Tag: a16z

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

Posted on by faz_business


Gabriel Vasquez, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, recently revealed he took nine flights from NYC to Stockholm in one year. While his visits included stops at companies like Lovable — where he posted from its office — the trips were also about finding 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 innovation is emerging. In Sweden, that has meant closely tracking ecosystems like [SSE Business Lab] — the startup incubator of the Stockholm School of Economics — and the companies coming out of it,” Vasquez told TechCrunch.

Like fintech giant Klarna, legal AI startup Legora, and e-scooter company Voi, Dentio is an alum of SSE Business Lab — a startup incubator that has produced several successful Swedish companies. The three former high school classmates Elias Afrasiabi, Anton Li and Lukas Sjögren joined the incubator after reconnecting as students at both the SSE (Stockholm School of Economics) and KTH (Royal Institute of Technology), then joined the incubator with additional backing from KTH’s Innovation Launch program. They tackled a problem close to home: Li’s mom, a dentist, had told them how admin work detracted from clinical care.

The trio intuited that they could leverage LLMs to help people like her — an idea that they also validated with her and her colleagues. This led them to Dentio’s initial product, a recording tool that uses AI to generate clinical notes. But it’s only a matter of time before AI scribes become a commodity product, and Dentio needs to prove its value to dentists so they aren’t tempted to switch providers when that happens, Afrasiabi said.

Potential competitors include fellow Swedish startup Tandem Health, which raised a $50 million Series A round last year to support clinicians with AI across multiple medical specialties. Dentio, by contrast, focuses exclusively on dentists, but it believes it can still reach the scale VCs expect through international expansion

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“Now we’re a team of seven people, and we think that it’s possible to build a unified way of handling administration all over Europe, and maybe even all over the world,” Afrasiabi said. While Europe’s healthcare systems are fragmented, they share similarities, and Dentio’s assumption is that what works in Sweden could work elsewhere in the EU.

Dentio prominently features its “Made in Sweden” branding and emphasizes that “all relevant data is processed in Sweden and Finland in compliance with Swedish and EU law.” It signals data protection to privacy-conscious European customers. But it also signals potential to VCs — a callback to Sweden’s history of producing breakout companies.

“We went to zero meetups. I reached out to zero investors,” Afrasiabi said. While the team was heads down building, the word spread out. “I think it was mostly through referrals and people talking to each other that the news got all the way over to the U.S.,” he said.

This wasn’t happenstance: a16z has eyes around the world in order to spot these companies as early as local funds might, Vasquez said. “In Sweden for example, we partnered with top founders abroad like Fredrik Hjelm, founder of Voi, and Johannes Schildt, founder of Kry, by turning them into scouts and mapping the best local talent.”

For Vasquez, who focuses on AI application investments for a16z, this isn’t just about Sweden, but about “a pattern of great global companies being born abroad and scaling quickly,” from Black Forest Labs in Germany to Manus, the Singapore-based AI startup recently acquired by Meta.

Born and raised in El Salvador, he has also been spending time in São Paulo. “I’m really excited about what’s brewing in Brazil and across Latin America in AI,” he wrote on LinkedIn at the time. “I believe AI is the great equalizer,” he added. “Most people now have access to PhD-level intelligence on a phone, and ultimately, Silicon Valley is a state of mind.”

Corrections: This story originally stated that a16z is an investor in Lovable owing to an editing error. The name of SSE’s incubator has also been corrected.

a16z partner Kofi Ampadu to leave firm after TxO program pause

Posted on by faz_business


Kofi Ampadu, the partner at a16z who led the firm’s Talent x Opportunity (TxO) fund and program, has left the firm, according to an email he sent to staff that TechCrunch obtained. This comes months after the firm paused TxO and laid off most of its staff.

“During my time at the firm, I was deeply grateful for the opportunity and the trust to lead this work,” Ampadu wrote in the email, sent Friday afternoon, with the subject line “Closing My a16z Chapter.”

“Identifying out-of-network entrepreneurs and supporting them as they sharpened their ideas, raised capital, and grew into confident leaders was one of the most meaningful experiences of my career,” he wrote.

Ampadu led the program, which launched in 2020, for over four years until its pause last November, taking over for the initial leader, Nait Jones. Afterward, Ampadu seems to have worked at a16z’s latest accelerator, Speedrun.

Ampadu’s departure perhaps signals the end of the TxO chapter. The fund and program focused on supporting underserved founders by providing access to tech networks and investment capital through a donor-advised fund. Though some founders spoke highly of the program, others criticized the controversial donor-advised structure. The program also launched a grant program in 2024 to provide $50,000 to nonprofits that help diverse founders.

Its last cohort was in March 2025, and its indefinite pause came as many top tech names reframe, cut, or eliminate prior public commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We’ve reached out to a16z and Ampadu for comment.

His full note below:

I moved to the United States three months before my 11th birthday. One month later, I started 6th grade in a school more than 5,000 miles from my home, my friends, and everything familiar. Recently, my mom reminded me that my school required me to enroll as an English-as-a-Second-Language student. My memory immediately returned to how confused I felt. Even at 10 years old, I knew it made no sense that a kid from Ghana, an English-speaking country, was being asked to learn a language he already spoke fluently.

