Katie Haun Raises Largest Debut Fund Ever by Female VC

Katie Haun, a crypto investor, has raised $1.5 billion, the largest debut fund ever by a female venture capitalist.

According to Pitchbook, it is the largest initial fund ever raised by a solo female founding partner. Former investment banker Mary Meeker held the prior record with a $1.3 billion fund after spinning out from Kleiner Perkins.

“It feels, honestly, like a lot of pressure. But I think that motivates everyone on the team,” Haun said, who left Andreessen Horowitz. “Web3 is the new era of the internet and it deserves a new era of investors.”

Haun was a former federal prosecutor and became Andreessen’s first female general partner in 2018. At the firm she co-led its multiple cryptocurrency funds alongside Chris Dixon. Andreessen Horowitz will be a limited partner in Haun’s newest fund, while Marc Andreessen, the firm’s founder, and Dixon all personally contributed to her new endeavor.

The term Web3, or Web 3.0, loosely refers to general computing applications built on the blockchain, which is the same technology underlying bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Haun Ventures will invest in both start-up equity, and in some cases the cryptocurrencies issued by those start-ups, also known as tokens.

“That’s something I’ve learned through being involved in deploying three other crypto funds: there’s still a ton of potential in crypto and Web3 equity business models, but also token business models,” said Haun. “I don’t think that you can really be a crypto investor without holding tokens.”
The fund will be divvied up into two segments: $500 million for early-stage companies and protocols, and $1 billion for “acceleration,” or later-stage projects.

“Obviously there’s a relationship there, and there are friendships there. We still intend to collaborate closely with Andreessen Horowitz,” she said. “One of the unique things about our fund size makes it so that we don’t have to lead every deal, we can play well with a lot of other crypto investors — founders don’t want a single investor on their cap table, even in the early rounds.”

Haun Ventures’ nine-person team includes Chris Lehane, a former Airbnb executive and Clinton administration official, Tomicah Tillemann, a former staffer for President Joe Biden, and Rachael Horwitz, who led communications teams at Twitter, Google, Facebook and Coinbase.

“Gone are the days where founders just want capital,” she said. “One of the things that Haun Ventures will do for our founders is really actively contribute to the projects in which we invest.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.