Paradigm has raised a $1.2 billion fund to back companies building at what it calls the technical frontier. The new vehicle is the firm’s third venture fund and fourth fund overall.
The venture firm was founded in 2018 by Matt Huang, a former Sequoia Capital partner, and Fred Ehrsam, the co-founder of Coinbase. Paradigm built its reputation as a crypto-focused investor, but the new fund expands its scope into AI, robotics and other frontier technologies.
Huang and managing partner Alana Palmedo said Paradigm will continue investing in crypto and the reinvention of markets and the financial system. They also said the firm is now backing founders across areas such as autonomous drone delivery, rapid manufacturing, orbital space defense and open AI.
Paradigm Broadens Its Investment Scope
The firm has already made investments from the new fund, including in Zipline, which builds autonomous drone delivery systems, and True Anomaly, a defense technology company focused on space security.
Paradigm also named SendCutSend, Nous Research, Hyperliquid, Tempo and Kalshi among companies it is backing or building around the broader technical frontier. Tempo is an incubation Paradigm co-founded with Stripe to develop a stablecoin and agent-friendly blockchain.
The new strategy reflects the overlap Paradigm sees between crypto, AI, robotics and other technical markets. The firm said it will keep researching and building tools where that work can help accelerate the industries it invests in.
That includes blockchain tools such as Foundry and Reth, agent tools such as Centaur, and security work such as EVMbench, a collaboration with OpenAI.
AI and Robotics Join Crypto as Priorities
Paradigm’s expansion comes as AI and robotics attract large amounts of venture capital. Crypto remains part of the firm’s identity, but the market has faced sharper cycles while AI infrastructure, automation and defense technology have drawn stronger investor interest.
Palmedo told Bloomberg there is too much happening outside crypto to ignore. The firm’s broader mandate gives it more flexibility to back technical founders even when their companies do not fit neatly into a blockchain category.
Paradigm filed to raise the new fund earlier this year through Paradigm Three LP, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The final $1.2 billion fund is smaller than the $1.5 billion target reported by The Wall Street Journal in February.
The raise still gives Paradigm one of the larger pools of capital among frontier technology investors. It also marks a clear shift from a crypto specialist toward a broader venture firm focused on technical founders across several fast-moving sectors.
Featured image credits: Magnific.com
For more stories like it, click the +Follow button at the top of this page to follow us.