Dai Macdonald

When I first joined a16z -- it's been 6 years, can you believe it!? -- the entire firm showed up every day in Menlo Park. The world's changed, and now the firm has offices in Silicon Valley, SF, LA, London, and NYC. Let's talk Los Angeles. I've been working to beef up a16z's approach to the LA ecosystem since moving ~2 years ago. Some of the ways we're building our LA presence: - we're running our SPEEDRUN accelerator starting July 29th, where we'll be bringing ~30-40 new energetic startups to town! We're investing $750k each at the intersection of TECH x GAMES and collab'ing with folks from entertainment/gaming/tech to make it a great experience. (Apply here: sr.a16z.com) - the team's grown! we have ~50 employees of a16z based in LA now (!!!) including senior members of our leadership team who have homes here - so has our portfolio in LA. We have two dozen investments across many sectors - fintech, commerce, consumer, gaming, web3, etc. - LA Tech Week was kicked off in 2022 and it's just gotten bigger and better. The next one will be in October 2024 (alongside SF, and earlier in Jun, NYC), and will feature 100s of events and 10,000s of people visiting the city - several of us have been investing in emerging fund managers in the LA region, who co-invest alongside us (and often before us) in great startups. We've supported a half dozen GPs -- some solo GPs, some in small teams -- with the goal of bringing the investing ecosystem together - finally, we are opening up our flagship LA office which will be in downtown Santa Monica, in the next few months. Am very excited about this and to see all my colleagues more often Lots of great activity and energy in LA! I find myself back in SF on a monthly basis -- nothing can beat the amazing startup energy of the Bay Area -- but a lot is happening here which has been great.