Venture capitalist firm, Andreessen Horowitz, has recently announced an investment initiative that aims to sink $600 million into the gaming industry.
GAMES FUND ONE is a pool dedicated to investing in an industry that they trust will play a vital role in society’s future. The fund was “founded on the belief that games will play a pivotal role in defining how we socialize, play, and work over the next century”, according a16z. The initiative will join other industry-specific funds such as Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto division.
While the gaming industry is broad, a16z plans to invest in consumer and community-based apps such as Discord or Twitter, gaming studios, and infrastructure built to create and design gaming titles, which they believe will be crucial in developing the metaverse.
“With GAMES FUND ONE, we will continue to add more functions and develop deeper networks that are tailored to the games ecosystem so we can help our portfolio companies with everything from building digital communities, to managing their virtual economies, to IP licensing best practices, to helping build their development teams,” stated Andrew Chen, Jonathan Lai, and James Gwertzman via the company’s blog post.
With the continuous growth of the gaming industry and the rise of the metaverse, many companies such as Nvidia, Roblox, Meta, and Microsoft have begun to invest in the idea of a virtual world. Even though a16z is not a crypto-based venture capital firm, assigning this pool of $600 million speaks volumes about the rising awareness, investor interest and potential of gaming and metaverse developments in the future.
