Courtesy of David Haber
Summary List PlacementAndreessen Horowitz is on a hiring spree, and David Haber is its latest get, joining as a general partner investing in fintech.
Haber was most recently a VP in Goldman's firmwide strategy and corporate development arm where he fostered many of the bank's relationships with Silicon Valley, both through M&A and investments.
He'll be the firm's first investor based in New York, and join the fintech team alongside fellow general partners Anish Acharya, Alex Rampell, and Angela Strange.
Haber left Goldman Sachs in October 2020, and spent some time working with hedge fund manager Alexander Klabin on his new fund, Ancient LP, before joining a16z.
Haber and Rampell, a16z's longest-running fintech investor, had been in conversations for several months before Haber accepted the job.
"It was a long courtship," Rampell said, who has known Haber for years.
Haber had previously pitched Rampell as the founder and CEO of Bond Street. Rampell didn't invest, but the two stayed in touch.
As the latest check-writer on a16z's fintech team, Haber will focus on international fintech opportunities in burgeoning regions like Latin America.
"There's just so much momentum, globally, pulling people into the financial economy," Haber said.
Haber made his way to Goldman by way of acquisition himself through Bond Street, which the bank acquired in 2017. Named to Insider's 2019 list of rising stars on Wall Street, Haber initially joined Goldman's consumer division before moving into firmwide strategy and leading Goldman's investments in Carta and Argentinian startup Ualá.
Before Bond Street, Haber was an associate at Spark Capital, where he worked on investments in players like Plaid, Twitter, and Warby Parker.
a16z is bullish on New York fintechHaber will stay in New York, making him the first general partner to join a16z without relocating to San Francisco.
"This would have been a harder thing to do two or three years ago, without a transcontinental move," Rampell told Insider. The investing firm has started embracing hybrid work.
Haber will lead the firm's bullish take on the New York fintech scene. In the coming years, Rampell expects to see a larger share of the biggest fintechs coming out of the East Coast. And in many ways, it's because of the talent pool.
"All the smart people that were going to work at Goldman Sachs' and D.E. Shaw's and the Morgan Stanley's, in many cases, would rather be building things from scratch as opposed to trying to patch up some ancient beings," Rampell said.
And pitches from emerging fintechs are increasingly coming from New York-based teams, Rampell said.
"I'm super excited to help expand our presence in New York, which has been a community and ecosystem I've grown up in," Haber said.
Combining his experience inside one of the world's leading investment banks, as well as his founder experience, Haber is leaning into his ability to "speak both languages," understanding the challenges and opportunities for both the legacy financial services industry and up-and-coming fintechs.
On Thursday, a16z, announced the close of its third crypto fund with $2.2 billion in commitments. It'll be co-led by general partners Chris Dixon, Katie Haun, and Ali Yahya. a16z has been active in the crypto space, backing well-established players like Coinbase and younger upstarts like Talos.
With the new fund comes a slew of hires on the crypto team, including three advisory partners, former political advisor Tomicah Tillemann as global head of policy, and Coinbase's former VP of communications Rachael Horwitz as operating partner leading communications and marketing for the fund.
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