Silicon Valley fund Andreessen Horowitz ropes in Aditya Rane for India Fintech and Crypto

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Top Silicon Valley fund Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has hired Aditya Rane to look at the Indian Fintech and Crypto space, signalling its growing interest in a country that's witnessed a record funding boom this year.

The move also comes weeks after a16z made its first India investment, in cryptocurrency exchange Coinswitch Kuber, where it led a $260 million round with Coinbase Ventures.

In a LinkedIn post, Aditya Rane, who previously worked for Renegade Insurance, said he was moving to newer things.

"I'll be exploring Indian Fintech and Crypto with a firm that I have admired for a lot of time - Andreessen Horowitz. Though Netscape was a bit before my time, (trivia: my first browser was AltaVista) I remember reading about the genius behind it as a 15-year old geek, and it was only much later that I got to read and see what the firm is building within companies that I wish I had built. I want to thank the fintech team and especially someone over there for going above and beyond to make this happen", his post said.

It wasn't immediately clear what Rane's role would be and where he would be based, but one source told Moneycontrol that this could be a sign of a16z launching operations in India.

A16z, founded by former Netscape founder Marc Andreessen and software executive Ben Horowitz has been one of the world's most aggressive investors in technology in general, and cryptocurrency in particular.
While it has been investing in crypto since 2013, back when it was a less popular asset class. It has since raised dedicated crypto funds, most recently a $2.2 billion crypto fund in June this year.

An early investor in Facebook, Pinterest, and Lyft among others, 11-year-old a16z today manages funds over $18 billion.