Paradigm, the crypto venture firm founded by Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam and former Sequoia partner Matt Huang, raised $1.2 billion for a new fund that pushes the firm deeper into AI, robotics and other frontier technologies.
The firm announced the fourth fund on Wednesday, saying in a blog post it will back "the most ambitious builders at the frontier of technology." Paradigm said it started in crypto, but now invests across AI, robotics and other frontier sectors, while continuing to fund crypto and market-structure companies.
- In 2023, Paradigm removed crypto and the overall web3 language from its website and replaced it with broader "research-driven technology" language that included AI.
- The firm played down the idea that it was leaving crypto, saying at the time that it hadn't pivoted away from the sector.
The pivot that is no longer really a pivot
The new fund is not a total break from crypto. Paradigm still pointed to Hyperliquid, Kalshi and Tempo, a stablecoin-focused blockchain incubation it co-founded with Stripe, as examples of its ongoing crypto work.
But the firm's center of gravity is still much broader now:
- Paradigm named Zipline, the autonomous drone delivery company, SendCutSend, a rapid manufacturing startup, True Anomaly, a space-defense company, and Nous Research, an open AI lab, as examples of the kinds of companies it is backing.
Paradigm
And that is a long way from the old Paradigm pitch. The firm was launched in 2018 as one of the sharpest institutional bets on crypto, at a time when crypto was still toxic to many traditional investors.
- Earlier in February of this year, The Wall Street Journal reported that Paradigm had more than $12.6 billion in assets under management at the end of 2024 and was looking to raise up to $1.5 billion for a fund that would expand into AI, robotics and frontier tech.
- The same report said the firm saw growing overlap between crypto and AI, especially around agentic payments, where AI systems can make transactions autonomously.
The firm also framed the new fund around research and building, citing blockchain tools such as Foundry and Reth, agent tools such as Centaur, and EVMbench, a smart contract security benchmark built with OpenAI and OtterSec.
- Crypto venture funding looks healthier at the start of 2026, but the recovery is still uneven.
- Galaxy Research reported earlier that VCs invested roughly $4 billion into crypto and blockchain startups across 355 deals in Q1, a pace that would annualize to about $16 billion, below 2025's nearly $20 billion total.
- Fundraising by crypto-focused VC firms also looks weaker, with only about $1.1 billion raised across eight funds in Q1.