July 6th, 2009
Andreessen Horowitz VC fund launches: Will invest $50,000 to $50 million in IT startups
Marc Andreessen and Ben Hororwitz have launched $300 million venture capital fund looking to invest in early stage startups.
Andreessen has been best known for hatching Netscape, but has had a series of hits. Opsware, started with Horowitz, was sold to HP. And now Andreessen is chairman of Ning. Add it up and Andreessen and Horowitz have started three companies, cooked up products, operated firms and invested in 45 startups.
Andreessen Horowitz appears to be a souped up angel fund. The firm notes in a blog post on Andreeseen’s site:
We have the ability to invest between $50 thousand and $50 million in a company, depending on the stage and the opportunity. We plan to aggressively participate in funding brand new startups with seed-stage investments that will often be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. But we will also invest in venture stage and late stage rounds of high-growth companies.
Andreessen laid out the VC firm’s manifesto. Among the highlights (there are many):
- Technology change cascades even as investors go through boom-bust cycles. To wit:
In fact, we believe that technology change cascades — each new generation of technology continues within it the seeds for even more profound advances to come. And, technology change creates continuous opportunity to build important and valuable new companies.
- Technology companies can be built on the cheap. That means Andreessen Horowitz can invests in many more companies, but create the scale to magnify the effects.
- The firm will focus on information technology and companies in Silicon Valley. However, Andreessen Horowitz will venture beyond the valley.
- When looking for investments Andreessen Horowitz favors technical founders who intend to be CEO. The firm writes:
We are hugely in favor of the founder who intends to be CEO. Not all founders can become great CEOs, but most of the great companies in our industry were run by a founder for a long period of time, often decades, and we believe that pattern will continue. We cannot guarantee that a founder can be a great CEO, but we can help that founder develop the skills necessary to reach his or her full CEO potential.
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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