Marc Andreessen’s Secret Weapon for Finding Startup Investments
The Andreessen Horowitz co-founder became a top tech venture capitalist with his savvy bets on startups. Now Andreessen and another partner at the firm, Chris Dixon, are seeking to stay ahead in the hypercompetitive world of early-stage investing by putting their personal money into microfunds.
When Lucy Guo pitched Andreessen Horowitz in 2016 on an early funding round for her company, an artificial intelligence startup called Scale, the high-powered venture capital firm passed on the deal.
In 2019, Guo sent a cold email to Chris Dixon, a general partner at the firm, asking again for capital, this time for a tiny VC fund she was raising alongside tech entrepreneur Dave Fontenot. Dixon agreed and lassoed his investment partner Marc Andreessen to co-write a $100,000 check from their personal funds for Guo’s Backend Capital, which has raised a total of $7 million.