• a16z closed its two-year-old London office in January 2025, a decision tied to its crypto practice chasing more favorable U.S. policy under Trump, not a retreat from European startups.
• The firm now origins most European deals through a scout network that Sifted reports has grown to more than 30 people across the continent.
• Sriram Krishnan, the a16z general partner who led the London office, left the firm in November 2024 to become the Trump White House's senior AI policy advisor, stepping back from that role in June 2026.
• a16z has kept a lighter European footprint alive through hackathons with startups like ElevenLabs and Lovable rather than restaffing a physical office.
• For founders, the practical route into a16z's pipeline is now a scout introduction, not a regional general partner.

Andreessen Horowitz is telling European founders the checks are still coming — just not from a desk on this side of the Atlantic. In a new interview with Sifted, a16z general partner Anish Acharya said the firm wants to write more checks into European AI and consumer startups, even as it holds to a decision made 20 months ago: no reopening of a European office. That decision dates to January 2025, when a16z closed the London base it had opened just two years earlier, redirecting its attention — and specifically its crypto practice — toward the more favorable U.S. regulatory climate under President Trump.

A closure aimed at crypto, not Europe broadly

The London office a16z shuttered was built around its crypto practice, and its closure followed a specific policy signal: the Trump administration's early moves on digital-assets policy, which made the U.S. the more attractive base for crypto-focused staff. Sriram Krishnan, the a16z general partner who had led the London office since it opened in 2023, left the firm in November 2024 — before the closure — to become the White House's senior policy advisor for AI, a role he held until stepping back in June 2026, per TechCrunch.

The mechanism: scouts instead of a lease

Rather than restaff a European office, a16z has built out a scout network — operators and founders who source deal flow on the firm's behalf without being full-time employees. Sifted has tracked that network's growth since the London closure: at least nine new scouts added across Europe in 2025, and by 2026 the firm's European roster had grown past 30 people. a16z has also run hackathons with European AI startups including voice-AI company ElevenLabs and AI-coding startup Lovable, a lighter-touch way to stay visible to founders without renting office space.

Why this is the model to watch, not the office

For a European founder, the operator lesson is that a16z's presence is now measured in scout relationships and check-writing, not headcount on a lease. A firm that can source, diligence and close a deal through a scout who already knows the founder doesn't need a branch office to compete for a term sheet — it needs conviction that deal quality justifies the flight. That's a lower fixed cost than a 2023-style regional office, and it's a model other U.S. funds can copy by watching a16z's scout count rather than its real estate.

The verdict

a16z's position is coherent, not contradictory: the London office was a crypto bet that lost to U.S. policy, not a bet on Europe itself, and the scout network is the firm's substitute for sourcing consumer and AI deals without carrying that fixed cost again. European founders should treat the no-office stance as durable — a16z has scaled scouts, not staff, for two straight years — and read a scout introduction, not a regional GP, as the real front door to the firm.