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Andreessen Horowitz Backed Story Protocol Secures $54M in Funding

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 6, 2023

Story Protocol, a San Francisco-based startup, has successfully raised over $54 million in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto arm, a16z crypto. The company aims to redefine the intellectual property (IP) landscape by offering an open infrastructure layer optimized for the internet era. The project has also onboarded filmmaker David S. Goyer, known for his work on the “Blade” and “The Dark Knight” trilogies, as an advisor.

Democratizing IP Creation

Story Protocol is designed to manage the entire lifecycle of IP development. It offers features such as provenance tracking, frictionless licensing, and revenue sharing. The protocol supports various media forms, including prose, images, gaming, and audio. “In a world of total abundance catalyzed by generative AI, blockchain technology presents the perfect solution for transparent provenance tracking and fair attribution,” said Seung Yoon Lee, Co-Founder of Story Protocol.

Ecosystem Development

The project aims to foster an ecosystem of third-party developers who can provide services like crowdfunding, capital formation, IP discovery, and community growth. Its open and modular architecture allows any application to integrate seamlessly, mitigating platform risk for developers.

Industry Support and Participation

The funding round saw participation from a diverse group of investors, including Hashed, Endeavor, Samsung Next, and dao5, among others. “Web3 has the promise to help solve some of the longest-standing problems in the media and entertainment industries,” said Sriram Krishnan, General Partner at a16z crypto.

Advisor Onboarding

David S. Goyer, an advisor to Story Protocol, envisions a future where creators have greater control over their IPs. “Story Protocol marks a new era for the entertainment industry and the start of a new ownership model for creators and fans,” Goyer said.

Founding Team

The founding team of Story Protocol comprises seasoned professionals with diverse backgrounds:

Co-founder Seung Yoon Lee previously founded mobile serial fiction platform Radish.

Co-founder Jason Levy led content at Episode.

Co-founder Jason Zhao served as a product lead at Google’s Deepmind.

Weilei Yu led growth for Flow blockchain at Dapper Labs.

Leo Chen was the founding VP of Engineering at Harmony Protocol.

Ben Sternberg served as CFO of Radish Media.

Susan Park, a design lead at Google, is also part of the team.

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US Regulator Crypto Custody Proposal Opposed

by Blockchain NewsMay 10, 2023

In response to the SEC’s proposal to amend its custody rule, the Blockchain Association and Andreessen Horowitz have filed letters of opposition. The Blockchain Association claimed that the rule would limit investment in digital assets and could leave investors’ assets at more risk. Meanwhile, Andreessen Horowitz stated that the rule could prevent registered investment advisers from transacting with crypto exchanges and violate the SEC’s duty of care requirements.

The proposal, which has not yet been approved by the SEC, aims to impose more stringent rules on investment advisers in the custody of assets, including crypto. The proposed measures include proper segregation of assets and annual audits from public accountants, among other transparency measures.

The SEC’s Chair, Gary Gensler, has specifically targeted crypto exchanges with the rule, claiming that some crypto trading platforms offering custody services are not qualified custodians. However, even within the SEC, Commissioner Hester Pierce has questioned the rule’s workability and breadth, suggesting that it appears to be targeting crypto and crypto-related companies.

The Blockchain Association and Andreessen Horowitz have both argued that the rule exceeds the SEC’s authority and would have a negative impact on investment in digital assets. They have also claimed that the proposed measures would prevent investment advisers from using crypto and could leave investors’ assets at greater risk.

Despite opposition from industry proponents and within the SEC itself, the proposal remains under consideration. It is yet to be seen whether the SEC will make any changes to the rule in response to the letters of opposition.

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Tagged : Andreessen Horowitz / Blockchain Association / Crypto Custody / INVESTMENT ADVISERS / News / US SECURITIES REGULATOR

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz voted against a Uniswap proposal

by Blockchain NewsFebruary 6, 2023

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), a venture capital company, allegedly engaged in a vote that was cast against a final proposal to instal Uniswap v3 on the BNB Chain by making use of the Wormhole bridge, as stated by the Uniswap DAO forum. This information was taken from the forum where it was posted.

