In Brief:
- Katie Haun to depart from a16z to start a new crypto and Web3 centric fund.
- a16z founders Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and Chris Dixon will contribute individually to Haun’s new project.
- Kathie is likely to retain her board seats in Coinbase and Opensea after the departure from a16z.
Katie Haun, the first female general partner of Andreessen Horowitz(a16z), is splitting off from the company to launch a new crypto and Web3 centric fund.
Along with three other partners, Haun co-founded Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto funds with Chris Dixon, who will stay on to head the firm’s blockchain investments.
“When Chris and I started our first crypto fund in 2018, it was a moonshot experiment. Thanks to the hard work of many, it has exceeded both of our wildest expectations. Today, it’s more apparent than ever that web3 will transform the internet,” Haun tweeted.
Haun’s investment venture will include Andreessen Horowitz as a limited partner. The firm’s founders, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, as well as Dixon, will all contribute individually to Haun’s new project.
Kathie now serves on the boards of Coinbase and OpenSea, and she is likely to retain her role. She’ll be joined by a small group of a16z employees on the new firm, including crypto marketing head and Coinbase alumnus Rachael Horwitz, but no one from the investment team.
Haun led deals to support the music NFT service Royal, the storage service Arweave, and the massive NFT platform OpenSea during her stint at a16z.
Haun has also mastered the art of media relations, garnering a series of positive profiles in newspapers such as the New York Times and Fortune. She was also the co-chair of a16z’s $2 billion+ crypto fund.
Haun is branching out on her own as crypto investment expands beyond bitcoin and digital assets to encompass the next era of the internet, dubbed Web3. Ironically just a week before a16z invested in Mysten Labs, a Web3 development platform launched by four ex-meta employees. Mysten is also aiming to create a next-generation NFT platform for Metaverse that is set to launch in 2022.
