Paradigm raises $1.2B fund, expands into AI and robotics
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- Paradigm raised $1.2 billion for its fourth fund overall and third venture fund, announced Wednesday by founder Matt Huang, targeting startups at what the firm calls the "technical frontier."
- The new fund expands beyond crypto into robotics and AI, though the firm said it will continue investing in crypto and in research tools including blockchain infrastructure (Foundry, Reth), agent tools (Centaur), and security work (EVMbench, a collaboration with OpenAI).
- Fund III — the predecessor fund — already deployed capital into drone delivery company Zipline and space startup True Anomaly, signaling the firm's hardware-and-frontier-tech appetite.
- The $1.2 billion raised is slightly below the $1.5 billion Paradigm was targeting, as previously reported by the Wall Street Journal in February; the firm had filed to raise the fund earlier this year per SEC filings.
- Paradigm was founded in 2018 by Matt Huang, a former Sequoia partner, and Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of Coinbase; managing partner Alana Palmedo told Bloomberg the AI and robotics push is "pretty hard to ignore."
Why it matters: Paradigm is reallocating venture capital away from a crypto market that has struggled and toward the AI and robotics boom, investing alongside — and competing with — the deep-pocketed tech giants and AI-focused funds now flooding the space. The $300 million gap between the $1.5 billion target and the $1.2 billion closed suggests LP appetite softened slightly even as the firm broadens its thesis. Fund III's bets on Zipline and True Anomaly show the frontier-tech tilt is already operational, not aspirational.