On February 2, 0xPlasma Labs submitted a governance request on behalf of the Uniswap Community asking for permission to deploy the most current version of Uniswap on the BNB Chain. This request was made by 0xPlasma Labs. During the preliminary vote on the proposal, there were 20 million votes cast in favour of it, which is equivalent to 80.28 percent of the total, and 4.9 million votes were against it (19.72 percent of the total). On February 5th, the venture capital business used its 15 million UNI holding to cast a vote against the resolution. This action was taken in opposition to the move. The motion that was made was in direct opposition to the action that was executed.

Although there had been a total of 23.4 million votes cast previous to the publishing of this article, just 3% of all UNI tokens had engaged in the voting process at that point in time. This was despite the fact that there had been a total of 23.4 million votes cast. According to the schedule, the final day that voters will be able to cast their votes will be on February 10th. This day marks the end of the voting period.

The disagreement stems from the fact that a cross-chain bridge wasn’t properly planned for before the deployment was carried out, which is the primary source of the problem. The Wormhole bridge is used inside the framework of the proposal, and a16z offers support for the incorporation of LayerZero as the interoperability protocol. In the paragraphs that follow, consideration will be given to each of these facets in more depth.

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Tagged : Andreessen Horowitz / Business / Dao / DeFi / News / Uniswap / Venture-Capital

“Web3.0 is Much, Much Better for Creators Than Web2”: a16z Suggests

by Blockchain NewsMay 18, 2022

Renowned Venture Capital (VC) firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has shared data showing creators have many benefits when they pitch their tents with Web3.0 rather than Web2.0.

The argument was made in the first issue of the firm’s state of the crypto report, which shows Web3.0 currently has 22,400 creators.

It should be understood that the Web3.0 space is filled with predominantly Non-Fungible Token (NFT) creators that are notably using blockchain to revolutionize the art, music, and general creative world. Web2.0 was innovative enough to usher in the ability for users to create content that all can enjoy. However, the big social media platforms have little or non-existent incentivization models for these creators. Web3.0 is set to change all of this.

The Andreessen Horowitz report compared creators’ earnings from Web3.0 with those hosted on YouTube, Spotify, and Meta Platform’s Facebook.

The data shared showed YouTube generated content ad revenue of $15 billion from 37 million channels, and the average pay per channel was pegged at $2.47. The payout worsens with Facebook, which plays hosts to 2.91 billion, with a generated ad revenue of $300 million. Creators here earned an average of 10 cents. Spotify came out better as the 11 million artists hosted on the platform received an average of $636 from an ad revenue of $7 billion.

Herein lies the Web3.0 advantage, creators here earned as high as $174,000 on average from a revenue of $3.91 billion across secondary sales on OpenSea alone. The creator economy is bigger than OpenSea as thousands of creators are now taking advantage of cheaper fees across BNB Chain, Solana, Polygon, and Avalanche, among other blockchain networks.

With the massive returns Web3.0 presents to creators, a16z noted that “Web3.0 is tiny but might” and may soon be the go-to place for creators despite the fact that Spotify, Instagram, and other social media outfits are exploring crypto integrations.

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Tagged : Andreessen Horowitz / Industry / NFT / WEB2.0 / WEB3.0

Binance Joins Elon Musk in His Twitter Bid with $500m Equity Funding

by Blockchain NewsMay 6, 2022

Binance cryptocurrency exchange has joined Elon Musk’s Twitter Inc takeover bid with a $500 million equity contribution.

The contribution was highlighted as part of the related contributions from other venture capital firms as part of the updated Schedule 13D that was filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The Schedule 13D document is a compulsory filing that is required of any investor who takes up more than a 5% equity stake in a particular firm. The filing showed that the free speech agenda of Elon Musk has garnered so much support from more venture capital firms in the U.S in particular. Besides Binance’s contribution, Andreessen Horowitz was shown to commit $400 million to the cause, while Sequoia Capital invested $800 million to become a part of the owners of the social media giant.

