Overview of a16z's Web3 investment landscape: the number of investment projects exceeds 80, covering almost all Web3 tracks
Written by: Babywhale
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) was founded in 2009. The two founders, Marc Lowell Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, combined their surnames into the name of this well-known venture capital firm. Marc Lowell Andreessen and Ben Horowitz were the founders of Mosaic, a well-known American communication company in the last century. Although the company eventually lost out in the competition with Microsoft and was acquired by AOL, the JAVA, SSL, cookie and other technologies it left behind are still common standards in the current industry. It can be said that the two jointly created the current Internet technology Numerous base languages for the domain.
After that, the two co-founded Loudcloud in 1999, which mainly provides Internet infrastructure services and is recognized in the industry as one of the earliest companies to enter the field of cloud services. But unfortunately, Loudcloud encountered the Internet bubble in 2000, and the company was forced to transform into a software company Opsware, and was acquired by HP for $1.6 billion 8 years later.
In 2009, the two co-founded a16z, and successfully invested in Internet companies including Facebook, Groupon, Skype, Twitter, Zynga, and Foursquare. In 2013, a16z led Coinbase's USD 25 million B round of financing, officially launching its investment layout in the Web3 industry.
exchange
exchange
CoinbaseFounded in 2012, it was previously the largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of trading volume except Binance, but was surpassed by FTX in May. Coinbase was listed on Nasdaq through direct listing on April 14, 2021. At the close of the listing day, its market value was about 61 billion U.S. dollars, but its current market value is less than 17 billion U.S. dollars. a16z led investment in Coinbase in 2013$25 million in Series B funding。
Yellow Cardis an African exchange, a16z participated in its completed in August 2020$1.5 million financing。
CoinSwitch Kuberis an Indian cryptocurrency exchange, a16z participated in its investment in October 2021public chain。
public chain
DfinityAiming to create the "Internet Computer", an open network that acts as a large virtual host in cyberspace, this network will allow decentralized versions of many online technical services, such as Uber, Dropbox and eBay, etc. a16z participated in the investment of Dfinity in February 2018$61 million in financing, and led the investment in its completed in August of the same year$102 million financing。
CeloIt is a Layer1 public chain featuring a payment network. The main DeFi protocols deployed on it include SushiSwap, etc. Uniswap V3 will soonDeploy to Celo. According to data from DefiLlama, the current TVL on Celo exceeds US$200 million. a16z led the investment in Celo completed in April 2019$25 million financing。
AvalancheIt is a blockchain network based on random sampling and metastable decision-making consensus protocol. Its core platform has three blockchains: transaction chain (X chain), contract chain (C chain) and platform chain (P chain). a16z participated in the project completed by Avalanche in June 2019$6 million financing。
NEAR ProtocolIt is a Layer 1 public chain, and its features include optimized sharding design, Nightshade consensus and "big block" design. According to CoinGecko data, NEAR currently has a market capitalization of over US$3.6 billion, ranking 24th. According to DefiLlama data, the TVL on NEAR is currently about 410 million US dollars. a16z led the investment in NEAR's May 2020$21.6 million in financing, and participated in its investment in January 2022$150 million financing。
SolanaIt is a Layer 1 public chain project supported by SBF, the founder of FTX. It achieves fast, low-cost and scalable features by utilizing the Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) consensus mechanism of Proof of History (PoH). a16z participated in Solana's June 2021$314 million token sale。
AleoIt is a programmable privacy network based on zero-knowledge proof, which transfers the execution of smart contracts to the off-chain to improve efficiency. Aleo plans to launch the mainnet within this year. a16z participated in the Aleo completed in February 2022$200 million in Series B financing, and has since led another round of Aleo$28 million in financing。
AptosIt is a new public chain project founded by former employees in charge of the Diem project in Meta. a16z led the investment in its completion in March 2022bitcoin。
bitcoin
Lightsparkfinancingfinancing, The financing amount was not disclosed.
