Andreessen Horowitz’s Cultural Leadership Fund (A)

In May 2020, Chris Lyons, a partner at leading venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz receives the news that his company has reached a verbal agreement with one of Silicon Valley’s hottest social-media startups to lead its ‘Series A’ funding round, in a deal that values the startup in the nine figures. Lyons has been instrumental to Andreessen Horowitz’s efforts to secure the deal: he created and led The Cultural Leadership Fund (CLF), a partnership between the VC firm and some of the most influential Black leaders. Launched in August 2018, Lyons’ fund had amassed an impressive network of Black executives, athletes and entertainers—including Carmelo Anthony, Chance the Rapper, Sean Combs, Common, Kevin Durant, Quincy Jones, Kevin Hart, Marshawn Lynch, Nas, Shonda Rhimes, and Will Smith—who had signed on as limited partners. Andreessen Horowitz, meanwhile, agreed to donate 100% of its management fees as well as its share of any profits realized by the fund to non-profit organizations dedicated to advancing the position of Black people in the technology sector. “We are doing good, and the Cultural Leadership Fund is a competitive advantage for us,” noted Andreessen Horowitz’s co-founder Ben Horowitz about the small fund’s significance to the wider company. Have Lyons and his colleagues at Andreessen Horowitz found a formula for success with the Cultural Leadership Fund—one that not only creates value for the firm and its portfolio companies but also, and more importantly, for its cultural leaders and for other Black individuals hoping to advance in the tech industry? How can the VC firm best capitalize on its strong ties with the entertainment, media and sports world’s biggest stars? And how can Lyons, already thinking of a second act, build on the first fund’s eye-catching start?