Andreessen Horowitz Partner Tops Forbes’ Midas List

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) partner Chris Dixon has topped Forbes’ Midas List of venture investors thanks to his bets in the crypto industry.

How Chris Dixon’s Dive Down The Crypto Rabbit Hole Made Him The World’s Top Venture Capitalist #ForbesMidas https://t.co/uJjQJdsvrp pic.twitter.com/3CxhAVu3OC

— Forbes (@Forbes) April 12, 2022

In 2018 the venture firm launched its first crypto fund with $300 million in assets. a16z invested in the Bitcoin exchange Coinbase, the cryptocurrency hedge fund Polychain Capital, and the crypto-custody provider Anchorage.

On April 14, 2021, the day of Coinbase’s direct listing, board member Mark Andreessen, together with the venture firm and two related entities, sold a total of 1.18 million shares for $449.2 million.

According to Forbes, in 2021 Crypto Fund I posted realized and unrealized gains of $6 billion. An individual familiar with the fund’s finances noted an impressive 17.7x return.

In spring 2020, a16z raised $515 million for its second crypto-focused fund. In June 2021, the leading Silicon Valley venture firm launched Crypto Fund III with assets of $2.2 billion.

“My job isn’t to predict the future. My job is to be smart enough to know smart people who will do it,” Dixon told the magazine.

The top three of Forbes’ Midas List also included Ribbit Capital’s managing director Miki Malka and Neil Shen of Sequoia China. PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who heads Founders Fund, ranked tenth.

In March 2022, a16z invested $70 million in the staking service Lido Finance.

Earlier the venture firm supported in funding rounds the Celo wallet, the DeFi project Syndicate, the NFT-game developer Mythical Games, the Mysten Labs startup and others. a16z also holds significant stakes in Compound and Uniswap.

Earlier in January 2022, media reports indicated that Andreessen Horowitz planned to raise up to $4.5 billion across two new cryptocurrency funds.

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