Layer 2
Matter LabsIt is the development team of zkSync, the second-layer network of Ethereum based on ZK Rollup. a16z led the investment in its completed in November 2021$50 million in Series B financing。
OptimismIt is the second-tier network of Ethereum that adopts Optimistic Rollup. It officially announced the launch of the governance token OP on April 27, and the airdrop will be distributed in the second quarter. According to L2Beat data, the current TVL on Optimism reaches 541 million US dollars. a16z led Optimism's $25 million Series A round in late February and its $150 million Series B round less than a month later.
Savings/ Payments/ Transactions/ Custody (Finance and Financial Instruments)
EcoIt is a financial application that enables users to obtain savings interest and consumption rebates by cooperating with compliant encrypted asset custody institutions. a16z led Eco's $26 million funding round closed in March 2021.
TalosProvide financial institutions with technical support for digital asset transactions, including price discovery, automatic execution, reporting, clearing and settlement, etc. Its strategic director is Justin Schmidt, former head of digital asset markets at Goldman Sachs. a16z led the round in its May 2021$40 million in Series A funding。
Anchorage Digital is a cryptocurrency custodian and the first such institution in the United States to receive a federal banking license from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. a16z led the investment in Anchorage's January 2019 round$17 million in Series A funding, participated in the project completed in July 2019$40 million in Series B financing, completed in February 2021$80 million in Series C financingand to be completed in December 2021$350 million in Series D financing。
Cross RiverIt is a financial technology company whose products include cryptocurrency trading, NFT market, and fiat currency entrance and exit of encrypted wallets. a16z led the round in its March 2022$620 million financing。
LoopIt is a cryptocurrency payment company that aims to solve the problem of regular payment of cryptocurrency. It will develop a smart contract that regularly pays a certain amount of tokens to the target address, and the contract only supports the target address to request payment from the wallet. a16z led the round in Loop's April 2022$4 million seed round。
TipTopIt is a cryptocurrency company established by Bastian Lehmann, the founder of Postmates, a food delivery service company acquired by Uber, to provide consumers with financial solutions. The specifics of the project are still confidential, and some important information has been hidden from its official website. a16z led the round in its May 2022$23 million in Series A funding。
Entropyis a decentralized cryptocurrency custody protocol that utilizes multi-party computation-based cryptography to provide users with a way to deposit and spend cryptocurrencies on any blockchain at any time. a16z led the round in its June 2022$25 million financing。
DeFi
Basisfinancingfinancing, the amount of financing was not disclosed. At that time, Basis was called Basecoin. Since then, a16z has also participated in the investment completed in April 2018$133 million financing。
dYdX It is a decentralized derivatives trading platform based on StarkEx's order book model, which supports contract transactions of 37 tokens such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. According to L2Beat data, dYdX has a lock-up volume of US$962 million, ranking second among all Ethereum Layer 2 network protocols, second only to Arbitrum. a16z led the investment in dYdX's December 2017$2 million seed roundand its completed in October 2018$10 million in Series A funding, and then a16z also participated in the dYdX completed in January 2021$10 million in Series B financingand completed in June of the same year$65 million in Series C financing。
CompoundIt is a decentralized lending protocol on Ethereum, which currently supports 17 assets including ETH, DAI, and WBTC. According to DefiLlama data, Compound's TVL currently exceeds $4 billion, ranking seventh among DeFi protocols on the entire network. a16z led the investment in Compound's May 2018$8.2 million seed round, also led the investment in its November 2019$25 million in Series A funding。
