"Here’s How Andreessen Horowitz & Union Square Ventures Are Betting On Blockchain"
From CB Insights:
We took a closer look at these top VCs' blockchain investments, which
range from private enterprise blockchains to cryptocurrency hedge funds
This year’s blockchain craze has pushed a huge amount of new money into
cryptocurrencies, private blockchain projects, and companies holding
initial coin offerings (ICOs). As of now, the total market
capitalization of cryptocurrencies stands at more than $340B — a huge
leap from where it started the year at $18B.
Two of the top early-stage tech VCs, Andreessen Horowitz and Union
Square Ventures, have placed bets on blockchain technology since
2013. Below, we show how their approaches to the sector have evolved,
from traditional equity investments to investments into ICOs and
cryptocurrency hedge funds.
Key Takeaways
USV initially focused on bitcoin, making its first bet in early 2013 on popular cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.
Since then, USV has expanded its strategy to bet on more novel blockchain use cases: OpenBazaar
is a blockchain-based, decentralized e-commerce platform, while
Filecoin is a tokenized file storage protocol. Filecoin raised upwards
of $200M in its ICO held earlier this year.
Andreessen Horowitz’s early investments highlighted an interest in both bitcoin (Earn, Coinbase) and private blockchains for financial services (Axoni, Ripple).
Notably, Earn was founded by Balaji Srinivasan, a former general
partner at Andreessen Horowitz, and has pivoted from bitcoin mining
to building a social network where users can earn money by replying to
e-mails. Andreessen Horowitz has participated in two rounds to Earn
totaling $116M....MORE
