a16z Floats $600m Gaming Fund

After more than a decade of actively investing in the gaming industry, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) wants to further exert its influence in that space.

In order to do this, the investment giant has floated a $600 million fund which it believes will help position it aright to tap enough market share in the more than $300 billion industry.

The company said it floated the fund which it named Games Fund One with the backing of key players in the gaming industry including 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, co-founder of Twitch, Mark Pincus, founder of Zynga; and Riccardo Zacconi, founder of King.

The enormous funds will be used to support startups building a wide range of solutions in the space. These solutions border on infrastructure, supporting ecosystems for developers, and outfits developing games directly.

“GAMES FUND 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. Over the past decade, games have undergone a radical transformation, from simply being packaged entertainment to becoming online services that more closely resemble social networks and scale-like consumer technology companies,” the firm said in a blog post written by the trio of Andrew Chen, Jonathan Lai, and James Gwertzman, General Managers at a16z who will be in charge of the fund.

As it has gone all out with gaming, Andreessen Horowitz is also bullish on the role blockchain technology and Web3.0 has to play in the long-term future of the gaming industry. 

The firm detailed in a report earlier how Web3.0, powered by blockchain is a better offshoot for creators when compared to traditional solutions, and as such, the investment from Games Fund One will be extended to the emerging ecosystem to complement earlier investments in CryptoKitties and Axie Infinity and other notable startups in the space.

Andreessen has also been an active proponent of the blockchain gaming space. The company's general partner Arianna Simpson has led investments in several high-profile pay-to-earn and crypto-related gaming companies like Axie Infinity maker Sky Mavis.

According to Protocol, the fund will also collaborate with Andreessen's crypto fund to co-invest in blockchain gaming deals.

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