By Krystal Hu, Anna Tong and Kenrick Cai
SAN FRANCISCO – Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is seeking to raise about $20 billion in what will be the largest fund in its history, to capitalize on global investors’ interest in backing U.S. artificial intelligence companies, sources told Reuters.
The tech investment firm, known informally as a16z, has told limited partners that the fund will be dedicated to growth-stage investments in AI companies and draw upon global investors keen on investing in American companies, the sources said. The record fundraising and the goal of capitalizing on foreign investment interest in the U.S. tech industry come against the backdrop of a sweeping tariff plan by President Donald Trump to urge companies to manufacture goods in the U.S.
To raise such a large amount of capital, a16z has been pitching it around the world. International LPs see the fund as a way to invest their money more easily into American AI companies without restrictions, one of the sources said.
Andreessen Horowitz did not reply to requests for comment.
A16z’s founders, venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, announced last year they would support Trump, breaking with their traditional support for Democratic candidates, a sentiment shared by other prominent Silicon Valley figures such as Elon Musk.
Even by the standards of a firm known for raising some of Silicon Valley’s largest investment vehicles, the new fund would represent a colossal step up in scale. It would test LPs’ interest in venture capital amid global economic turmoil and continue the debate over how scalable this asset class is while maintaining appealing returns.
If successfully raised, the new megafund would be surpassed only by SoftBank’s two Vision funds, a massive experiment by deploying unprecedented amounts of capital into the tech sector, which has yielded mixed results. SoftBank Vision Fund 1, launched in 2017, was a record-breaking $100 billion fund, while its successor, Vision Fund 2, manages about $56 billion from SoftBank’s balance sheet. Another Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Sequoia Capital, has over $56 billion in assets under management across multiple funds, with its evergreen fund growing to $19.6 billion this year, according to filings.
A16z’s largest fund to date is a $5 billion growth-stage fund it raised as part of a $9 billion fundraise it announced in early 2022. It similarly asked LPs to commit capital into a grab bag of funds, each focused on a different sector or stage of startup maturity, to secure a $7.2 billion haul in 2024, $3.75 billion for a growth fund.
