- Paradigm has closed a $1.2 billion fourth fund to expand into artificial intelligence and robotics
- The firm now manages $11.9 billion in assets, up sharply from its $750 million debut fund in 2018
- It is already competing with generalist giants like Andreessen Horowitz and General Catalyst for the same AI deals
Paradigm built its name backing crypto’s earliest and riskiest deal. Now, it is putting $1.2 billion behind a different wager: that Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics are frontiers worth fighting generalist mega-funds for.
The crypto-focused venture firm has closed its fourth fund at $1.2 billion, according to a blog post from co-founder and managing partner Matt Huang and managing partner Alana Palmedo.
“Sufficiently steep exponentials are indistinguishable from magic, and we see more global scale exponentials at work than ever before,” the pair wrote, framing the fund as a continuation of the firm’s frontier-technology thesis rather than a departure from it.
Why crypto capital is chasing AI
Paradigm was founded in San Francisco in 2018 by Huang, a former Sequoia Capital partner, and Fred Ehrsam, who co-founded Coinbase. Its first fund, an open-ended $750 million vehicle backed by institutions including Harvard and Yale, split its capital between direct cryptocurrency holdings and startup equity.
By 2021, the firm had raised Paradigm One, a $2.5 billion fund that was, at the time, the largest dedicated crypto vehicle ever raised.
The new fund manages capital alongside Paradigm Three, an $850 million early-stage crypto fund raised in 2024, taking the firm’s total assets under management to $11.9 billion.
That scale puts a crypto specialist in direct competition with the sector’s largest generalist investors for the same AI and robotics deals, at a time when AI funding is hitting record highs while crypto funding remains well below its 2021 peak.
Where the capital is already going
Paradigm has already deployed capital from the new fund into companies including autonomous drone delivery company Zipline, valued at $7.6 billion after a $200 million round in March 2026, and orbital defence startup True Anomaly, which reached a $2.2 billion valuation following a $650 million round.
It has also backed rapid manufacturing company SendCutSend and Nous Research, the developer of the Hermes Agent AI model. TechCrunch reported that the new fund fell slightly short of the $1.5 billion the firm was originally seeking.
The firm says it remains committed to crypto and market infrastructure, pointing to continued investment in prediction market platform Kalshi, decentralised exchange Hyperliquid, and Tempo, a stablecoin-focused blockchain it co-founded with Stripe.
Competing on two fronts
The move puts Paradigm up against a widening field of specialist AI investors. General Catalyst has expanded its own AI strategy through a string of growth-stage deals this year, while Andreessen Horowitz continues to back AI infrastructure, applications, and defence startups through its multi-billion-dollar platform. Thrive Capital, meanwhile, has taken part in several of the industry’s largest AI financings, including rounds for OpenAI.
Unlike those generalist firms, Paradigm is trying to hold both ecosystems at once, crypto and AI, rather than picking a side. Whether that pays off may depend on whether the firm’s technical, research-driven approach to crypto translates into an edge when competing against mega-funds built for AI from the start.
