Paradigm raises $1.2 billion to back crypto, AI and robotics

Paradigm raised $1.2 billion for its third venture fund and fourth fund overall, a new pool of capital built to back what the firm now calls the technical frontier. The San Francisco firm said that frontier now includes crypto, AI and robotics, a sharper sign that the deepest-pocketed investors are no longer treating digital assets as a separate lane from automation and advanced hardware.

Matt Huang announced the fund, and Paradigm is keeping crypto at the center of its strategy even as it widens the map. The firm plans to continue backing blockchain tools, market infrastructure and security work while also pursuing agent tools, robotics and AI, a mix that reflects how frontier investing has begun to converge around software, data, physical systems and machine intelligence.

The new vehicle comes after Paradigm’s $2.5 billion fund in November 2021, which was described at the time as the largest crypto fund ever. The earlier raise set a benchmark for specialist venture capital in crypto, and the new fund shows that Paradigm can still attract a very large check even after the market’s bull run cooled. It also follows an earlier filing to raise $1.5 billion before the firm settled on the $1.2 billion figure it ultimately announced.

Paradigm was founded in 2018 by Huang and Fred Ehrsam, the Coinbase co-founder, and the firm’s portfolio still includes major crypto names such as Coinbase, Uniswap, OpenSea, Phantom and MoonPay. But its newer bets point to a wider ambition. The fund has already invested in Zipline, the drone-delivery company, and True Anomaly, the space startup, underscoring how the firm is stretching beyond blockchain into companies that sit closer to the physical world.

Huang’s own background mirrors that expansion. Paradigm says he is founder and chief executive of Tempo, a payments network co-founded by Paradigm and Stripe, and that he sits on the boards of Stripe and Kalshi. Paradigm also says Huang was an early investor in ByteDance, Instacart and Benchling during his time at Sequoia Capital. Alana Palmedo, who joined Paradigm at its founding and now co-leads the firm as managing partner, serves on the CFTC Innovation Advisory Committee, giving Paradigm a direct connection to regulatory debates around markets and crypto.

Paradigm’s own branding now describes it as a frontier technology investment firm that builds and invests in crypto, AI and robotics from the earliest stages. For venture investors, the message is increasingly clear: the next large pools of returns may come less from a single category like pure crypto and more from startups that blend computation, automation and infrastructure into one thesis.