Andreessen Horowitz just raised over $15 billion.
I’ll let you consider that number for a moment, because while it’s far from unprecedented (or even surprising), it is quite a chunk of change. It’s also a reminder: The firm that first made its name as a VC upstart upon its 2009 founding has become venture capital’s most-talked-about and controversial brand. And I use the term brand intentionally: a16z made its name not only by investing in companies like Skype, Facebook, and Twitter but by intentionally brand-building in a way that was new to venture in the 2010s—and now is de rigueur.
The $15 billion is being parceled out among various a16z funds. Here’s how it breaks down: The firm’s fifth growth fund gets $6.75 billion, the fifth biotech and healthcare fund will see $700 million, while the second apps fund and second infrastructure fund each get $1.7 billion. American Dynamism, a key player in the defense tech boom, gets $1.176 billion (less than I maybe would have guessed, given how hot defense tech is right now).
Finally, another $3 billion funnels to a cryptic category, “other venture strategies.” An a16z spokesperson said this “refers to a combination of things, fund strategies that have not yet launched as well as additional opportunities like institutional SMAs.” (SMAs are “separately managed accounts,” and buzzy with the family office-wealthy individual set looking for their piece of tech.)
A16z has become something of a lightning rod within the tech community in recent years (the firm famously endorsed Trump ahead of the 2024 election), and make no mistake about it: This $15 billion is also geopolitical. In a blog post, cofounder Ben Horowitz says that the goal is to be investing into tech that’s “dynamic, innovative, and intensely competitive with China.” (A16z declined to make Horowitz or cofounder Marc Andreessen available for an interview.)
$15 billion is a lot of capital to put to work. But let’s also be real here: Is this number all that surprising? I would say not. VC firms are raising more and more to keep up with the AI boom (2025 global dealmaking reached $512.6 billion, says PitchBook), and we’ve seen other firms raise big funds recently (looking at you, Lightspeed, raising $9 billion).
Nor is it unprecedented on a historical basis. At the peak of the ZIRP era, in 2022, Insight raised a whopping $20 billion, while Tiger Global raised $12.7 billion. Going even further back in time, let’s not forget SoftBank, which pre-pandemic raised $100 billion for its almost comically large Vision Fund.
For years, a16z has been telegraphing its desire to be the venture-asset manager-behemoth of our future. The question, of course, is what success looks like: Is it returns, is it enduring cultural and political influence, or blunt money-deluge dominance?
See you next week,
Allie Garfinkle X: @agarfinks Email: [email protected] Submit a deal for the Term Sheet newsletter here.
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