Andreessen Horowitz

Andreessen Horowitz, commonly styled a16z, is an American venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from seed through growth stage in technology companies. The firm's stated focus areas include artificial intelligence, bio and health, consumer technology, cryptocurrency, enterprise software, financial technology, games, infrastructure, and American Dynamism.^[1]

The investment adviser behind the brand is A16Z Capital Management, L.L.C. Its March 30, 2026 Form ADV identifies Andreessen Horowitz as its primary business name, gives Menlo Park, California as its principal office, and lists SEC file number 801-114985 and CRD number 160489.^[2] The SEC's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure record says its SEC registration became effective on April 11, 2019.^[3]

Two figures describe the firm's scale in different ways. The a16z website said that the firm had more than $100 billion under management across multiple funds as of April 30, 2026.^[1] In its March 30 annual amendment, A16Z Capital Management reported $106.476 billion in discretionary regulatory assets under management across 119 accounts.^[2] These figures are close, but they are not interchangeable. The first is a rounded statement on the firm's website. The second is a regulatory calculation made under SEC Form ADV rules.

Founding and early development

Bloomberg reported the firm's launch on July 6, 2009 with a $300 million fund. At the time, Andreessen and Horowitz said they would concentrate on internet and information-technology companies and could invest from $50,000 to $50 million in a company.^[4] In November 2010, the firm announced a second fund of $650 million. TechCrunch reported that the two funds then placed approximately $950 million under management.^[5]

Andreessen and Horowitz built the firm around their experience as company operators. In a 2012 explanation of its model, Horowitz wrote that the firm was trying to help founders acquire management skills and professional networks without replacing them automatically with outside executives. He described a firm-wide network supported by full-time operating partners in recruiting, executive search, sales, marketing, and other functions.^[6]

The model was unusual enough to become the subject of a 2014 Harvard Business School case. Its abstract described 22 investment professionals supported by 43 recruiting and marketing specialists. Those historical staffing figures do not describe the present firm, but they illustrate how large its operating group was relative to its investing staff at that point.^[7]

A 2025 peer-reviewed study in Socio-Economic Review places a16z's early strategy within a broader change in Silicon Valley venture capital. The author argues that a16z attracted founders with coaching and consulting-style services, promoted a founder-friendly brand, and invested across company stages. This is an academic interpretation of the firm's influence, not a measure of its investment performance.^[8]

Selected fund and practice chronology

Fund announcements document how the firm moved from a single multistage technology fund toward separate strategies. The amounts below are capital commitments announced for particular funds or groups of funds. They should not be added mechanically to produce current assets under management, because funds can invest, distribute assets, change value, or overlap with later regulatory reporting.

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The 2019 announcement is a useful dividing point in the firm's development. It said that a16z had created dedicated teams for a general technology fund, bio, and crypto while retaining the ability to collaborate across teams.^[13] The firm later added other named practices.

For example, a January 2022 post defined the American Dynamism practice as investing in areas tied to the United States national interest, including aerospace, defense, education, housing, transportation, public safety, supply chains, industrials, and manufacturing. The post said the team was being expanded and described the practice as a long-term commitment.^[17] This establishes a formal practice by 2022; it does not imply that the firm made no such investments before then.

Platform and investment model

A16z's current website describes a "platform model" in which operating specialists in areas such as marketing, talent, legal work, and policy support founders alongside the investment team.^[1] That description is consistent with the network model that Horowitz outlined in 2012 and with the operating group documented in the 2014 Harvard case.^[6][7]

The firm has also invested across multiple stages rather than limiting itself to one financing phase. Its 2016 Fund V announcement covered seed through mid-stage growth, and its 2019 announcement separated a late-stage vehicle from Fund VI.^[11][13] By 2026, the firm's website described its overall range as seed, venture, and growth.^[1]

This structure does not mean every fund pursues every sector or stage. The firm's announcements identify distinct mandates, teams, and vehicles. Nor does a public investment list establish the size of a position or whether the firm still owns it. A16z's disclosure page says its published list excludes investments for which an issuer has not granted permission to disclose and warns that a mentioned investment is not representative of all investments in its managed vehicles.^[18] For that reason, an exhaustive portfolio table based only on the website would be incomplete.

