Andreessen Horowitz focus of DOJ probe over board directors

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is the focus of a Justice Department antitrust probe over whether its investment partners are improperly serving on the boards of competing artificial intelligence companies, according to people familiar with the matter.

The companies at issue include Databricks Inc., one of the most valuable privately held technology companies in the world, and Fivetran Inc., both backed by the VC firm, according to the people, who asked not to be named discussing a confidential matter.

Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz serves on the board of Databricks, and partner Martin Casado is a board member of Fivetran.

Both companies help businesses collect, organize and analyze massive troves of data.

Casado was also on the board of a similar company dbt labs, which was acquired by Fivetran in June.

The Justice Department conducted a months-long review of the deal, first announced in October, said the people, but ultimately cleared it unconditionally.

The nearly year-old investigation, which hasn’t been previously reported, was opened around the same time as the merger review and has continued after the deal was completed, the people said.

Spokespeople for Databricks and the Justice Department declined to comment.

Spokespeople for Andreessen Horowitz and Fivetran didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Resolving such investigations typically requires that directors step down from one of the competing boards.

And companies targeted by the Biden administration did just that , with directors on some dozen boards, including Live Nation Entertainment Inc. leaving their positions to resolve the conflict.

White House Connections The investigation of Andreessen Horowitz, which has closely aligned itself with the second Trump administration, is particularly noteworthy.

The company has forged ties to the White House and its tech portfolio stands to benefit from the minimal regulatory policies that some of Andreessen Horowitz’s team is pressing in Washington .

Horowitz and the firm’s other co-founder, Marc Andreessen, each donated millions of dollars in 2024 to a group aligned with then presidential candidate Donald Trump.