Andreessen Horowitz is launching a new fund focused exclusively on opportunities in the gaming industry.
The new $600 million fund brings a dedicated equity pool and a new internal structure to win deals within that gaming vertical. The new vehicle, called Games Fund One, joins other industry-specific arms at a16z, including its crypto and bio divisions.
The fund is led by general partners Andrew Chen, Jon Lai and James Gwertzman.
“With [Games Fund One], we will continue to add more features and develop more targeted networks that are tailored to the gaming ecosystem so that we can help our portfolio companies with the full value proposition, from building digital communities to managing their virtual economies, IP licensing best practices, and help build their teams,” they mentioned in a entry in your blog.
The fund's backers include a number of executives in the gaming world, including co-founders of companies like King, Discord, Roblox, Zynga, Twitch, Blizzard and Riot Games.
Andreessen Horowitz has already made a number of bets in the world of games and MMOs, including Zynga and Oculus. The formation of the gaming vertical comes as another of his bets, Facebook (now Meta), speaks loudly about the opportunities in gaming when it comes to the metaverse.
The new fund comes at a time of retraction for the broader tech industry, as investors encourage startups to dig in and preserve cash as public tech stocks continue to take a beating. As examples, gaming infrastructure firm Unity is trading more than 80% below its November 2021 highs, while gaming platform Roblox is trading 75% below highs reached during the same period.
