Andreessen Horowitz to open first international office in London led by Sriram Krishnan
US venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, a major cryptocurrency investor, said on Sunday it will set up its first international office in London, at a time when US regulators have increased scrutiny of the cryptocurrency sector.
The London office, set to open later this year, will work with universities in the UK and support the development of blockchain technologies and startups, the company said in a statement, adding that it will be led by one of the firm’s general partners, Sriram krishnan
The move by Andreessen comes at a time when the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been cracking down on the crypto industry, suing cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase and Binance last week for allegedly breaching its rules.
“We’re thrilled to open our first international office in a jurisdiction that welcomes blockchain technology and is committed to creating a predictable business environment by pursuing regulations that both embrace Web3 and protect consumers,” said Chris Dixon, founder and managing director of Andreessen’s a16z crypto fund, which is setting up the office.
The decision follows talks with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and other authorities for months, Dixon said.
Sunak said in the statement he is “determined to unlock opportunities” for blockchain technology and “turn the UK into the world’s Web3 centre”.
Web3 is a much-hyped vision of a future internet built on blockchain.
However, Dixon said his firm will continue to invest in the US and work with policymakers there.
We will remain heavily invested in the US We continue to be committed to working with US policymakers and regulators to push for more regulatory clarity for crypto startups here,” Dixon wrote in a blog post.
Early innings of crypto
Dixon also mentioned in the blog post that though there are immense opportunities with crypto and Web3, the sector is still at a nascent stage.
“Technology takes decades to develop — we are just now seeing mainstream applications of AI after 80 years of development. We are in the early innings of crypto.
Today there are tens of thousands of crypto developers, but the numbers are growing fast and we expect to see one million developers by 2030,” read Dixon’s blog post.
Dixon wrote that one of the reason for choosing UK is because its authorities are also willing to work with the industry to create policies that incentivise startups to pursue decentralisation.
“We have been working with policymakers and regulators across the globe, and during our discussions it has become clear that the UK government sees the promise of web3, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak suggesting the UK can become a hub of web3 innovationn,” he wrote.
Andreessen has also invested in UK-based Gensyn, a crypto firm whose decentralised compute protocol is expected to enable developers build state-of-the-art AI systems on any connected hardware and their novel cryptographic verification system allows users to trust that the protocol’s machine learning work was completed correctly.
By:ET
