Venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz renamed a16z Crypto as a16z Frontier on Thursday and widened its newest fund beyond blockchain to artificial intelligence, autonomous machines, biology and other long-horizon technologies.
In a blog post, managing partner Chris Dixon echoed recent pronouncements from asset managers including BlackRock and Grayscale that the combination of AI and blockchains could "enable machine-to-machine transactions," a core thesis behind efforts to develop decentralized AI networks and applications.
"The potential here — for machine age networks — is enormous, and builders have barely begun to scratch the surface," Dixon wrote. "Blockchains will play a significant role in this transformation."
He also released a video of himself discussing the move with a16z executives:
The announcement represents a shift from May, when an a16z spokesperson told TechCrunch its new $2.2 billion fifth fund would be “dedicated 100% to crypto entrepreneurs.” The vehicle brought the strategy’s total fundraising to $9.8 billion.
Dixon said blockchains have receded into the infrastructure behind mainstream financial products, making the “crypto company” label less useful. He cast the move as a real mandate expansion, not merely a cosmetic rebrand or an abandonment of crypto.
AI is advanced enough to generate new products and markets, Dixon wrote, and a16z Frontier will pursue those opportunities while continuing crypto investments and policy advocacy. He cast blockchains as programmable payment rails for networks of AI agents and machines.
A16z's first crypto fund has delivered returns even as total assets across its crypto funds declined. Fortune reported that assets under management across four funds fell nearly 40% between 2024 and 2025, partly because a16z returned capital to investors; the first fund had a net distribution-to-paid-in-capital multiple of 5.4.
The DeAI angle: Frontier makes the AI-crypto intersection an explicit investment thesis: AI expands what networks can do, while blockchains supply open, programmable economic rails.
On social media, one commenter speculated that crypto's reputational issues might have played a part in the name change:
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