Gagan Biyani's Horowitz Andreessen Academy raises $42M for a school without degrees

Why it matters

Andreessen Horowitz is financing an education company that could also bring young builders into its orbit. The first class gets free tuition; the longer-term test is whether access and project work can justify tuition without a degree or guaranteed job.

Gagan Biyani (@gaganbiyani) is launching the Horowitz Andreessen Academy, a San Francisco school for young builders backed by $42 million in funding and the network of Andreessen Horowitz. Its first class is scheduled to arrive in September 2027. Students will spend a year building projects, taking courses from technology practitioners and pursuing work placements. They will leave without a degree or college credit.

Biyani has spent much of his career trying different ways to teach outside a conventional classroom. He co-founded Udemy, the online learning platform, and Maven, which organizes live, cohort-based courses. He also co-founded Sprig, a meal-delivery venture. With the Academy, he is moving from internet education to an in-person institution built around peers, projects and access to technology companies. His personal site lists all three earlier ventures, while the Academy describes the new school as the next step in his education work.

In Andreessen Horowitz's September 22nd announcement, general partner Erik Torenberg argued that talented students who skip college can miss the close-knit peer group in which future collaborators often meet. That is the proposition behind Biyani's school: assemble young people who already make things, give them time to explore, and put them near companies working on AI. Biyani put a limit on the pitch in the Academy's launch release: "College is still the right path for most students."

What the $42 million buys

The Academy is a separate, for-profit education company, according to its FAQ. Andreessen Horowitz incubated it and says it is investing $35 million. Wilson Sonsini, which advised the Academy on its financing, confirms a $42 million total led by a16z. A16z's $35 million commitment is part of that larger amount, not another round. Named individual investors include Adam D'Angelo, Tobi Lutke, Tony Xu, Fidji Simo, Garry Tan, Joe Liemandt and Shyam Sankar. The Academy's board lists Biyani alongside Marc Andreessen and Torenberg.

This extends a relationship Biyani already had with a16z: it led a $25 million financing for Maven, according to the Academy. Andreessen Horowitz has also built its venture business around services and relationships for founders. RuntimeWire reported in August on a16z's $1.1 billion fund for AI's physical infrastructure. The Academy puts a16z's capital and network behind a different constraint on that industry: who learns to build with the technology. That strategic reading follows from the school's stated focus; it is not a measure of any student outcomes.

There is education experience elsewhere on the founding team. The Academy lists Zelda Poem as a founding-team member. Poem founded Nautilus, a three-month San Francisco residency for young artists, scientists and entrepreneurs, according to her O'Shaughnessy Ventures profile. She has worked on alternative education programs in the U.S. and Europe. Her presence gives the venture a practitioner whose prior work centered on bringing young people together in person.

Access is the offer, not a placement guarantee

The planned year combines student-directed projects, practitioner-taught courses and co-ops. Andreessen Horowitz's announcement names AI Inference Engineering, The Modern Software Developer and The Craft of Selling among the proposed subjects. The Academy says its founding partners include Anthropic, OpenAI, NVIDIA, Anduril, Google, Meta, Palantir, Replit and Stripe. Those relationships can cover different things: curriculum input, access to hardware or compute, and opportunities for hands-on work. The Academy also says more than 40 other companies have signed on as hiring partners.

The distinction matters for applicants. Hiring partners will still use their own interview processes, the Academy FAQ says. Neither a co-op placement nor a job is guaranteed, and a co-op may be unpaid. Biyani told Fortune that the ten founding partners have different commitments and that some will not take students for hiring. A roster of company names is therefore evidence of access to a network, not a promise that each student will work at one of those companies.

The first fellowship is expected to enroll roughly 50 students for one year, with no tuition. The Academy says admission will weigh what applicants have built or shipped, though its admissions page also requires transcripts and test scores. Early applications are due November 5th, 2026. The Academy's launch release promises each student more than $50,000 in compute credits and technology resources and a $5,000 travel and exploration budget; those credits are resources for building, not cash toward rent.

Students must arrange and pay for housing, meals and other living expenses. The Academy lists typical shared-dorm rates of $1,600 to $1,800 a month and says need-based help with living costs may be available. It is unaccredited, awards no degree or college credit, and does not participate in federal or state financial-aid programs. Those conditions make the tuition-free first year a narrower offer than a fully funded year of study.

Biyani plans to seek regulatory approval for a two-year program targeted for 2028. He told Fortune that, if approved, its annual tuition could run from $60,000 to $90,000. That would put a much harder test on the model than the subsidized founding fellowship: whether an in-person network, a body of work and access to employers persuade families to pay private-university prices without a college credential. The nearby Thiel Fellowship takes a different route, granting young builders $250,000 over two years. Biyani's wager is that students will value a school-like place to explore before committing to a company or career.