Andreessen Horowitz's early bet on Coinbase, a popular exchange for buying and selling digital assets, has allowed the firm to grow a stake now worth more than $6 billion, based on the company's market cap on June 16.
The venture capital firm's haul is big enough to return its last two mega-funds that closed — a seventh flagship and second growth fund totaling $4.5 billion — Crunchbase News' Gené Teare and Marlize van Romburgh reported.
Coinbase is its largest exit to date, per Crunchbase data. Though, the crypto exchange's stock price has nosedived to $219 a share, after closing at $328.28 on its first trading day.
In December 2013, the price of bitcoin was on a downward spiral. But Chris Dixon, a general partner at the firm, saw a rare opportunity in Coinbase. He likened it to the "killer app" that bitcoin needed to go mainstream, in the "same way HTTP had web browsers and SMTP had email clients."
Dixon led the firm's investment in Coinbase's Series B, and bought in at $1 a share.
Andreessen Horowitz went on to back Coinbase eight different times from 2013 to 2020, general partner Katie Haun wrote in a blog post. It also bought stock from Union Square Ventures, another early investor, to maximize its returns.
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