Katie made news when she suddenly quit Andreessen Horowitz last year.

Haun Ventures, a venture firm established by Katie Haun, who previously was at Andreessen Horowitz, has raised a $1.5 billion war chest to deploy in web3-facing startups. Haun announced the fund will invest through two platforms: a $500 million early stage fund and a $1 billion acceleration fund. (Haun Ventures)

Katie Haun

Haun was first exposed to cryptocurrencies when she created a crypto task force at the US Department of Justice where she worked as a Prosecutor. Realizing the scope of this new technology she left the government and collaborated with several functionaries in the space including Brian Armstrong of Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) whose board she joined in 2017. Then at Andreessen Horowitz, where she became the first female general partner in 2018, she launched and scaled some pioneering crypto venture funds with Chris Dixon.

“Working with founders over the years brought out my own entrepreneurial spirit, and I started to think about building something new based on my experience,” she writes in the announcement by her firm.

Web3

Haun Ventures aims to serve founders building the third generation of the internet, or web3 – a more decentralized vision of the internet powered by blockchain technology, cryptocurrencies and nonfungible tokens.

“Web3 has expanded beyond its financial origins — it now provides the technological building blocks to power the next iteration of the digital world,” says Haun.

Despite the current price volatility in crypto prices, Haun is confident about the future of her fledgling venture firm.

“One of the things I’ve learned as an investor with a long term view of the space, is that great products are going to be built and great protocols are going to be built, no matter what the prices are,” she says in an interview with CNBC.

Some of the investments Haun Ventures has already made include celebrity-focused NFT company Autograph, NFT marketplace OpenSea, blockchain builder Aptos and crypto lender Moonwell.

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