Frank Chen

Partner at @a16z. Tweets about startups, venture investing, AI, autonomy, science, tech, and the future. Sometimes Star Wars. And food. Opinions my own.

[David George @DavidGeorge83]

Congrats to @arielcoco, @itwig, and the entire @Navan team.

Navan survived a global travel shutdown when COVID hit in 2020. Their resilience speaks for itself.

We @a16z are incredibly proud of them, and their IPO today is a well-deserved milestone. Onward!

[Sarah Wang @sarahdingwang]

It's been open season critiquing AI app margins

Fixating on margins...and ignoring a company's value to its customers, retention and ease of acquisition completely misses the mark

@martin_casado & I address what critics get wrong + what really matters👇https://t.co/JRA9431cxW

[Carra Wu @carrawu]

On Saturday morning I met some cracked student engineers on the sidewalk and offered them a place to crash in NYC. 24 hrs later, we won the biggest robot arm hackathon ever.

Meet Raju: an autonomous chess-playing robot (ELO >2500) inspired by GM Gukesh Dommaraju, who earned his title at age 12. Like Gukesh, Raju is poised for greatness at a young age, having just learned to move pieces yesterday.

@snbafana @marco_schonert @AlexBoniske @TalhaKhan_TK_

[Frank Chen @withfries2]

@blader Sending much ❤️ and 🙏🏼 to you and whole family, Siqi. I can't imagine what you must be going through, and I pray for peace and healing.

[Justine Moore @venturetwins]

The time to join an AI x creative startup is now.

We're moving beyond the early adopter era - thanks to improvements in quality & controllability, these tools are ready to go mainstream.

Six companies across modalities that are hiring 👇

[Frank Chen @withfries2]

💻🎥🐱🎙️🤣🤣🤣 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

[Yoko @stuffyokodraws]

[New open source release]: AI Raspberry Pi cat detection and narration 🐈😼

Because my cats need a full time AI David Attenborough to narrate their lives.

Stack:
- @langchain
- @resend
- @elevenlabs
- @mintlify
- @OpenAI

Repo: https://t.co/AV4FzJPEQj

SOUND ON 🔊

[andrew chen @andrewchen]

after many months of cross-country flights, zoom calls, and late night deck revisions... whew... I'm glad to finally be able to share what I've been up to for the past bit:

yes, that's right--
A16Z GAMES FUND TWO 😎

I'm super proud of the team for putting this all together. Huge team effort. This is an all-new, next generation fund that is dedicated to the intersection of TECH x GAMES. It's equally sized to our debut fund that we raised in 2022, and we are excited to invest this new fund across many stages and sectors, from inception to Series A/B.

And from AI/infra, web3 games, VR/AR, 3D tooling, gamified apps, game studios, and much more. The fund targets a $300B+ industry that has spawned incredible companies over the past decade, and it's great to be able to build!

[martin_casado @martin_casado]

We've raised a $1.25B infrastructure fund! We love all infra, compute, network, storage, databases, data science, gen AI, dev tools ... from silicon to UIs.

Infra is the true root of value in tech. And we're deepening our commitment to it.

https://t.co/RjqVmSkXSV

[David George @DavidGeorge83]

We’ve raised $7.2b to continue investing in the future. You can read more here:

https://t.co/7ESBSwn2tA

@a16z

[Katherine Boyle @KTmBoyle]

When I joined Andreessen Horowitz 2.5 years ago, we were still in the midst of Covid. Russia hadn’t invaded Ukraine yet. And “America” wasn’t a word you heard people in Silicon Valley say very often.

In January 2022, we launched American Dynamism and committed to funding companies building for the national interest. I don’t think we could have predicted the extraordinary events that followed, but founders and engineers heeded the call to build for America.

Today, we’re extremely proud to announce American Dynamism Fund I, a $600M early stage venture fund dedicated to seed and Series A companies. No company is too small or too early for our team— we back companies at inception. Many of our current American Dynamism portfolio companies started with us writing a check on Day 1.

We’re working to support AD founders across the country, and we will continue investing in founders committed to building for America across aerospace, defense, logistics, public safety, manufacturing and industrials.