As the document showed, Lawrence J. Ellison Revocable Trust is the biggest contributor, with an equity investment of $1 billion. With Elon Musk at the helm of affairs of the new Twitter social media platform, a lot of changes are expected as the plans to transform the company are in top gear.

While a number of critics have labelled the acquisition of Twitter for $44 billion as a bad deal for Musk, seeing the firm does not command as much profit as its peers, Musk has gathered come off as someone who believes in a greater cause than returns control of free speech to the world citizens.

With the immediate plans to take Twitter private, Elon Musk is foreseeing at least a 2-3 years transformational cycle for the company, after which it plans to retake the firm public. During this time, Elon Musk has outlined plans to turn over the firm’s profitability by charging companies to use the service, one of the plans he has been mulling.

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Tagged : Andreessen Horowitz / Binance / Industry / Twitter

a16Z to Establishe Crypto Research Lab

by Blockchain NewsApril 25, 2022

Wallet Street Venture Capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz (a16Z), announced establishing its own crypto research lab to conduct blockchain-related academic research.

Led by Tim Roughgarden, adjunct professor of computer science at both Stanford and Columbia, and Dan Boneh, professor of computer science and electrical engineering at Stanford, the lab will combine academic theory and practice to address the environmental problems currently caused by the crypto industry as a whole Discuss and experiment with corresponding solutions.

Andreessen Horowitz said that:

“The crypto and Web3 sector has emerged as a new frontier in technology, and it has matured into an independent field of knowledge that brings together elements of computer science, economics, finance, and the humanities.”

a16Z has rallied investors for a $4.5 billion dual fund targeted at making strategic investments in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

While the a16Z’s plans have not been made public yet, the company is well known for a related fundraiser in the ecosystem. The company pulled $2.2 billion from investors back in June last year to create the Crypto Fund III, the largest at the time.

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Tagged : A16Z / Andreessen Horowitz / Bitcoin / Blockchain / Crypto / Enterprise / Web3

Fintech Firm Cross River Raises $620M Funding, Led by Eldridge & a16z

by Blockchain NewsMarch 31, 2022

CRB Group, Inc., the parent company of fintech company Cross River Bank, announced a $620 million investment led by Eldridge and Andreessen Horowitz.

The funds raised will be used to build the company’s leading embedded payment, card, lending and crypto solutions Furthermore, to invest in people and communities, continue its international expansion plans and strengthen strategic global partnerships.

Gilles Gade, Founder, President and CEO of Cross River said that:

“Cross River is powering the future digital economy and changing lives by reinventing the way financial services are accessed. The quality of the investor group and size of our latest funding make this a landmark transaction in the financial technology arena, and will enable us to accelerate the growth of Cross River as the foundation of modern finance.”

Other investors include Rowe Price, Whale Rock and Hanaco Ventures.

Cross River currently provides loan and payment services to more than 80 payment companies, including Affirm, Best Egg, Checkout.com, Divvy, Freedom Financial, Pay.com.

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Tagged : Andreessen Horowitz / Bitcoin / Blockchain / CROSS RIVER / ELDRIDGE / Finance

Former a16z Partner Katie Haun’s Crypto VC Fund Raises $1.5 Billion

by Blockchain NewsMarch 23, 2022

Former federal prosecutor Katie Haun’s crypto venture capital fund has raised $1.5 billion to invest in crypto-related startups.

Haun, Andreessen Horowitz’s first female general partner, announced Tuesday to complete a $500 million early-stage fund and another $1 billion for more established startups focused on web3 after leaving a16z in December,

Still, Haun said in an interview that：

“it’s not a bad time to deploy a crypto fund” despite those challenges. The extreme volatility is reminiscent of the first two crypto funds I deployed. What I learned from those funds is that great founders and great projects are going to be built in every cycle.”

Haun said her funds will be deployed for at least two years “and invest in digital tokens and equity in areas ranging from decentralized financial applications to NFTs and so-called decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).”

“I did not fit the mold of the traditional venture investor,” she said in the interview. “I think we need more people who don’t fit the mold. I think web3 really needs those voices.”

