Powerhouse venture firm Andreessen Horowitz plans on making donations to political candidates that align with the firm’s view of “advancing technology.”
In a blog post published Thursday, the Menlo Park firm’s co-founder, Ben Horowitz, said the firm will support candidates “who align with our vision and values specifically for technology” as the nation enters another presidential election year, which also will elect all 435 members of the House of Representatives and one-third of the U.S. Senate.
"We are non-partisan, one issue voters: If a candidate supports an optimistic technology-enabled future, we are for them. If they want to choke off important technologies, we are against them," Horowitz wrote.
A16z, as Andreessen Horowitz is also called, will look to financially aid politicians who support innovation and startups in artificial intelligence, biotechnology research, biomedicine, and decentralized technologies like blockchain and cryptocurrency.
The firm said it is looking at giving a voice to startups and open up those channels of conversation through its political donations, despite larger tech issues being well represented on Capitol Hill. Horowitz, in the blog post, said the "primary thing that can undermine that is misguided regulatory policy."
“While 'Big Tech' is well represented in Washington D.C., their interests are often at odds with a positive technological future as they are more interested in regulatory capture and preserving their monopolies,” Horowitz wrote.
It's certainly not the first-time venture capitalists have supported politicians, but it is out of the ordinary for a firm to fully back a candidate.
During the 2021-2022 election cycle, which was not a presidential election year, venture capital as whole contributed more than $124 million to politicians either directly, though a political action committee or by using outside groups, according to a data analysis from OpenSecrets, a national nonprofit, nonpartisan research group. Those figures were nearly double what the industry spent in the 2019-2020 cycle.
A16z’s announcement comes two months after the firm's other founder and venture partner, Marc Andreessen, published a 5,000-word "manifesto" calling for "techno-optimism." In Andreessen's post, which is still featured on the homepage of his firm's website, a16z.com, the billionaire startup investor praised technology and the potential it can have on society's future. Andreessen touched on themes like the colonization of outer space, asked for increased efforts to develop artificial intelligence, and proposed that society ups its energy usage.
A16z representatives did not immediately respond to the Business Journal's request for comment.