TrustTokenIt is the operator of the DeFi lending agreement TrueFi and the US dollar stablecoin TrueUSD. According to DefiLlama data, TrueFi’s TVL once reached more than 800 million US dollars in August 2021, and is currently about 58 million US dollars; TrueUSD currently has a total issuance of more than 880 million Dollar. a16z participated in the TrustToken completed in June 2018$20 million strategic round of financingAnd led the investment in its completed in August 2021$12.5 million in financing。
MakerDAOIt is a decentralized lending platform and the issuer of the stable currency DAI. MakerDAO announced a16z for $15 million in September 2018Purchased 6% of total MKR tokens。
Uniswap It is an AMM-based decentralized trading platform. According to DefiLlama data, Uniswap has a total TVL of US$5.95 billion on multiple chains, ranking fifth among all DeFi protocols. On May 24, Uniswap announced that its total trading volume exceeded $1 trillion. a16z led the investment in Uniswap completed in August 2020$11 million in Series A funding。
Fei ProtocolIt is an algorithmic stablecoin project that issues the US dollar stablecoin FEI through the protocol control value (PCV) model. The total value of the algorithmic stablecoin FEI issued by it is close to 540 million US dollars. a16z participated in the Fei Protocol completed in March 2021$19 million in financing。
Element FinanceIt is a structured product market. After depositing assets, users will get principal tokens and income tokens. Users can choose to freely trade the above two tokens for cash or investment based on their own judgment on the market. a16z led the investment in Element Finance's April 2021$4.4 million in financing, and in October of the same year, participated in the investment in its valuation of 320 million US dollars$32 million in Series A fundingairdropairdrop。
GoldfinchIt is a decentralized credit platform that provides stable currency loan lines to loan underwriters, and the underwriters are responsible for issuing loans in various places. a16z led Goldfinch's June 2021 round$11 million in financingand its completion in January 2022$25 million financing。
SyndicateIt is a DAO infrastructure service provider that allows users to create investment DAOs, and participants make investment decisions through governance. a16z led the investment in Syndicate's August 2021 round$20 million in Series A financing, and participated in its project completed in May 2022$6 million financing。
Angle Labsis a DeFi startup that aims to launch multiple stablecoins and promote the use of stablecoins in DeFi. a16z led the investment in Angle Labs' round completed in September 2021$5 million financing。
Kosen LabsIt is a team composed of former Google DeepMind artificial intelligence researchers, aiming to provide liquidity solutions for DEX through AI. a16z led the investment in Kosen Labs' November 2021 round$5 million seed round。
Lido FinanceIt is an Ethereum consensus layer pledge protocol that releases liquidity for the pledged Ethereum. Users can obtain stETH by staking Ethereum through Lido and use stETH to participate in the DeFi protocol. At present, the ETH/stETH pool on Curve has been seriously tilted, with stETH accounting for more than 70%, and the discount rate is nearly 3%. a16z to Lido in March 2022Invested $70 million。
NFT
CryptoKittiesIt is one of the earliest NFT projects. The launch of this project once caused Gas to soar and caused serious congestion on the Ethereum network. a16z led the round in CryptoKitties in March 2018$12 million in Series A funding。
FoundationIt is a platform that allows creators to create and sell NFT, completed in March 2020$200,000 financing, to be completed in March 2021$8 million financing, but there is no public information showing which round of financing a16z participated in.
Bitski Initially hoped to develop a wallet that could be embedded in encrypted applications, and later transformed into the NFT market, aiming to become "Shopify of NFT". a16z participated in Bitski's investment in May 2021$19 million in financing。
OpenSeaIt is currently the largest NFT trading market, supporting Ethereum, Polygon and Solana. a16z participated in the investment of OpenSea in July 2021$100 million financingfinancingfinancingAfter that, OpenSea's valuation has reached 13.3 billion US dollars.
ManifoldSeed round financingSeed round financing, The financing amount was not disclosed.
