VC Giant Andreessen Horowitz Pauses Its Fund For Underserved Founders
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), one of Silicon Valley’s most influential venture capital firms, has paused its Talent x Opportunity (TxO) fund which was created to support founders from underserved backgrounds. The move, first reported by TechCrunch, includes layoffs of several staff members from the TxO team.
On October 16, participants received an email from Kofi Ampadu, the a16z partner who led TxO, announcing the pause: “While [TxO’s] purpose has not changed, we are pausing our existing program to refine how we deliver on it.”
The Talent x Opportunity Fund
a16z launched the TxO fund in 2020 as corporations rushed to back diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts following the murder of George Floyd. It was designed to give underserved founders access to networks, capital, and mentorship typically unavailable to them. It began with an initial $2.2 million fund and a matching commitment of up to $5 million from a16z co-founder Ben Horowitz and his wife Felicia.
The program offered founders a $175,000 investment via a donor-advised fund, a 16-week training curriculum, and access to a16z’s elite tech network. Over five years, TxO supported nearly 100 founders across more than 60 companies.
In March 2025, TxO announced what may now be its final cohort. Among them was Destruction Labz, a company creating immersive gaming experiences founded by twin engineers Taylor and Tyler Morgan; Equal IQ, a a platform simplifying legal workflows for creators founded by Nigeria-born Mayowa Arogundade, and Unisound, a music licensing startup co-founded by Gregorio Torres and Andres Ginebra, who were raised in the Dominican Republic.
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a16z pauses TxO
Though TxO never explicitly prioritized race or gender in its application criteria, it was widely seen as a rare institutional effort to back women, Black, and Latine founders in tech. The fund’s donor-based model also made it distinct from traditional venture investments.
The decision to pause comes amid a wider rollback of corporate DEI initiatives across the tech industry, as political scrutiny intensifies. a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen, a current advisor to Donald Trump, has publicly criticized DEI policies. In recently leaked private chats, he described the combination of DEI and immigration as “politically lethal” and said said universities will “pay the price” for promoting DEI.
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