Image Credit: Paradigm
Key Takeaways
- Paradigm raised $1.2 billion for its third fund, its first not focused exclusively on crypto
- The firm has already invested in drone delivery company Zipline and space defense startup True Anomaly
- Paradigm’s prior two funds, raised in 2021 and 2024, totaled $3.35 billion and focused solely on crypto
Crypto venture firm Paradigm has raised $1.2 billion for a new fund focused on artificial intelligence and robotics, broadening its investment scope beyond digital assets while maintaining its existing crypto commitments, according to a blog post published Wednesday.
New Fund Marks Paradigm’s Third Major Vehicle
The fund represents Paradigm’s third venture vehicle and its first not centered exclusively on crypto. Managing partner Alana Palmedo said the move reflects the firm’s expanding interest in emerging technology sectors rather than a shift away from digital assets.
“Crypto was the first frontier for us, and it continues to be a really exciting one, but there’s so much else happening right now that’s pretty hard to ignore.”
Paradigm has already deployed capital from the fund into several companies, including autonomous drone delivery company Zipline International, valued at $7.6 billion in January, and space defense startup True Anomaly, which reached a $2.2 billion valuation in April.
Fund Reflects a Broader Shift in Venture Capital
Paradigm now manages nearly $12 billion in assets, and the new fund’s scope extends beyond Zipline and True Anomaly to include manufacturing platform SendCutSend and AI research firm Nous Research. The firm has said it will keep contributing to open-source tools on both sides of its business, citing blockchain projects Foundry and Reth alongside AI tools such as Centaur and EVMbench, a smart-contract security benchmark built with OpenAI.
The expansion comes as venture funding patterns diverge sharply between sectors. AI startups accounted for roughly 70% of global startup investment in the second quarter of 2026, while Bitcoin’s price has fallen nearly 30% this year.
Paradigm has continued backing crypto projects in parallel, including a $175 million round for decentralized lending protocol Morpho and a seed round for M1X Global, a startup building infrastructure for tokenized U.S. Treasuries.
Paradigm’s Two Prior Funds Focused Solely on Crypto
Paradigm was founded in 2018 by Matt Huang and Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, growing into one of the largest venture investors focused specifically on digital assets.
The firm raised a $2.5 billion flagship crypto fund in November 2021, which industry reports described as the largest dedicated crypto fund at the time, followed by an $850 million fund in 2024 aimed at early-stage blockchain startups.
Huang Signaled AI Interest Years Before the New Fund
Paradigm’s move into AI follows public comments co-founder Matt Huang made in June 2023. In a post on X at the time, Huang said the firm had never been more dedicated to crypto while also acknowledging that developments in artificial intelligence had become too significant to overlook.
Huang pushed back on the idea that crypto and AI represent competing priorities for investors, writing that he did not see the two areas as a zero-sum competition and instead expected substantial overlap between them. He said at the time that Paradigm intended to keep investing across all stages of the crypto market while treating AI as part of the firm’s broader, research-driven investment approach.