OnChain Studiosis developing Cryptoys on Flow, an NFT platform that combines digital toys and games, a16z led the round in its October 2021$7.5 million financing。
RoyalIt is a music NFT platform launched by the well-known DJ "3LAU", which presents song royalties in the form of encrypted currency. a16z led the investment in Royal's November 2021$55 million in Series A funding。
Sound.xyzIt is a music NFT platform, creators can use this platform to publish limited edition music NFT, and the music content will be stored on IPFS. a16z led the investment in Sound.xyz's December 2021$5 million financing。
Autographis a sports and entertainment NFT platform created by American football player Tom Brady, a16z led the investment in its completed in January 2022$170 million in Series B financing。
Fractal is the NFT marketplace of the Solana ecosystem, launched in December 2021 by Twitch co-founder Justin Kan. a16z participated in the Fractal project completed in April 2022$35 million seed round。
Co:Createis an NFT infrastructure protocol that will provide a smart contract platform that projects can use to mint NFTs and control royalties paid in native tokens. The initial version will be launched this fall. a16z led the round in its May 2022$25 million seed round。
Social / Creator Platform / Media
DeSoIt is a decentralized social blockchain platform established by Nader Al-Naji, the founder of the decentralized social network BitClout and the algorithmic stablecoin protocol Basis. The DeSo blockchain supports traditional social media platforms such as creating personal information, publishing information, and Blockchain-native functions such as social tokens, rewards, or NFT. a16z participated in the DeSo completed in September 2021$200 million financing。
Rallyis a fan token platform that allows creators and their communities to build their own independent digital economy. a16z participated in its seed round, the details of which were not disclosed.
Mem Protocolis a startup building Web 3 tools for social networks, aiming to create a standardized data specification and a common set of operators by building a decentralized social media protocol centered on "data sovereignty", To enable individuals to control the collection of their personal information. a16z led the investment in Mem Protocol's November 2021$3.1 million financing。
FanhouseIt is a monetization platform for creators. Fanhouse collects 10% of the creator’s income, and supports fans to purchase the in-app currency “Coins” outside the app to support creators and avoid commissions from the app store. a16z led the round in its May 2022$20 million in Series A financing。
Tally Labsis a Web3 media company aiming to connect communities and creators, a16z participated in its investment in May 2022$12 million seed round。
DAO
FingerprintsDAOfinancingfinancing, The financing amount was not disclosed.
Friends With Benefits(FWB) is a DAO organization that has launched a number of projects including NFT galleries and virtual music studios. FWB hopes to bring real benefits to DAO members through cooperation with multiple cities and communities. a16z led the investment in FWB's October 2021$10 million financing。
PleasrDAOinvestinvest, investment details were not disclosed.
PartyDAOa16z, the decentralized organization behind PartyBid, an NFT bidding platform, led the round in June 2022mechanism。
mechanism
Dapper Labsis the development company of Flow and NBA Top Shot, and a16z participated in the project completed in September 2021$250 million financing, according to CoinDesk citing people familiar with the matter, Dapper Labs is valued at $7.6 billion after this round of investment.
Yuga LabsIt is the operator of the well-known NFT project Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and the metaverse project Otherside. a16z led the investment in Yuga Labs' round to be completed in March 2022infrastructure。
infrastructure
FilecoinIt is a decentralized storage network developed by Protocol Labs, which uses space-time proof and replication proof to verify storage validity. a16z participated in the project completed by Filecoin in September 2017$257 million ICO。
ArweaveIt is a decentralized storage network using the SPoRA consensus mechanism. Up to now, the amount of data stored in the network has exceeded 70TB. a16z participated in the investment project completed by Arweave in November 2019$5 million token financingand its completed in March 2020$8.3 million in financing。
Nova LabsFormerly known as Helium, it is a decentralized communication network, and users can purchase its hardware equipment and earn token rewards by operating the hardware equipment. a16z led the investment in Nova Labs' round completed in August 2021$111 million token sale financing, and participated in the project completed in March 2022$200 million in Series D financing。
XMTPIt is an encrypted instant messaging network, which aims to establish a communication protocol native to the encrypted field to eliminate platform monopoly and prevent useless information such as spam. Its products include the decentralized inbox Zapmail and when there is a problem with the protocol or DApp Schemes for sending messages directly to wallets, etc. a16z led the investment in XMTP's September 2021$20 million in Series A financing。
