With Netscape co-founder and Web browsing pioneer Marc Andreessen investing in small startups, via his $300 million venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, one of his striking investments is in a starup called RockMelt, which is making a foray into the already over-crowded and highly competitive Web browser arena!

Not much is known about RockMelt, which is led by two former Opsware executives - Eric Vishria and Tim Howes. It is rumored that the founders have taken up the daunting task of building a brand new browser from a scratch, instead of re-engineering a current browser engine model. And Andreessen is backing the venture all the way through!

According to The New York Times' Friday reports, with Andreessen being a member of the Facebook board, RockMelt would someway integrate the names of Facebook users in its singular browser into a 'social networking browser' - thereby giving the users the advantage of interacting with their friends on the social network alongside the use of the Web.

However, with 'free' browsers, like Microsoft, Firefox, Opera, Apple's Safari, and Google Chrome, already crowding the browser market, it is reported quite intriguing that Andreessen and RockMelt founders are investing time and money building a new browser to give away for free! Apparently, Andreessen likes the idea of associating himself with an upcoming browser that might just gnaw into Internet Explorer's share!