Andreessen Horowitz, one of the largest venture capital investment companies in the field of digital currencies, is preparing to launch a separate fund to buy and sell cryptoactive assets.
This step indicates a significant expansion of the interests of the company, which will have a serious impact on the industry as a whole. Today, at the peak of activity in this area, investors are looking for opportunities to invest in cryptocurrency, which many see as a new wave of innovation. Andreessen Horowitz has invested in blockchain companies such as Coinbase, cryptocurrency funds, including Polychain Capital, as well as some ICOs. However, this company has not yet participated openly in the public cryptocurrency trade as a fund.
Representatives of Andreessen Horowitz declined to comment.
Two vacancies published on the Andreessen website say that the company is looking for employees in a “separate fund specializing in cryptoactive assets”. Up to this point, Andreessen has allocated funds for two types of funds: one – for investments in startups at various stages, according to the latest available data, in 2016 owned assets of $ 1.5 billion. The other is to invest in companies in the biological sector, a year ago with funds of $ 450 million.
The job descriptions do not indicate what funds the new fund will manage and when it will start work. Andreessen Horowitz also did not specify what exactly they mean by “assets”. Perhaps the company decided to open its own startup associated with tokens and blockchain, in which the allocated funds will be invested. In addition, the appearance of the industry itself can drastically change in just a few years.
However, the job descriptions of the legal adviser and the financial and operational manager still contain some details:
• The lawyer’s task is to ensure that cryptoactive assets invested by Andreessen Horowitz comply with the SEC requirements. The firm recognizes that the future employee will have to “work in an area in which the legal and business climate, as well as legislation, has not yet been settled.”
• The financial manager will need to help the company attract depositors. One of the key tasks, in accordance with the description, will also be the valuation of the value of the company’s cryptoactive assets, which is not so easy, given the volatility of some cryptocurrencies.
Venture funds are usually extremely skeptical of direct investments in cryptocurrency. Some of them claim that their limited-investor investors will be able to do this without problems and without their help (thereby avoiding commissions). In addition, conservative investors are seriously concerned about the risks associated with the lack of any regulation in this industry.
Nevertheless, several companies still have experience in this area. Andreessen Horowitz, one of the most actively investing in cryptocurrency of venture companies, is also among them. This type of investment is undertaken by a team led by the general partners of the fund Chris Dixon and Alex Rampell, who are considered to be the leading experts of Silicon Valley in the field of cryptoactives. Andreessen Horowitz, in addition to Coinbase, invests in a whole range of companies, from the most famous (like Ripple) to industry newbies (like CryptoKitties).
At the same time, some investors believe that independent investments in cryptocurrencies will make it possible to earn more and faster than investments in companies that work with them.
Companies, in turn, periodically launch highly specialized funds in order to attract investors of a certain type. Thus, the Andreessen Biological Fund is aimed at investors who are interested in financing companies in the field of health and social sciences. In the same way, potential investors in Andreessen crypto-fund should believe in the future of digital assets or at least not experience great discomfort by investing in unreliable assets from a financial and legal point of view.
Source: chby.io
