a16z commits fresh $50M into Jito for unannounced amount of JTO tokens

a16z, the crypto VC arm of Andreessen Horowitz, made a $50M investment in Jito, Solana’s staking ￰0￱ return, the fund will receive native JTO ￰1￱ Horowitz invested $50M into Solana’s staking protocol Jito, valuing the project at $800M according to sources familiar with the ￰2￱ on currently circulating JTO tokens , the platform has a market cap of $442M. The a16z crypto fund will receive JTO tokens in return, in one of the significant late-stage financing deals for the Solana ￰3￱ announced the investment just as its influence was growing, through its multiple roles in Solana-based DeFi. 📣🚨NEWS: @a16zcrypto has made a $50M strategic investment in Jito!

With BAM live on mainnet, Jito's growing momentum across DeFi, and institutional adoption continuing to accelerate via JitoSol ETF's, things are just getting ￰4￱ ￰5￱ — Jito (@jito_sol) October 16, 2025 The funding round is one of the significant late-stage inflows as crypto VC funding recovered in the past few ￰6￱ $50M investment comes just days after Andreessen Horowitz announced a $300M investment in ￰7￱ points to long-term alignment with Andreessen Horowitz The deal signals long-term alignment between Andreessen Horowitz and Jito, announced Brian Smith, executive director at the Jito Foundation for Fortune ￰8￱ amount of JTO and the price at which the tokens changed hands. “ If you’re accepting long-term alignment where you can’t sell for a while, then there’s traditionally some modest discount associated with that,” said ￰9￱ Horowitz has already established a connection with the Solana ecosystem, as the leading VC in the private placement of $314M SOL in ￰10￱ late-stage deal to acquire JTO is a rarity in the crypto space, where funds usually join ahead of the token launch.

Previously, the fund acquired tokens from LayerZero and ￰11￱ Cryptopolitan reported , the fund directly injected $70M into the ￰12￱ fund has mostly picked up some of the high-profile crypto projects, achieving over 72,871% in total returns. a16z has over $433M in direct crypto holdings in its public-facing ￰13￱ awaits a recovery of SOL staking Jito is still among the top liquid staking protocols on ￰14￱ 14M SOL was staked with the protocol, though other platforms are competing ￰15￱ Jito, the amount of staked SOL diminished by 4M tokens since ￰16￱ staking may be the next step for Solana treasury ￰17￱ is seen as one of the more reliable platforms, with $2.87B in notional value ￰18￱ project still achieves over $407M in annualized fees based on its multiple decentralized activities, including MEV ￰19￱ the growth of Solana, JTO tokens are trading near their lowest level for the past ￰20￱ is down over 48% for the past year, trading at $1.14.

JTO tokens have around 36% of the supply locked, expecting the tokens to be released in the next few ￰21￱ November 7, another 1.13% of the supply will be unlocked, valued at $13.03M. The vesting schedule will continue until December 2026, retaining the pressure on the price of ￰22￱ new a16z investment has not set the details on any changes to the vesting ￰23￱ has also not explained the source of coins and the actual size of the discount ￰24￱ Bybit now and claim a $50 bonus in minutes