gaming
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Andreessen Horowitz launches a $600 million gaming fund

The VC firm is getting serious about video games.

Head shots of Andreessen Horowitz general partners.

General partners Andrew Chen, Jonathan Lai and James Gwertzman will lead the fund.

Image: Protocol

Andreessen Horowitz is officially planting a flag in the game industry with the launch of its very first gaming fund.

The $600 million fund, which the firm is calling Games Fund One, will focus on a mix of game studios, gaming infrastructure companies and consumer gaming software providers — similar to Discord and Twitch, the firm says — that support gaming ecosystems and communities.

"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," reads an announcement blog post from Andreessen general partners Andrew Chen, Jonathan Lai and James Gwertzman, the trio who will lead investments for the fund. "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."

This fund is far from Andreessen's first foray into the game industry. The firm had early investments in both virtual reality pioneer Oculus and mobile juggernaut Zynga, and it led Roblox's $150 million round Series G in 2020 prior to the metaverse-minded game developer going public last year. Andreessen has also been an active proponent of the blockchain gaming space, with general partner Arianna Simpson leading investments in several high-profile pay-to-earn and crypto-related gaming companies like Axie Infinity maker Sky Mavis.

But the new $600 million fund does represent the VC firm's most serious effort yet to tap into the fast-growing game industry, which experienced unprecedented growth following the pandemic and is on track to break $200 billion in global revenue this year. The fund will collaborate with Andreessen's crypto fund to co-invest in blockchain gaming deals, an Andreessen representative told Protocol.

The fund also includes a number of high-profile game industry executives: Roblox CEO and co-founder David Baszucki, Discord co-founder and CEO Jason Citron, Riot Games co-founder Marc Merrill, Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime, Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, Sky Mavis co-founders Aleks Larsen and Jeffrey Zirlin, Zynga founder Mark Pincus and King founder Riccardo Zacconi.

Nick Statt

Nick Statt is Protocol's video game reporter. Prior to joining Protocol, he was news editor at The Verge covering the gaming industry, mobile apps and antitrust out of San Francisco, in addition to managing coverage of Silicon Valley tech giants and startups. He now resides in Rochester, New York, home of the garbage plate and, completely coincidentally, the World Video Game Hall of Fame. He can be reached at nstatt@protocol.com.

video gamesentertainmentprotocol entertainmentandreessen horowitzventure capitalgaming
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