Venture giant Andreessen Horowitz drops ‘crypto’ from name of blockchain fund, rebrands as ‘a16z Frontier’

Andreessen Horowitz is giving its crypto fund a new name and a wider brief. The firm said Thursday that a16z Crypto is now a16z Frontier, and that the fund will back startups working on artificial intelligence, robotics, and other emerging technologies.

The shift doesn’t mean the firm is walking away from crypto. Managing partner Chris Dixon will lead the fund with Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and general partners Eddy Lazzarin and Guy Wuollet. Andreessen Horowitz said it will keep investing in crypto startups and keep pushing for crypto regulation.

The rebrand stretches the reach of the firm’s $2.2 billion fund announced in May. Dixon argued in an X post that blockchain is increasingly buried inside ordinary businesses, making the old label less useful. “Does that make them crypto companies? The label matters less now,” he wrote.

This is also a retreat from a more aggressive pitch the firm made when it launched a16z Crypto in 2018. Back then, the fund raised $350 million and set out to buy crypto assets and back blockchain projects. The firm later raised larger vehicles, including a $4.5 billion fund in 2022, bringing total crypto fundraising across five funds to $9.8 billion.

And the money has already started drifting beyond the original lane. In June, a16z Crypto led a $33 million seed round for Ornn, a company building financial products for the AI computing market. In October 2025, Andreessen Horowitz also co-led a funding round for prediction market Kalshi.

The timing lines up with a wider pattern in venture. Paradigm said in July that its $1.2 billion fund would extend past crypto into AI, robotics, and other new technologies. In May, Haun Ventures also broadened its scope, saying building financial services “includes crypto, but is bigger than that tool set alone.”