Andreessen Horowitz has invested $35 million in the Horowitz Andreessen Academy in San Francisco, creating a non-accredited two-year university alternative for students aged 16 to 22. The academy is independently operated by Udemy co-founder Gagan Biyani, with Marc Andreessen and Erik Torenberg joining the board. Total funding amounts to $42 million, with approximately $7 million coming from founding partners.

Founding partners include Anduril, Anthropic, Coinbase, Google, Meta, Nvidia, OpenAI, Palantir, Replit, and Stripe, providing software, computing power, office space, and internships. Each student receives over $50,000 in computing credits and a $5,000 travel research budget, and can access the network of fund investors. Guest speakers include OpenAI's Sam Altman and former Windows chief Steven Sinofsky. Additionally, over 40 companies, including Applied Intuition, Databricks, and Shopify, are recruiting partners.

Applications for the founding class open this week: approximately 50 students, one year, tuition-free, with enrollment in fall 2027, allowing for a gap year or deferred college admission, prioritizing recent high school graduates, and accepting current undergraduates and international applicants. The full two-year program is planned to launch in fall 2028, pending regulatory approval, with tuition comparable to elite private universities, where Stanford's undergraduate annual fee is about $68,000. The academy explicitly does not award degrees or credits.

About 80% of the curriculum consists of projects rather than lectures, with no traditional grades, exams, or homework, and instructors do not need teaching qualifications. Biyani states the goal is to cultivate the "most ambitious young builders" who can enter top tech companies or start their own, treating the ability to build in the AI era as the number one skill.

Those buying are looking to lock in builders and interns from model companies and defense tech firms, while those selling are compressing four years of university into a San Francisco-based program for venture capital. Funding is shifting from a donation-based education narrative to a talent pipeline that can be recruited. Beneficiaries include partner companies that can provide computing power and workspaces, as well as the fund's project flow, while traditional four-year colleges that sell general education credits and families who can afford comparable tuition but do not receive accreditation are under pressure.

The two-year program cannot enroll students until approved. The founding class will be selected based on work and online results, without considering standard transcripts.

Source: Public information