Kofi Ampadu, the accomplice at a16z who led the agency’s Expertise x Alternative (TxO) fund and program, has left the agency, in accordance to an e mail he despatched to employees that TechCrunch obtained. This comes months after the firm paused TxO and laid off most of its staff.
“Throughout my time at the agency, I used to be deeply grateful for the alternative and the belief to lead this work,” Ampadu wrote in the e mail, despatched Friday afternoon, with the topic line “Closing My a16z Chapter.”
“Figuring out out-of-network entrepreneurs and supporting them as they sharpened their concepts, raised capital, and grew into assured leaders was one in all the most significant experiences of my profession,” he wrote.
Ampadu led the program, which launched in 2020, for over 4 years till its pause final November, taking up for the preliminary chief, Nait Jones. Afterward, Ampadu seems to have worked at a16z’s newest accelerator, Speedrun.
Ampadu’s departure maybe alerts the finish of the TxO chapter. The fund and program centered on supporting underserved founders by offering entry to tech networks and funding capital via a donor-advised fund. Although some founders spoke extremely of the program, others criticized the controversial donor-advised construction. This system additionally launched a grant program in 2024 to present $50,000 to nonprofits that assist various founders.
Its final cohort was in March 2025, and its indefinite pause got here as many high tech names reframe, minimize, or get rid of prior public commitments to range, fairness, and inclusion. We’ve reached out to a16z and Ampadu for remark.
His full notice beneath:
I moved to the United States three months before my eleventh birthday. One month later, I began sixth grade in a faculty greater than 5,000 miles from my dwelling, my pals, and all the things acquainted. Lately, my mother jogged my memory that my faculty required me to enroll as an English-as-a-Second-Language pupil. My reminiscence instantly returned to how confused I felt. Even at 10 years previous, I knew it made no sense {that a} child from Ghana, an English-speaking nation, was being requested to study a language he already spoke fluently.
This was a programs requirement, a blanketed assumption about what college students from sure locations may or may not do. That very same sort of systemic assumption is what we set out to problem via the Expertise x Alternative Initiative. The enterprise ecosystem usually depends on proxies similar to faculties, networks, and prior credentials, which may obscure distinctive founders who do not comply with the commonest paths. TxO invested in and supported these ignored founders to bridge the hole between expertise and alternative.
Throughout my time at the agency, I used to be deeply grateful for the alternative and the belief to lead this work. Figuring out out-of-network entrepreneurs and supporting them as they sharpened their concepts, raised capital, and grew into assured leaders was one in all the most significant experiences of my profession.
As I transfer on to my subsequent chapter, I go away with satisfaction in what we constructed and gratitude for everybody who helped form it. Thanks for the belief, the collaboration, and the perception in what is potential. There is extra work to do and I’m excited to hold constructing.
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