technology, Andreessen Horowitz general partner and co-head of the crypto fund Chris Dixon said he “strongly believes” cryptocurrency could “have the most impact in the world.”
“If this works the way we hope it does, it will be a new way to build
start-up;… You can build social networks and marketplaces using a lot of these
concepts that have pretty profound business and social societal implications.”
– Chris Dixon, Andreessen Horowitz
Andreessen Horowitz participated in 14 funding rounds with a total value of
roughly $850 million last year, according to Crunchbase. This year, the venture
capital firm is said to have backed five deals with a total value just over $75
million.
Last month, the firm announced the launch
of a Crypto Startup School aimed to help entrepreneurs looking to develop
cryptocurrency projects.
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