Venture Firm Andreessen Horowitz Leaves Delaware

Andreessen Horowitz, one of the world's most influential venture capital firms, announced it will move its corporate headquarters from Delaware to Nevada.

The investment giant is the latest corporation to join a Delaware exodus that began after a state court voided Tesla CEO Elon Musk's $55 billion pay package in response to a 2018 lawsuit filed by a shareholder who thought the amount was excessive. Musk also moved SpaceX to Texas.

"It used to be a no-brainer: start a company, incorporate in Delaware. That is no longer the case due to recent actions by the Court of Chancery, which have injected an unprecedented level of subjectivity into judicial decisions, undermining the court's reputation for unbiased expertise," Andreessen Horowitz said Wednesday in a news update on its website.

"This has introduced legal uncertainty into what was widely considered the gold standard of U.S. corporate law."

Andreessen Horowitz added that Nevada "has taken significant steps in establishing a technical, non-ideological forum for resolving business disputes.

"We have therefore decided to move the state of incorporation of our primary business, AH Capital Management, from Delaware to Nevada, which has historically been a business-friendly state with fair and balanced regulatory policies," the company said.

Known in Silicon Valley as A16Z, Andreessen Horowitz boasts about $45 billion in assets, with notable investments including Facebook, Airbnb, Coinbase, and Lyft & GitHub, according to Leave Delaware.

"That sound you hear? Dozens of founders calling their lawyers," Leave Delaware posted on X.

"Delaware's monopoly on incorporation is over. The smartest money in the Valley just showed everyone the door.

"The default Delaware C-corp era is over — startups will now look for states with founder-friendly laws."

In May, Reuters reported that investors in nine public companies worth at least $1 billion each would vote on proposals to ditch Delaware as their place of incorporation.

Other major companies to leave Delaware recently include the nation's largest mall owner Simon Property Group, Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management, online retailer Mercado Libre, Roblox, Tripadvisor, Affirm, AMC cable networks, Madison Square Garden, and Dropbox, among others.

Also in May, President Donald Trump's media company joined the exodus from Delaware, fleeing the left-leaning Blue State for the more "pro-business" climate of Florida.