The Shopify of Venture
Owning the feed, not just the cap table.
In venture capital, access is everything. The best deals go to the firms that founders trust, and today, trust is built in public.
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) — one of Silicon Valley’s most influential venture capital firms, managing over $45 billion across multiplie funds and known for early bets on Facebook, Airbnb, Coinbase, and more than 1,000 others — has always understood the strategic power of media. To strengthen that advantage, they launched in 2021 Future.com, a bold editorial experiment aimed to become the media voice of Silicon Valley.
It didn’t land. It felt too corporate, too top-down, too static — a broadcast, not a conversation.
Timing didn’t help either. Generative AI reshaped the landscape — it gave everyone words.
So if everyone has them, what matters?
Not posting — building resonance.
Few can build an ecosystem — anchored in a voice, a face, a vision.
That’s the real flywheel: a living network, fueled by trust.
a16z saw it coming. They rewired the model.
From speaking at the world to building with it.
From building a media brand to empowering individual voices.
Not just partner-led content — partners as nodes of influence.
Here is the story.
The Strategic Moves
The signs were subtle, yet evident from the start.
First the media foundations.
In 2014, Sonal Chokhsi joined a16z from Wired, bringing an editorial sensibility that would help shape the firm’s early content DNA — long before media was recognized as strategic infrastructure.
In 2022, Maria LaMagna Morales, former Senior Editor of CNN, joined the firm, reinforcing a16z’s long-term bet on high-caliber editorial thinking as a differentiator in venture.
Then, in 2025, the focus shifted — a16z didn’t just double down on media; they assembled the components of a living flywheel: foresight, distribution, virality.
, a consumer trends analyst and writer of the Consumer Startups newsletter with 14,000 subscribers, joined the a16z Scout program to spot emerging AI narratives early. Deeply plugged into early-stage ecosystems, he picks up cultural signals before companies even form.That same year, Erik Torenberg — co-creator of On Deck, host of Upstream (a leading tech podcast with over 17,000 subscribers), and founder of Turpentine (a network of podcasts and newsletters) — became a General Partner.
He arrived with his audience, his distribution engine, and a fully operational media arm.
He doesn't borrow reach. He owns it
Also in 2025, Brittney Le Roy joined the firm after seven years at Spotify, where she led Tech & Product Communications. She helped launch some creative initiatives, including AI DJ and Daylist. Her power edge? Designing new formats that catch fire.
You see it?
These weren’t just hires.
They were the first stones of a builders' machine.
And it matters — because the ground beneath is already moving.
VC Is Shifting
To understand a16z’s playbook, you first need to grasp the current context.
Since 2021, the number of active VC firms in the U.S. has dropped by over 25%. In Europe, the figure has halved. The capital is still there, but it’s concentrating.
Exits are harder. IPOs are rare, M&A is slow, and according to Tomasz Tunguz, citing PitchBook data, 71% of exit dollars in 2024 came from secondary transactions.
Secondary markets solve for liquidity. However, they don’t address growth, innovation, or velocity.
That’s happening elsewhere.
Solo VCs, rolling funds, syndicates, and creator-led vehicles are growing. Supporting them is a maturing infrastructure: platforms like AngelList, Roundtable, Sydecar, and Pin.xy. offer access that’s faster, looser, and more public, enabling solo GPs to manage cap tables, track investments, raise money, and handle fund administration independently.
Some newsletters now act as pipelines:
(141,000 subscribers) and (242,000 subscribers) — they inform, but also source and signal.In a more competitive VC market, LPs — the VC sponsors — want to invest in the best stories. And the ability to tell a resonant story and build visible trust at scale is no longer a nice-to-have — it's a survival skill.
Unbundling VC?
VC-Creators act as catalysts for the firm and the future
The rise of investor-creators proves it:
Just look at
He launched 20VC at just 18 years old, armed just with a mic. Over time — and 2,700 interviews later — he transformed that podcast into a media engine so powerful that it became a venture fund, now valued at $400 million.
His guests became LPs, portfolio founders, and deal scouts. His audience became his moat. His podcast? A CRM.
Even investors like
— formerly at Eurazeo and editor of Overlooked, a substack newsletter followed by over 10,000 tech insiders — have joined him.Stebbings’ journey shows that media isn’t an add-on — it’s the foundation.
Publishing sharpens your thesis. Feedback builds your network. Trust compounds.
You don’t chase deals — deals chase you.
From Platform to Protocol
Few firms have understood this better — or moved faster — than a16z.
And now, they are expanding the definition of what it means to be a venture firm.
This isn’t “VC + media.” It’s VC built as media, where content is the distribution layer.
Historically, most venture firms operated without deliberate media strategies. Some iconic partners achieved visibility through published theses or sporadic public writing, but rarely built ongoing engagement. The media was static, signaling authority rather than fostering participation.
Today, the shift is clear: firms seek "content builders" — individuals who already have a microphone, a network, and a voice. These creators don’t just publish; they continuously build in public, activating trust, compounding communities, and driving deal flow through narrative flywheels.
Think about Naval and AngelList. He built infrastructure to find deals when access was still gated. a16z is building infrastructure to shape deals before they even exist.
Now, imagine Substack — next generation.
LP's capital no longer flows only to firms.
It follows the living nodes — the partners, the ecosystems, the movements they create.
Future.com failed because it tried to centralize the voice.
But real ecosystems don’t broadcast — they grow inside their own quadrants, self-sustained, self-expanding.
That’s the shift already underway.
A shift that brings new leverage — but also new exposure.
In a world where narrative is measurable, performance becomes public.
And when creator leverage becomes the baseline, the firm risks becoming less the exception — and more the infrastructure others build on.
Maybe that’s the point.
Not just shaping the next wave of venture capital — but building the platform it will run on.
Becoming the Shopify of Venture.
—
Marie Dollé, with Thomas Owadenko & Ange Michael Ahyi
 | A guest post by
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 | A guest post by
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Intriguing read, but I don't understand the Shopify comparison?