All posts tagged: a16zs

Have money, will travel: a16z’s hunt for the next European unicorn

Have money, will travel: a16z’s hunt for the next European unicorn

Gabriel Vasquez, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, recently revealed he took nine flights from NYC to Stockholm in one year. That wasn’t just to visit Lovable, a portfolio company, but also to look for other future Swedish unicorns before they cross the Atlantic. This all came to light when news emerged that a16z had led a $2.3 million pre-seed round into Dentio, a Swedish startup that uses AI to help dentists’ practices with admin work. While this is a small check for a firm that just announced new funds totaling $15 billion, it confirms that U.S. VCs are actively seeking deal flow outside of the U.S., even without local offices. Stockholm is a natural stop for a16z, which previously achieved significant returns from backing Skype, cofounded by Swedish entrepreneur Niklas Zennström. Since then, a significant number of fast-growing startups have been created in the Swedish capital, and the VC heavyweight tracked down where many of them were coming from.  “We spend a lot of time developing a deep understanding of specific markets and knowing where …

How to get into a16z’s super-competitive Speedrun startup accelerator program

How to get into a16z’s super-competitive Speedrun startup accelerator program

Without a doubt, one of the hottest new startup accelerators in tech right now is Andreessen Horowitz’s Speedrun program. Launched in 2023, the accelerator has an acceptance rate of less than 1%. In a January blog post, the program said that over 19,000 startups pitched and fewer than 0.4% were accepted into the latest cohort.  The program used to focus on gaming startups, then expanded into entertainment and media, and is now a “horizontal program,” Joshua Lu, the program’s general manager and a partner at a16z, told TechCrunch. Today, founders of any type of startup can apply, and the program runs for about 12 weeks in San Francisco. It once had a program in Los Angeles, but Lu said the focus will be on SF from now on.  There are two cohorts a year, and around 50 to 70 startups are accepted into each. The program invests up to $1 million into each company, though the downside is that it’s a bit pricey. It typically invests $500,000 up front in exchange for 10% of the …