U.S.-based venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has announced the launch of a new $300 million venture fund that will invest in cryptocurrencies.

The fund, a16z crypto, will be led by a team of crypto specialists, including Chris Dixon, General Partner at a16z; co-founders of Mediachain Labs – Denis Nazarov and Jesse Walden; and former federal prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice Kathryn Haun, and others.

Haun has also been named at the company latest general partner.

“Today we are announcing the launch of a16z crypto, a $300M venture fund that will invest in crypto companies and protocols. Our fund is designed to include the best features of traditional venture capital, updated to the modern crypto world,” a16z said in a blog post.

Dixon explained that the fund has structured to hold investments for over ten years. Importantly, a16z crypto will “invest at all stages, from seed stage pre-launch projects to fully developed later-stage networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum.”

“We’ll invest in traditional financial instruments like equity or convertible notes, and new instruments including the direct purchase of coins/tokens,” Dixon added.

"We want services powered by crypto protocols to be used by hundreds of millions and eventually billions of people," he wrote. "Crypto tokens are the native asset class of digital networks, but their value is driven by the underlying, practical uses cases."