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A16z Launches First Gaming Fund With $600M Commitment
The venture capital giant will invest in game studios, apps and infrastructure.
By Brandy Betz
Updated May 11, 2023, 6:46 p.m. Published May 18, 2022, 2:03 p.m.
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Venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has launched its inaugural gaming fund with plans to invest $600 million across game studios, gaming-related consumer apps and infrastructure.
“Today, we are proud to announce GAMES FUND ONE, a16z’s inaugural fund dedicated to building the future of the games industry. Having been investors in this space for more than a decade, it’s clear to us the industry has entered a new era, and there is no better time than now to build a fund focused on supporting the next generation of games builders,” wrote a16z team members Andrew Chen, Jonathan Lai, and James Gwertzman in a blog post.
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The company said its fund, Games Company ONE, is “founded on the belief that games will play a pivotal role in defining how we socialize, play, and work over the next century.” It added that in the long term, it believes gaming infrastructure and technologies will be important building blocks of the Metaverse, an opportunity it says could be much bigger than the current $300 million game industry itself.
Among notable gaming industry investors in the fund are David Baszucki, founder of Roblox; Jason Citron, founder of Discord; Marc Merrill, co-founder of Riot Games; Mike Morhaime, co-founder of Blizzard; Aleks Larsen and Jeffrey Zirlin, co-founders of Sky Mavis; Kevin Lin, cofounder of Twitch; Mark Pincus, founder of Zynga; and Riccardo Zacconi, founder of King.
A16z isn’t a crypto native firm but has become one of the largest names in the space. Last summer, the firm allocated $2.2 billion for its third crypto fund, which was the largest crypto fund in history until Paradigm debuted its $2.5 billion vehicle in November.
Read more: A16z Addresses Downturn in Inaugural State of Crypto Report
UPDATE (May 18, 15:53 UTC): Added info about notable investors in the fund.
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