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Andreessen Horowitz is closing its London workplace and pulling again from its much-touted enlargement into the UK, because the Silicon Valley investor seeks to refocus on the US cryptocurrency trade following the election of Donald Trump.
The group made a high-profile entry into the British capital in 2023, opening its first workplace exterior the US with a concentrate on the UK’s crypto trade amid a crackdown on digital belongings by American regulators.
The Monetary Occasions reported on Friday that the enterprise capital agency had signalled to native entrepreneurs and policymakers that it could reduce the money and time it supposed to spend money on the nation.
Quickly after, Anthony Albanese, a managing director on the group who helps to guide its crypto investments, introduced the agency would shut its UK places of work altogether.
“We’re excited by the keenness for crypto constructing and adoption within the UK and are inspired by the current optimistic coverage bulletins and actions. Nevertheless, we have now chosen to concentrate on the US given the brand new administration’s sturdy coverage momentum and can due to this fact be closing our UK workplace,” wrote Albanese on X.
“This doesn’t change our confidence within the UK’s rising position in crypto and blockchain. We are going to proceed to spend money on nice entrepreneurs regardless of the place they’re on the planet, together with the UK. We additionally stay prepared to assist the UK with its ongoing crypto efforts.”
The accomplice initially tapped to guide the UK effort, Sriram Krishnan, stepped away from his London-based position final yr earlier than leaving the corporate altogether to hitch the Trump administration in current weeks.
Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, the agency’s founders, have change into supporters of Trump, whereas advising him on expertise coverage.
The change comes as Trump signed an government order on Thursday aimed toward selling cryptocurrencies within the US and dealing in direction of doubtlessly creating a nationwide digital asset stockpile.
Costs in tokens resembling bitcoin have soared since Trump’s election, underneath the idea that the brand new administration will advocate light-touch regulation of the crypto sector.
Andreessen Horowitz opened its London workplace with official fanfare two years in the past, with then prime minister Rishi Sunak saying he was “thrilled” on the group’s arrival, and that the transfer was a “testomony to our world-class universities and expertise and our sturdy aggressive enterprise surroundings”.
On the time, Andreessen Horowitz, which has $43bn of dedicated capital, made a lot of its push into the UK, having invested in quite a few UK-based crypto corporations together with Arweave, Aztec and Inconceivable.
“London is a serious monetary hub, it’s a serious tech hub and admittedly it’s a really engaging place for folks to dwell,” Chris Dixon, who leads Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto investments, stated to the FT in 2023.
One UK official downplayed the US investor’s diminished ambitions within the nation, saying: “They have been by no means actually right here.”
