a16z finds AI is strengthening the position of international founders
Andreessen Horowitz says international entrepreneurs are playing an increasingly important role in its AI investment pipeline. Gabriel Vasquez, a partner focused on AI applications and the firm’s global investment strategy, said that 44% of investments in Apps Fund One and Two have an international founder. With general partner Angela Strange, he leads a16z’s Borderless Founder network for immigrant and international entrepreneurs.
The firm’s view is that companies can be created anywhere, but that the current AI cycle gives founders outside the United States a more tangible advantage than before. Strange and Vasquez argue that founders can benefit from maintaining connections in their home market while operating in Silicon Valley. a16z has spent more than one million air miles pursuing international dealflow rather than assuming every promising team must relocate to the US.
Enterprise demand changes the global sales equation
Vasquez said enterprise buying outside the US used to move slowly and buyers were often unwilling to pay. He sees a marked shift over the past three to five years: international seed-stage startups are now securing large companies, including Fortune 500 businesses, as customers. Such deals were once treated as exceptions, but a16z now considers them a trend.
In Europe, corporations historically engaged startups through open-innovation programmes and accelerators, while turning them into paying customers from their main budgets was much harder. France launched its I Choose French Tech initiative against that backdrop. Vasquez identifies AI as the force changing the calculation, because legacy companies see third-party solutions as necessary to remain competitive.
The change also reaches markets where inexpensive human labour had constrained traditional software adoption. Vasquez pointed to Latin America, where software had struggled to compete with cheap labour. AI agents that are always on and increasingly accurate are now used in customer service and other functions, creating more opportunities for software providers.
Local access and talent become strategic assets
US startups cannot yet serve every market at full speed from day one, Vasquez said, and often prioritise American customers. That leaves room for a local founder to sell AI products to businesses in their own country while dividing time between home and the US. The trend aligns with the growing focus on enterprise AI adoption priorities as large organisations evaluate how AI can be deployed across business functions.
Vasquez also identifies access to talent as a key differentiator. Recruiting in Silicon Valley is difficult because companies compete with heavily funded groups such as Anthropic and OpenAI. International founders can instead draw on talent pools in multiple regions. European academic spinouts are among the AI scaleups attracting venture interest, and Vasquez has frequently travelled to Stockholm in search of new companies.
A more fluid idea of headquarters
The firm says the idea of a fixed headquarters is becoming more fluid. Poland, for example, took a stake in a16z portfolio company ElevenLabs, which has a subsidiary rather than its headquarters in the country. Its Polish founders, Piotr Dąbkowski and Mateusz Staniszewski, and customers including InPost and LOT Polish Airlines illustrate how national talent and commercial ties can matter even when a company is organised internationally.
For businesses assessing AI suppliers, the practical implication is to look beyond a vendor’s headquarters. Local market knowledge, access to regional talent and the ability to serve enterprise customers can be material strengths alongside a Silicon Valley presence.