Mysten Labsis a Web 3 infrastructure company founded by veterans of Novi Research, Facebook's encryption R&D arm. Mysten CEO Evan Cheng leads Novi and helped develop the Diem blockchain and the Move programming language. a16z led the round from Mysten Labs to close in December 2021$36 million in Series A funding。
AlchemyIt is a Web3 infrastructure protocol that provides cloud-based infrastructure services for Web3 projects. a16z led Alchemy's October 2021 round$250 million in Series C financing, and participated in its investment in February 2022privacy。
privacy
Orchid LabsProvide a VPN with privacy features, users need to use tokens to pay fees to access relay nodes and access the network under the premise of privacy protection. a16z participated in Orchid Labs' October 2017$4.7M Private Token Sale。
NymIt is a privacy infrastructure project that uses Zhongji Street Store to provide privacy services and improve the efficiency of the network by rewarding nodes that run the network. a16z led the round of Nym's November 2021 round$13 million in Series A funding。
Iron Fishis a privacy blockchain network that aims to be a common privacy layer for all chains. a16z led the investment in Iron Fish's November 2021$27.7 million in Series A funding。
game entertainment
ForteProvide blockchain solutions for game publishers, a16z participated in its investment in May 2021$185 million Series A financing, and completed in November$725 million in Series B financing。
Virtually Human Studiois the developer of the blockchain-based horse racing game ZED RUN, and a16z participated in its investment in July 2021$20 million in Series A financing。
Yield Guild Gamesis a well-known chain game association, a16z led the investment in its completed in August 2021$4.6 million financing。
Sky MavisIt is the operator of the well-known P2E game Axie Infinity. a16z led the round in Sky Mavis, which closes in October 2021$152 million Series B financing, and participated in the project completed in April 2022 to compensate the victims of the Ronin Network attack$150 million financing。
Mythical GamesA Los Angeles-based game development company named by Forbes as a disruptive technology company to watch in 2019, Mythical said the platform will be built on an EVM-compatible sidechain. a16z led the round from Mythical Games to be completed in November 2021$150 million in Series C financing。
Core Loopis a game studio that plans to develop a sandbox massively multiplayer online game using blockchain technology. a16z led the investment in Core Loop and completed in November 2021$12 million in financing。
Farawayis a game studio planning to develop browser-based games on Solana, a16z participated in its investment in November 2021$21 million in Series A funding。
Ireverent Labsis a blockchain game company that developed the P2E cockfighting game MechaFightClub. a16z led the Ireverent Labs round completed in November 2021$5 million financingand its completion in May 2022$40 million financing。
League of Kingdoms ArenaAims to build a metaverse game that provides an entertaining gaming experience, including the launch of PvP arenas, guild battles, commercial platforms (such as NFT marketplaces), GameFi tools (such as Staking portals, GameFi dashboards), governance infrastructure, CvC, etc. Token rewards for competitions, social media features, esports tools, interoperable assets, and more. a16z participated in the League of Kingdoms Arena to be completed in December 2021$3 million seed round。
Carry1stis an African Web3 and social game publisher, a16z led the investment in its closing in January 2022$20 million in Series A financing。
BreederDAOIt is a metaverse game asset production company, whose founders include the founders of a player guild with 500 users and personnel with rich experience in multi-chain DApp development. a16z led the investment in BreederDAO completed in January 2022$10 million in Series A funding。
Battlebound It is a P2E game start-up company. Its founder Adam Hensel has helped the development of well-known games "League of Legends" and "Overwatch 2". The two games Battlebound is developing are Evaverse and Project A, of which Project A is expected to be launched in 2023. a16z led the investment in Battlebound's March 20224.8 million seed round financing。
LootRushIt is a blockchain game platform that provides a quick start platform for blockchain games, and also provides NFT leasing services for games, aiming to lower the threshold for new game players and earn income for NFT owners. a16z participated in the LootRush project completed in May 2022$12 million seed round。
Metatheoryis a technology-driven entertainment company founded by Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin. Metatheory was launched in the third quarter of last year. It is committed to becoming a platform for building Web3 games, interactive content, and social networking. It will issue NFT, games, and content this year. It plans to launch free games and Play-and-Earn in the fourth quarter mechanism. a16z led the round in Metatheory's May 2022$24 million in Series A funding。