@davidu, @espricewright and the entire American Dynamism team at @a16z are extremely grateful to our limited partners for supporting the American Dynamism mission. And as a country, we are indebted to the founders building for this movement.

There’s a lot of work to do.

It’s time to build. 🇺🇸🚀💪

https://t.co/ZSSJITURyV

[Matt Bornstein @BornsteinMatt]

[Announcement] We're leading the seed round for @udiomusic, a new AI music app launching today in public beta.

Go to https://t.co/3i7h6yDCUA and try it. You will be blown away by the music you can create - melodic, coherent, creative & high fidelity.

Thoughts & samples below 👇

[andrew chen @andrewchen]

BIG NEWS:
i'm investing $30M in the next 45 days via the a16z SPEEDRUN program 😎

Yes, $750k per startup that joins the SPEEDRUN program plus obv it'll be a great way to work together on something. So come work with me at a16z's SPEEDRUN program -- we'll invest, work with you, expose you to the world's top investors/mentors, etc.

here's the best place to apply:
https://t.co/lExlSgiixi

Important dates and program details
Deadline: May 19, 2024
Notified of Selection: End of June at the latest!
Program Dates: July 29 - Oct 20 in Los Angeles ☀️

Our intensive 12-week program is highly selective, with ~ 1% of applicants accepted in our last cohort. Participants are supported not just with capital, but also by a highly curated set of industry coaches, mentors, and a community of ambitious founders. 80% of companies from SPEEDRUN’s first cohort secured funding from investors following Demo Day.

for example, in the most recent program, we had an amazing set of speakers:
- Mark Pincus, cofounder of Zynga
- Emily Greer, cofounder of Kongregate
- Eros Resmini, cofounder of Discord
- Kevin Lin, cofounder of Twitch
- ... and dozens more

What kinds of startups are we looking for?
tbh -- we are very open-minded! Great teams with ideas, before a product is built, is totally fine. But we also have startups with real revenue, a great product out there already, etc.

We are investing at the intersection of TECH x GAMES which means AI/infra, 3D tools, VR/AR, web3 games, gamified consumer apps, and much more. For AI and B2B startups, there's a huge advantage in being able to meet startups in your space as potential customers, and when you are working out product/market fit.

[Frank Chen @withfries2]

@rexsalisbury @conniechan @a16z Aw, thanks for the shout out, Rex 🙏🏼 I hope you and the family are healthy, thriving, and growing!

[Frank Chen @withfries2]

@conniechan I'll be forever grateful that @ifindkarma reached out to you as a canonical example of his "five minute favor". Thank you Adam! And thanks for all you've done at a16z, can't wait to hear more about what's next for you @conniechan

[Wyatt Smith @wyatt_h_smith]

At @UpSmith, we’re combatting skilled labor shortages by helping trades businesses solve workforce productivity challenges.

[Olivia Moore @omooretweets]

What do marketplaces look like in the age of AI?

Some will grow, some will shrink, and some will disappear. It's a new era for the marketplace model!

My take on who will be impacted - and how 👇

[Jeff Jordan @jeff_jordan]

Congratulations to @apoorva_mehta, @fidjissimo and the entire @Instacart team on becoming a public company! We @a16z have been privileged to be along for the ride. Reflections from our initial investment back in 2014: https://t.co/plPsSK9qKY

[Frank Chen @withfries2]

New essay from @andrewchen with lots of insights 💡and graphs 📊📈

[andrew chen @andrewchen]

👇New essay
Creator Economy 2.0: What we’ve learned, why it’s hard, and what’s next

I have some observations/theories about the sector:
- The creator power law
- Battle for the bio link
- The graduation problem
- Algorithmic feast and famine

More:
https://t.co/YhrknUxn9N

[Frank Chen @withfries2]

Building at the intersection of games x healthcare?

[robin @zebird0]

Normies think games are toxic for society. But we believe games are actually the key to solving many consumer/population health problems.

Why I'm excited for games x healthcare, and why you should apply for SPEEDRUN if you're building in this space🧵

https://t.co/vTKBIxvJdM