A16z raised 15 billion and said it wants the United States to win Last Friday, a16z announced the completion of a $15 billion fundraising. Note that it is fundraising, not investment. It was LP who handed over the money to them and asked them to invest in someone else. How exaggerated is this number? In 2025, venture capitalists across the United States raised a total of $66.1 billion, the lowest in 8 years. The A16Z family took nearly 20%. The industry is going through the winter, and they are hoarding goods. But why are LPs willing to give them money in the cold winter? Maybe because they have a record of making money in winter. I invested in Facebook in 2009, just after the financial crisis, no one dared to take action. In 2013, when I invested in Coinbase, most people thought Bitcoin was a geek toy. In May 2022, Bitcoin fell 55%, Coinbase's stock price fell 80%, and a16z also raised $4.5 billion in Crypto funds at this time. At that time, the comment section was laughing at them for accepting the offer. Last year, The Information reported that the fund's returns had skyrocketed. The reason is simple, their investment in Solana increased from $8 to $180 at that time. 'Others fear my greed' is often a chicken soup. But if you are greedy every time you are afraid, and you bet right every time, it becomes a kind of: Credit record. Speaking of this 15 billion US dollars, how will a16z spend it? Among them, 6.75 billion yuan will be invested in long-term companies, adding funds to projects that have already emerged and are ready to continue expanding. 1.7 billion investment in application layer, 1.7 billion investment in underlying technology, and 700 million investment in biomedicine. There are still 1.176 billion to invest in a theme called 'American Dynamism'. Translated directly as' American Vitality ', it sounds like a slogan created by a high-end think tank. By looking at what they have already invested in this topic, one can understand the true meaning of this word: Let America be able to make things again. What to make? Weapons. The companies in this portfolio include Anduril for autonomous weapon systems, Shield AI for military drones, Saronic for unmanned warships, and Castelion for hypersonic missiles. These companies have one thing in common: their biggest customer is the Pentagon. A16z once said a data that if there is a war with China in the Taiwan Strait, the US missile stockpile will be depleted in 8 days and it will take 3 years to replenish. In the eyes of Americans, this is not alarmist talk, it's business. The aging of the US military industrial system, Lockheed Martin's slow and expensive, and the Pentagon's need for new suppliers. A16z is betting on this gap, incubating a group of "software defined weapon" companies with VC money, and selling them to the Ministry of National Defense when they grow up. 1.176 billion is not a lot, but it's a bet on judgment. The United States is going to restart its manufacturing industry, starting with the military industry. Gambling in the military industry, having money alone is not enough, one also needs to have connections. A16z doesn't lack this. At the end of 2024, Marc Andreessen claimed to be an "unpaid intern" at DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) to help recruit for the department, reportedly spending half of his time at Mar-a-Lago estate giving advice to Trump. DOGE disbanded early last November, but a16z's network remained intact. Their first employee, Scott Kupor, is now the Director of the Office of Personnel Management in the United States. Trump just said this week that the defense budget for next year will be increased to $1.5 trillion. There are many venture capitalists who invest in the military industry, but only a few can influence policies while investing in companies. This may also be one of the true moats of a16z, not only in investment, but also in participating in rule making. I invested in a missile company and helped the government decide who could get the contract. It feels like being both a referee and an athlete. You can say this is a conflict of interest, or you can say this is resource integration. Anyway, LPs don't care, they only care about returns. Many people know a16z because of Crypto. This time, 15 billion li, Crypto was not listed separately and was stuffed into the "other" of 3 billion. Has encryption been abandoned? No. Ben Horowitz wrote very clearly in his blog, 'AI and Crypto are the key architectures of the future.'. ” Just for a16z, Crypto no longer needs to raise a separate fund. Their first crypto fund in 2018 was 350 million. By 2022, it will increase to 4.5 billion. Now then? Directly invest from the main fund, and put it in the same pool as AI, military, and energy. What does this mean? In their eyes, Crypto has transformed from a "new track" to an infrastructure. Exchanges are infrastructure, public chains are infrastructure, and DeFi protocols are also infrastructure. Like AWS, Nvidia, and missiles, they are all underlying things. Previously a VC investing in Crypto, now a VC investing in infrastructure. The pattern has opened up. For the crypto industry, this is actually good news. Being classified as' other 'may seem like a downgrade, but in reality it's more like graduation. It means that this thing no longer needs to be explained separately, LP understands it, and Western regulators are also beginning to accept it. Of course, this also means that Crypto projects have to compete with AI and military industries for the same pool of money. The competition has become more intense. Meanwhile, Ben also wrote a sentence on his blog that Sequoia may not be very comfortable listening to: As leaders of venture capital in the United States, we bear a portion of the fate of new technologies on our shoulders Sequoia trees have been working for 50 years, while a16z trees have only been working for 16 years. But now the management scale is around 90 billion US dollars, tied for first place globally. Why? The VC industry essentially sells two things: vision and resources. It's difficult to prove this matter of vision. You said you can read it accurately, you'll have to wait ten years to find out. But resources are different, resources can be accumulated. What a16z has been doing over the years is to increase resources. They have the strongest content team in the entire industry, including podcasts, blogs Newsletter， The output is comparable to that of media companies. The entrepreneur has not yet received the money, but has already been washed away by a16z's worldview. They have a network of connections in Washington. Not just knowing a few politicians, but directly stuffing people into the government. They also have the advantage of scale itself. When managing 90 billion yuan in funds, you can write a check for 1 billion yuan to SpaceX, which small funds simply do not have the ability to do. It's not just about being accurate, it's about making oneself irreplaceable. Entrepreneurs come to you not because you have a lot of money, but because you can help them secure government contracts. LP came to you not because you have high returns, but because others do not have your policy influence. This approach is difficult for other VCs to replicate. Of course, there are also risks involved here. A16z's current strategy is partially tied to the national destiny of the United States. If AI wants to win, the military industry wants to rise, and the US manufacturing industry wants to revive, if these judgments are wrong, a large part of the 15 billion yuan will go down the drain. A16z is not just betting on the technological cycle, it's the political cycle. This cycle is probably more difficult to predict than the technology cycle. But on the other hand, LP's willingness to hand over 15 billion to them shows that the market believes in this judgment. Or, in an uncertain world, a16z provides a certainty: We know how to turn money into influence, and then turn influence into returns. Bet when others dare not, and bet when others cannot understand. Then wait for the cycle to turn around and harvest trust. Therefore, this 15 billion can be understood as a vote of confidence from LP to a16z. Next, let's see how a16z is voted for the United States.