We are humbled to announce a very special speaker……Marc Andreessen. Although he needs no introduction, Marc is a software engineer by training, an entrepreneur of note and a serial VC with his partner Ben Horowitz at Andreessen Horowitz. Marc has been involved in internet startups since the very beginning. In 1993, he met Jim Clark, with whom he brought the Netscape Navigator to the market. In 1999, Netscape was sold for $4.2 billion to AOL and Andreessen was made its Chief Technology Officer. Throughout his life, Marc has given more than most to the information technology industry in the forms of incisive thoughts and strategic investments.

Andreessen Horowitz has invested more than $50 million in the Bitcoin space, leading the biggest funding round to date Coinbase ($25 million). Marc does not own much of the underlying currency but wrote the most convincing argument of why Bitcoin, the technology matters. Marc, usually only heard through ferocious twitter posts will explain his views on Bitcoin and the opportunities that he sees as important over the next year in more than 160 characters.

Marc Andreessen is speaking alongside a new general partner at Andreessen, Balaji Srinivasan. Other heavyweight investors, including David Lee from SV Angel, Micky Malka from Ribbit Capital and Jeremy Liew from Lightspeed are also going to contribute their views on big trends for 2014 and beyond. We expect that much of the emphasis at the conference will look beyond the 5 year horizon to discuss what are the truly disruptive innovations that can be developed in this space.

As the Bitcoin ecosystem picks itself up from the fall of Mt Gox, investment opportunities and collaborations are picking up. Coinbase had their security tested by Blockchain.info’s Chief Security Officer, Andreas Antonopoulos. Barry Silbert of Second Market has announced the launch of his US based exchange. Investment from VCs has risen to almost $100 million according to a recently published report by Coindesk. As the space prepares for its next evolution, new entrepreneurs and partnerships are needed to create the next generation of products and services for the millions of consumers that are creating wallets in need of innovative financing and payment solutions.



Not to dwell on the past but Mt Gox’s clients were located across the globe with approximately 35% located in the EU, 34% in the USA, 8% in China, 2% in Japan and 22 % in other locations or had unverified accounts. These markets continue to be serviced by Kraken, Bitstamp, and BTC China, featured at the conference, but demand in frontier markets are expected to pick up in 2014.

Join us on the 25th and 26th March at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco for what is set to be an unmissable event. Numbers are limited so we have created an application process. Earlybird prices are $500 for pre-series A Entrepreneurs and $1500 for all others. You can apply directly here.