Powerhouse venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is promoting Jennifer Lee to general partner after six years at the firm. Used to help invest new $1.25 billion infrastructure fund managed by long-time general partner a16z Martin Casado.
The Infrastructure Fund is part of it the fresh $7.2 billion which the Silicon Valley VC giant just raised. Li was an investment partner in the Infrastructure team for a while, meaning she was already writing checks and taking board seats. But her promotion puts her on a roll: it makes her the 27th general partner at the firm, and she’s achieved this career milestone while still in her early 30s.
While that may sound like a lot of doctors, a16z currently has over 500 employees. In addition, she is one of the four doctors on the Infrastructure team. The others are Anjney Midha, who joined the brand last summer; Zane Leckie, who joined two years ago. and Casado.
“Jennifer’s promotion to general partner means much more deal-making autonomy and, just as importantly, much more influence on the team’s culture, investment philosophy and operating model,” Casado told TechCrunch via email.
In Casado’s blog post announcing her promotion, also reported that she and he were the two people largely responsible for building the infrastructure investment group. He described her as “a low-key, incredibly reliable and generous partner to work with. No detail escapes her notice and no challenge is too daunting to face. As Ben Horowitz has said many times, “He embodies the a16z culture.”
During her time at a16z, Lee helped the company find the Fivetran data connection startupworth $5.6 billion in 2021. and data analytics developer startup dbt, which reached a valuation of $4.2 billion in 2022 (both of these deals were made by Casado). He led the company’s investments in developer-focused video platform Mux, a unicorn from 2021; launch MotherDuck database, worth $400 million earlier this year; and voice AI startup ElevenLabs, a unicorn from january, where he serves on the board of directors.
Before joining a16z in 2018, he led product at AI startup Solvvy, which was acquired by Zoom in 2022. Led self-service and analytics products at AppDynamics, which was acquired by Cisco for $3.7 billion. and was a Kleiner Perkins Product Partner in 2016.
