...1. The year of a16z begins
It might be the most famous quote from the past decade of VC: "Software is eating the world." Ever since an essay by Marc Andreessen launched the idea into the public consciousness back in 2011, the investors at Andreessen Horowitz have gone about putting their money where Andreessen's mouth is, staking early-stage startups in nearly every possible subsector of the software realm.
And in 2019, it might just result in a truly stunning cascade of cash.
The firm was one of the largest VC backers of Lyft, with a pre-IPO stake of more than 15 million shares; at Friday's closing stock price of $78.29, those shares had a combined worth of around $1.2 billion. And it's not like a16z hopped on the Lyft train when the company was already an established unicorn. It first staked the business back in 2013, supporting a $60 million Series C that valued Lyft at $275 million—or about 1/100th of what reports are indicating is the company's fully diluted post-IPO valuation....MORE