Recent capital allocations

On April 16, 2024, Horowitz announced $7.2 billion for five strategies. The announcement described each category as having a dedicated team and platform.^[19]

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On January 9, 2026, the firm announced more than $15 billion across six allocations.^[20]

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In the same post, Horowitz wrote that the amount represented more than 18 percent of "venture capital dollars allocated in the United States in 2025."^[20] That is the firm's own comparison and wording. It should not be restated as 18 percent of money actually invested into US startups, because fundraising allocations and deployed investment are different measures.

The 2026 filings also show a more explicit AI-related fund structure. An SEC Form D filed on January 8 identifies "Andreessen Horowitz Fund X - AI Applications, L.P." as an issuer in an exempt securities offering.^[21] The filing confirms the vehicle's legal existence and name, but it does not by itself establish a portfolio, performance record, or the amount a16z invested in any particular AI company.

Assets under management

Assets under management are often confused with newly raised capital. A fund announcement reports commitments to one or more vehicles. A website total may aggregate multiple funds using the firm's own presentation. Regulatory assets under management, or RAUM, follow the SEC's calculation instructions.

In the March 30, 2026 annual amendment, A16Z Capital Management reported:

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The filing says the adviser's fiscal year ends in December.^[2] SEC instructions require an adviser to include securities portfolios under continuous and regular supervision or management as of the filing date. They also require market values to be determined within the 90 days before filing.^[22] The Form ADV does not identify one common valuation date for every portfolio. It is therefore more accurate to tie the RAUM figure to the March 30 filing and its regulatory method than to label it a December 31 balance.

The firm's April 30 website statement of more than $100 billion under management and the March 30 regulatory figure of $106.476 billion are both supportable within their stated contexts.^[1][2] Neither should be treated as the sum of the 2024 and 2026 announcements, and neither supports claims about investment returns.

Distributed operating model

In July 2022, Horowitz announced that a16z would work primarily virtually and called the cloud its headquarters. The post also said the firm would use physical offices for culture, founder support, and relationship building. At that time it announced new offices in Miami Beach, New York, and Santa Monica in addition to Menlo Park and San Francisco.^[23]

That announcement describes the firm's operating model in 2022, not a permanent inventory of offices. The March 2026 Form ADV still lists 2865 Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park as the investment adviser's principal office and place of business.^[2] These statements are compatible: "headquarters in the cloud" was a description of distributed work, while the regulatory filing requires a principal business address.

Media and policy activity

Publishing has been part of a16z's business-development and public-communication model. In 2021 the firm launched Future, a technology publication. Its editor told the Columbia Journalism Review that it would publish first-person analysis rather than reported or investigative journalism. CJR therefore characterized the project as an opinion and explanatory publication, not an independent newsroom.^[24] Nieman Journalism Lab reported that Future was shutting down in December 2022.^[25] Descriptions of Future as a current publication are consequently outdated.

The firm's public activity later extended more directly into technology policy. In July 2024, Andreessen and Horowitz published "The Little Tech Agenda." They defined "Little Tech" as startups in contrast with incumbent technology companies and said the firm's political efforts would focus on policies affecting startups.^[26] In an a16z-branded podcast later that month, the co-founders compared Donald Trump and Joe Biden on cryptocurrency, AI, taxation, and startup policy. A contemporaneous TechCrunch report said Andreessen was supporting and voting for Trump and presented the episode as the co-founders' explanation of their support.^[27][29]

The distinction between individual and institutional speech matters. A16z's disclosure page says that views in posts, podcasts, videos, and social media are those of the personnel quoted and not necessarily those of A16Z Capital Management or its affiliates.^[18] Policy articles should therefore be attributed to their named authors rather than automatically presented as a legal position of every a16z entity.

One example is a June 2024 interview about California Senate Bill 1047. General partner Anjney Midha argued against regulating AI models according to training-compute and cost thresholds and favored targeting harmful applications and users instead.^[28] This documents a partner's position on the bill at that stage of the legislative process. It does not establish a general consensus about AI regulation or describe the bill after later amendments.

Reception and evidence limits

A16z is frequently discussed as an influential change to the organization of venture capital. The 2014 Harvard case focused on whether the firm's large operating team and ecosystem services explained its early ability to compete for investments.^[7] The 2025 Socio-Economic Review article reaches a broader conclusion: it treats a16z as an important promoter of founder control, a founder-friendly public brand, multistage investing, and service-heavy venture firms.^[8] Both sources concern organizational influence. Neither establishes that every fund outperformed its peers.

