Partner at @a16z. Tweets about startups, venture investing, AI, autonomy, science, tech, and the future. Sometimes Star Wars. And food. Opinions my own.
California
Joined January 2008
- Tweets9.8K
- Following1.6K
- Followers30.3K
- Likes9.2K
Frank Chen retweeted
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!
Today, Navan is officially listed on @Nasdaq as $NAVN.
From day one, our focus has been on making travel easy for every frequent traveler. This mission, and our fierce belief in the importance of in-person connections, has driven our efforts to upgrade the travel and expense industry.
Thank you to our users, customers and suppliers. You have inspired and supported us every step of the way. We could not have done this without you!
#NAVN #NavanIPO #Nasdaqlisted
Frank Chen retweeted
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👇a16z.com/questioning-margins…
Frank Chen retweeted
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 retweeted
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 👇
💻🎥🐱🎙️🤣🤣🤣 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
[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: github.com/ykhli/AI-RPi-dete…
SOUND ON 🔊
Frank Chen retweeted
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!
Frank Chen retweeted
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.
a16z.com/new-funds-new-era/
Frank Chen retweeted
We’ve raised $7.2b to continue investing in the future. You can read more here:
a16z.com/new-funds-new-era/
@a16z
Frank Chen retweeted
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. 🇺🇸🚀💪
a16z.com/new-funds-new-era/
Frank Chen retweeted
[Announcement] We're leading the seed round for @udiomusic, a new AI music app launching today in public beta.
Go to udio.com and try it. You will be blown away by the music you can create - melodic, coherent, creative & high fidelity.
Thoughts & samples below 👇
Frank Chen retweeted
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:
sr.a16z.com
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 retweeted
At @UpSmith, we’re combatting skilled labor shortages by helping trades businesses solve workforce productivity challenges.
Frank Chen retweeted
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 👇
Frank Chen retweeted
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: a16z.com/instacart/
New essay from @andrewchen with lots of insights 💡and graphs 📊📈
👇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:
andrewchen.com/creator-econo…
Building at the intersection of games x healthcare?
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🧵
speedrun.a16z.com
Frank Chen retweeted
New post: Emerging architectures for LLM applications
We compiled a reference stack for developers building apps on top of LLMs, focused especially on in-context learning
With @rajko_rad
a16z.com/2023/06/20/emerging…
Frank Chen retweeted
Why AI Will Save The World
By Marc Andreessen
The era of Artificial Intelligence is here, and boy are people freaking out.
Fortunately, I am here to bring the good news: AI will not destroy the world, and in fact may save it.
🧵
Frank Chen retweeted
Big news! We’ve blown past all records & SF/LA #TechWeek hit some major milestones:
⭐450+ events
⭐30k+ total signups, 14k in last 30 days!
⭐150+ of the top VCs hosting
T-4 days left! Register here: Tech-week.com
Oh, & wondering why we're doing LA/SF back-to back?👇