Azra GamesIt is a P2E chain game company. Its CEO Mark Otero is the developer of the game "Odaily Wars: Galaxy of Heroes". The company is currently developing its first combat role-playing game Project Arcanas. a16z led the investment in Azra Games' May 2022$15 million financing。
Adima16z led the round in June 2022, the Web3 entertainment company founded by American actor and producer Rob McElhenneyMetaverse。
Metaverse
EveryrealmIt is a metaverse project that aims to shape the metaverse through investment, management and development of assets, including NFT, virtual real estate, metaverse platform, games and infrastructure, etc. a16z led the investment in its February 2022$60 million in Series A financing。
Improbableis a British metaverse company whose Web3 virtual world network M² combines Improbable Morpheus technology with new services designed to support interoperability, digital asset commerce and Web3 governance, bringing together sports, music, fashion and entertainment companies, There are communities and fans that come together so that they can experience virtual spaces. a16z led the round in Improbable's April 2022wallet。
wallet
PhantomIt is a Solana ecological wallet application, including a browser plug-in wallet and a mobile wallet. a16z led the round in Phantom's July 2021 round$9 million in financing, and participated in its investment in February 2022$109 million financing。
ValoraIt is a Celo ecological digital wallet, which has been operated independently from cLabs. a16z led the round in its July 2021$20 million in Series A financing。
domain/identity
HandshakeIs a decentralized domain name and certificate authority, a16z participated in its investment in August 2018$10.2 million financing。
SpruceIt is a digital identity authentication company whose main products include Ethereum account SIWE (Sign-In with Ethereum) and Kepler. a16z led the investment in Spruce's April 2022Safety。
Safety
FortaIt is a smart contract security real-time monitoring project incubated by OpenZeppelin, which scans all transactions through independent node operators to find abnormal transactions and threats to smart contracts. When issues are detected, node operators notify subscribers of the potential risk, which enables them to take automated defensive measures. a16z led the investment in its September 2021$23 million in financing。
Sardineis a fraud detection platform that has also launched an ACH transfer feature that allows customers to bypass the 3 to 7 day waiting period to access funds, Sardine pre-funds consumers’ cryptocurrency purchases in their wallets and takes on the fraud associated with the waiting period, Regulatory and Compliance Risk. a16z led the investment in its February 2022data analysis。
data analysis
NansenFounded in 2020, it is a tool that focuses on on-chain data analysis. It currently supports 9 public chains or second-tier networks including Ethereum, Polygon, Fantom, Celo, Avalanche, BNB Chain, and Arbitrum. a16z led Nansen's June 2021 round$12 million in Series A funding, and participated in its investment in December 2021Cross-chain。
Cross-chain
LayerZeroIt is a cross-chain interoperability protocol. The LayerZero-based cross-chain bridge Stargate has a total lock-up volume of more than 4 billion U.S. dollars within three weeks of its launch. a16z led the investment in LayerZero's March 2022currency。
currency
ChiaIt is a programmable currency platform created by BitTorrent founder Bram Cohen. a16z participated in its investment in March 2018$3.395 million in seed funding, and led the investment in its completed in May 2021$61 million in Series D funding。
WorldcoinIs a global currency that aims to create a network that connects more people through cryptocurrencies. The Worldcoin project has created a device called Orb, which uses biometric technology to capture images of people's eyes, convert them into a short digital code, and issue a certain share of Worldcoin. a16z participated in the Worldcoin project completed in June 2021$25 million financing, In addition, according to The Information citing sources, Worldcoin plans to raise 100 million US dollars in March 2022, and a16z will alsovote。
Ethereum Public Goods
Nomic FoundationIt is a non-profit organization transformed from Nomic Labs, the development company of Hardhat, an Ethereum developer tool platform. One of the main goals of the Nomic Foundation is to attract more developers to join Ethereum by building infrastructure. It will not only support Hardhat, will also work on supporting other developer tools. a16zparticipateCompleted the Nomic Foundation's $15 million funding endowment in February 2022 (with a target of $30 million).
carbon credit trading
Flowcarbonis a carbon credit tokenization company backed by WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann. a16z led the investment in Flowcarbon's May 2022$32 million in financing, a total of 70 million US dollars in this round of financing, and the remaining 38 million US dollars will be completed through token sales.