Haun Ventures is currently a team of nine, with a roster that includes Sam Rosenblum, who was a general partner at Polychain Capital, and Chris Lehane, who was previously on the executive management team at Airbnb.

In addition, plans to expand the team size.

Lehane, chief strategy officer at Haun Ventures, said he would focus on partnering with different promising cryptocurrency startups, crafting relevant battles to make their products more mainstream, and addressing regulatory issues early.

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Tagged : A16Z / Andreessen Horowitz / Bitcoin / Blockchain / Finance / KATIE HAUN / Venture-Capital

Former a16z Founder Katie Haun’s Crypto VC Fund Raises $1.5 Billion

by Blockchain NewsMarch 23, 2022

Former federal prosecutor Katie Haun’s crypto venture capital fund has raised $1.5 billion to invest in crypto-related startups.

Still, Haun said in an interview that：

“it’s not a bad time to deploy a crypto fund” despite those challenges. The extreme volatility is reminiscent of the first two crypto funds I deployed. What I learned from those funds is that great founders and great projects are going to be built in every cycle.”

“I did not fit the mold of the traditional venture investor,” she said in the interview. “I think we need more people who don’t fit the mold. I think web3 really needs those voices.”

In addition, plans to expand the team size.

Image source: Shutterstock

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Tagged : A16Z / Andreessen Horowitz / Bitcoin / Blockchain / Finance / KATIE HAUN / Venture-Capital

Andreessen Horowitz Appoints FinCEN Exec Michele Korver as Head of Regulatory

by Blockchain NewsMarch 16, 2022

Andreessen Horowitz, a U.S. Venture capital firm, also known as a16z, announced Tuesday for the appointment of Michele Korver, an official at the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), as the company’s new head of regulatory.

Korver has served over 25 years in government and regulatory roles and is recognized as one of the leading federal prosecutors in cryptocurrency. The government and law-enforcement veteran recently served as the chief digital currency advisor at the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), advising on digital asset policy. Korver spent less than nine months at FinCEN when she joined the agency in July 2021 after almost four years working as a digital currency counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice.

Horowitz hires Korver as the venture capital firm to continue pushing into crypto and web3. “It is hard to imagine someone better positioned to navigate and help shape the rapidly evolving web3 regulatory landscape. Korver will work with companies building products in the web3 space,” a16Z mentioned in a statement.

Korver talked about her new appointment via Twitter, saying: “I’m now excited to join a16z crypto and work directly with web3 projects to help them thrive in a rapidly-developing regulatory environment. a16z crypto was an early supporter of crypto and web3, and I’ve long admired their team and the visionary entrepreneurs they’ve backed. It’s clear to me that web3 and its underlying crypto technology can solve critical challenges of national importance.”

Helping Firms Investing Crypto and Web3 Projects

In January, Andreessen Horowitz announced that it plans to raise $4.5 billion in a fundraising round to support start-up projects related to blockchain and Web3 technology. The venture capital firm said that it would raise $3.5 billion for its crypto venture fund, which will be used to invest in crypto start-ups and projects seeking investment for initiatives. The company also planned to allocate another $1 billion; a fund focused on investing in new Web3 projects.

A16z has been an early and leading investor in numerous cutting-edge technology projects. In the past, prominent venture capital companies invested in crypto firms, including Protocol Labs, Polychain Capital, Opensea, Coinbase, Solana Labs, and Uniswap.

Founded in 2009, a16z currently manages more than $30 billion in assets in multiple funds across several sectors. The firm was one of the first major investors in companies such as Skype, Facebook, and Twitter.

The V.C. company has had little trouble raising substantial funds from major institutions eager to develop innovative projects to disrupt traditional financial institutions.

If a16z manages to attract investors to raise $4.5 billion, then it would become a company with the biggest venture fund in the industry, surpassing Paradigm’s $2.5 billion in November 2021.

Image source: a16z.com

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Tagged : Andreessen Horowitz / Hiring / Industry Expert / Michele Korver / REGULATORY