Tech Startup Venture Capitalists Andreesen and Horowitz Raise Another $620M

The economy may still be in a slump, but that’s not stopping everyone from envisioning a brighter future and raising significant capital quickly to invest in promising startups.

In the past year and a half, Internet browser pioneer Marc Andreesen and his business partner, Ben Horowitz, have raised almost $1 billion for continued investment in tech startups like location-based app provider Foursquare and online game maker Zygna.

The Andreesen Horowitz firm announced Wednesday another $620 million raised, Associated Press (News - Alert) reporter Jordan Robertson said.

Andreesen and Horowitz have been busy (their activities last year included buying a majority stake in Skype), and they have equally ambitious plans for 2011. In the AP report, Robertson quoted the two Silicon Valley investors as saying they’re trolling for opportunities to invest in cloud computing, tablet computers and mobile phone software.

How did these two powerhouses get started with the capital needed to launch a successful venture capital fund? In case you don’t know the history, here’s how Robertson summarized it: Andreesen co-authored the first Netscape web browser; he and Horowitz later sold Netscape to AOL (News - Alert) for $10 billion during the dot-com boom. The pair later started another company, Opsware, which they sold to HP for $1.7 billion in 2007.

In a Wednesday report, Techcrunch reporter Sarah Lacy noted the speed with which Andreesen and Horowitz got up and running with their latest venture. The new firm has only been around for 15 months, and this latest funding round closed in a span of only three weeks.

In the world of Andreesen and Horowitz, Lacy said, $620 million isn’t that big a deal, and in fact the fund’s directors indicated they could have easily raised even more.

“Horowitz says they didn’t go larger because they didn’t want the fund size to dictate their investment pace,” Lacy said in the Techcrunch report. “They’d rather have to go raise money again if things go better than expected than to have to press to find suboptimal deals.”

What do these two powerhouses envision for the future? Lacy said their goal is to build large, publicly-traded companies, and are willing to walk away from deals that might tempt others if it means turning that goal into reality. Their strategy is definitely not one of running a specialized firm or one that invests with a narrow focus on growth in specific sectors in order to control allocations.

“You can invest $2 million and sell a company for $20 million and make money,” Lacy quoted Horowitz as saying. “But that’s just not what we’re about.”