Andreessen Horowitz joins the PleasrDAO

The Future. Top VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has invested in a decentralized autonomous community (DAO) called PleasrDAO, which was created to target and acquire rare crypto art. By joining the governance of PleasrDAO, a16z may be doubling down on the future worth of NFT artwork… right at a time when people are calling them a house of cards.

Coin for community
a16z is getting further into the DAO business.

• The investment firm has purchased a stake in crypto art-focused PleasrDAO.
• The stake, according to PleasrDAO council member Santiago Santos, is “less than 5%” of the DAO’s governance tokens.
• a16z says it hopes to help the DAO with things like “policy and regulatory concerns” — two typically complex things in the ever-changing world of crypto.

PleasrDAO is made up of “a few dozen crypto investors that have been teaming up to buy high-priced NFTs in recent months.” Some of its high-profile buys include the original Dogecoin dog image and the Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin (both for $4 million each). The DAO hopes to become a “Medici house” to curate new artists.

Crypto curious
For a16z, the investment is another major notch in its crypto belt, which includes investments in everything from crypto marketplace OpenSea to NFT music rights company Royal (as part of the VC’s $2.2 billion crypto fund).

a16z’s investment in PleasrDAO is actually the second investment (publicly) that the firm has made in a DAO — the first being Friends With Benefits DAO back in October. General Partner Ali Yahya says, “DAOs are almost the purest manifestation of what Web3 and crypto are all about.”