Claims about private fund performance require particular care. Fund-level returns, limited-partner distributions, unrealized values, ownership percentages, and individual check sizes are not disclosed in the sources used here. The firm's own disclosure also says past results are not necessarily indicative of future results and that the public investment list is incomplete.^[18] Accordingly, this article does not rank a16z's returns, calculate profits from individual companies, or infer a current portfolio from old financing announcements.

See also

• Venture Capital
• Artificial Intelligence
• Generative AI

References

1. ^Andreessen Horowitz, "About".
2. ^U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, A16Z Capital Management, L.L.C., Form ADV annual amendment (March 30, 2026).
3. ^SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure, "A16Z Capital Management, L.L.C., CRD 160489".
4. ^Tim Mullaney and Nikolaj Gammeltoft, "Netscape's Marc Andreessen Starts $300 Million Venture Fund," Bloomberg (July 6, 2009).
5. ^Sarah Lacy, "Andreessen Horowitz Raises $650M Fund, Just Shy Of $1B Under Management," TechCrunch (November 2, 2010).
6. ^Ben Horowitz, "Why Has Andreessen Horowitz Raised $2.7B in 3 Years?," Andreessen Horowitz (January 30, 2012).
7. ^Thomas R. Eisenmann and Liz Kind, "Andreessen Horowitz," Harvard Business School case 814-060 (January 2014).
8. ^David Kampmann, "The Political Economy of Venture Capital: Techno-Finance, Corporate Control, and the Tech-VC Fraction of Capital," Socio-Economic Review (2025).
9. ^Scott Kupor, "Andreessen Horowitz Raises New Fund," Andreessen Horowitz (March 27, 2014).
10. ^Jorge Conde and Vijay Pande, "Bio Fund II," Andreessen Horowitz (December 14, 2017).
11. ^Scott Kupor, "Fund V," Andreessen Horowitz (June 10, 2016).
12. ^Chris Dixon and Katie Haun, "Introducing a16z Crypto," Andreessen Horowitz (June 25, 2018).
13. ^Scott Kupor, "Late Stage Venture," Andreessen Horowitz (May 1, 2019).
14. ^Ben Horowitz, "Fund VII and Growth Fund II," Andreessen Horowitz (November 20, 2020).
15. ^Chris Dixon, Katie Haun, and Ali Yahya, "Crypto Fund III," a16z crypto (June 23, 2021).
16. ^Ben Horowitz, "$9B to Build the Future," Andreessen Horowitz (January 7, 2022).
17. ^David Ulevitch and Katherine Boyle, "Investing in American Dynamism," Andreessen Horowitz (January 14, 2022).
18. ^Andreessen Horowitz, "Disclosures".
19. ^Ben Horowitz, "New Funds, New Era," Andreessen Horowitz (April 16, 2024).
20. ^Ben Horowitz, "Why Are We Here? Why Did We Raise $15B?," Andreessen Horowitz (January 9, 2026).
21. ^U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Andreessen Horowitz Fund X - AI Applications, L.P.," Form D filing 0001104659-26-002076 (January 8, 2026).
22. ^U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Instructions for Form ADV (July 2024 revision).
23. ^Ben Horowitz, "a16z Is Moving to the Cloud," Andreessen Horowitz (July 21, 2022).
24. ^Mathew Ingram, "Andreessen Horowitz's New Media Entity Is an Op-Ed Page," Columbia Journalism Review (June 17, 2021).
25. ^Nieman Journalism Lab, "Andreessen Horowitz's Tech Publication, Future, Is Shutting Down" (December 1, 2022).
26. ^Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, "The Little Tech Agenda," Andreessen Horowitz (July 5, 2024).
27. ^Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen, "Trump Vs. Biden: Tech Policy," Andreessen Horowitz (July 16, 2024).
28. ^Anjney Midha, "What You Need to Know About SB 1047," Andreessen Horowitz (June 19, 2024).
29. ^Marina Temkin, "Andreessen Horowitz Co-Founders Explain Why They're Supporting Trump," TechCrunch (July 16, 2024).