This was a systems requirement, a blanketed assumption about what students from certain places could or could not do. That same type of systemic assumption is what we set out to challenge through the Talent x Opportunity Initiative. The venture ecosystem often relies on proxies such as schools, networks, and prior credentials, which can obscure exceptional founders who do not follow the most common paths. TxO invested in and supported these overlooked founders to bridge the gap between talent and opportunity.

During my time at the firm, I was deeply grateful for the opportunity and the trust to lead this work. Identifying out-of-network entrepreneurs and supporting them as they sharpened their ideas, raised capital, and grew into confident leaders was one of the most meaningful experiences of my career.

As I move on to my next chapter, I leave with pride in what we built and gratitude for everyone who helped shape it. Thank you for the trust, the collaboration, and the belief in what is possible. There is more work to do and I am excited to keep building.

a16z pauses its famed TxO Fund for underserved founders, lays off staff

Posted on by faz_business


Andreessen Horowitz is pausing its Talent x Opportunity (TxO) fund and program, according to four sources familiar with the matter, including more than one founder in the program. 

The firm announced TxO in 2020 to support founders who do not have access to traditional venture networks. Many of TxO’s participants were women and minorities who, overall, receive very slim amounts of venture capital dollars.

The announcement of the fund came during the wave of support that underrepresented founders received in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd. The fund launched with $2.2 million in initial commitments, TechCrunch previously reported, with a16z co-founder Ben Horowitz and his wife, Felicia, matching up to an additional $5 million.

TxO provided founders with access to tech networks, a 16-week-long training program, and a $175,000 investment through a donor-advised fund managed by the nonprofit Tides Foundation. The program went on to support more than 60 companies (like the media brand Brown Girl Magazine, food tech Myles Comfort Foods, and the maternity tech Villie). 

TxO garnered some criticism when it launched because it’s technically structured as more of a nonprofit, rather than a traditional investment fund. Those investing in the fund are considered donors, and the money given is regarded as charity donations, rather than traditional limited partner investments.

Still, founders who participated in the program and spoke to TechCrunch said it provided them with invaluable support and opportunities to which they otherwise would not have access. Last year, TxO expanded to launch a grant program, providing $50,000 to three tech nonprofits that support underserved founders. 

TxO announced its — as of now — last cohort of the program in early March 2025. Founders who partook in the program received an email on October 16 from Kofi Ampadu, the partner at a16z who led TxO, announcing the program would pause. 

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“When we launched TxO, the mission was clear: support talented, determined builders who are creating culture-shaping companies but may not have access to typical Silicon Valley networks and resources,” Ampadu’s email read, as seen by TechCrunch. “While that purpose has not changed, we are pausing our existing program to refine how we deliver on it.”

The rest of the email read:  

Over the past five years, we’ve experimented with different models for best serving founders — from virtual and in-person programming to curriculum design and funding structure. As we rethink what’s next, we’ll be applying everything we’ve learned and evolving how we support founders by integrating with a16z’s broader early-stage investing and company building strategy.  

TxO has backed more than 60 companies and nearly 100 founders. You have collectively raised tens of millions in follow-on capital and reached customers across culture and lifestyle. Founders from earlier cohorts now advise newer ones, and that peer support has strengthened the entire community.  

Thank you for being at the center of this community. Your progress is proof of what is possible. Stay tuned for what comes next. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out directly.

Best regards,

Kofi

A16z confirmed to TechCrunch that the program was shutting down and that Ampadu alerted participants via email.

Members of the TxO staff team, which had at least three people, excluding Ampadu, were also let go, according to two sources, with the end of October being their last week. 

The fund’s application documents did not specifically call for founder diversity, except in terms of “cultural authenticity,” and also emphasized classic startup investment criteria like size of the market and ability to execute.  But the announcement of the fund back in 2020 made clear it was “for entrepreneurs who did not have access to the fast track in life but who have great potential. Their products can be non-tech or tech; they should be from underserved communities (all backgrounds welcome).”

Still, many in the startup world perceived TxO as an accelerator for diverse talent, and several people who spoke to TechCrunch pointed out that its hiatus comes as top names in tech eliminate, cut, reframe, or completely walk back on prior public commitments related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The Trump administration has threatened legal and political ramifications for businesses supporting anything that could be seen as DEI. 

Others, however, noted that a16z is still interested in accelerator-type startup programs. Earlier this year, it launched Speedrun, a program that promises cohort grads up to $1 million of investment.

Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs comes out of stealth with $230M in funding

Posted on by faz_business


Fei-Fei Li, the Stanford professor many deem the “Godmother of AI,” has raised $230 million for her new startup, World Labs, from backers including Andreessen Horowitz, NEA, and Radical Ventures.

World Labs is valued at over $1 billion, and the capital was raised over two rounds spaced a couple of months apart, TechCrunch reported in August.

Li’s company, which hopes to have its first product ready in 2025, aims to build AI models that understand and interact with the 3D world. World Labs is developing what it calls “large world models” that will be used by professionals such as artists, designers, developers, and engineers. Martin Casado, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, told Wired that World Labs’ customers could include game companies or movie studios.