Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has drawn attention for its American dynamism thesis, but a U.S. passport is hardly a prerequisite. According to Gabriel Vasquez, a partner focused on AI applications and the firm's global investment strategy, “44% of our investments in the Apps Fund One and Two have an international founder.”
Vasquez, alongside general partner Angela Strange, leads a16z's Borderless Founder network—an initiative designed to support immigrant and international founders. While the firm has long believed that great companies can emerge anywhere, they now argue that foreign entrepreneurs possess a distinct advantage over their American peers.
The U.S. has always attracted international talent, but in the current AI-led cycle, a16z sees foreign roots as more valuable than ever. “There is now an advantage to having one foot in your home country, and one foot in Silicon Valley,” Strange and Vasquez wrote in a post shared early with TechCrunch.
In an exclusive interview, Vasquez explained that this advantage has grown significant enough for a16z to “spend more than one million air miles” pursuing international deal flow—rather than expecting every startup team to relocate to the U.S.
Shifting buyer behavior
This shift is particularly evident in enterprise startups, where purchasing patterns have evolved. “The buyers from countries outside the U.S. were not moving rapidly, and their willingness to pay was very low,” Vasquez said, describing the old norm. But over the past three to five years, this has changed dramatically. Startups can now secure major corporations worldwide as customers, even in markets that were previously slow to adopt new technology.
When a16z first noticed international seed-stage startups landing deals with Fortune 500 companies, “we thought this might be an exception, but it was clearly a trend,” Vasquez noted. Today, examples abound, though Vasquez acknowledges this was rare even a few years ago.
In Europe, for instance, corporations historically engaged with startups only through open innovation programs and accelerators—rarely with substantial budgets. Converting them into paying customers was so challenging that France launched a dedicated initiative, “I Choose French Tech.” But Vasquez credits AI as the key driver behind this transformation.
AI has forced legacy players to realize they must adopt third-party solutions to remain competitive—even in regions where human labor is still affordable, such as Latin America. “Software never really picked up in the region, because you were competing with cheap labor,” Vasquez said. But with AI agents now “always on” and increasingly accurate, they have become standard in customer service and beyond.
The opportunity for global startups
International startups are stepping into a gap that American firms have yet to fill. “There's so much appetite at the enterprise level for companies all around the world to consume AI, but American [startups] don't have the speed yet to go serve the entire market from day zero, so they obviously prioritize U.S. companies,” Vasquez explained.
This creates a unique opening for founders with regional ties and local market knowledge. As the AI landscape continues to mature in 2026, the ability to navigate global enterprise relationships is becoming a prized asset—one that a16z is actively investing in, both financially and through networks like Borderless Founders.
via TechCrunch