Crypto venture capital firm Paradigm has raised $1.2 billion for its fourth fund, marking the firm's formal expansion beyond digital assets into artificial intelligence and robotics. According to the latest announcement from co-founder Matt Huang and managing partner Alana Palmedo on July 8, 2026, the fund will invest across crypto, AI, robotics, and other frontier technology startups, representing the firm's third venture vehicle and reflecting growing interest in AI and defense technology. The expansion does not necessarily separate AI from crypto, as autonomous payments, programmable financial rails and machine-led commerce are creating areas where both technologies increasingly overlap, giving a technically focused crypto investor a familiar entry point into a much larger market. The $1.2 billion raise is larger than Paradigm's previous $850 million fund announced in 2024, with the firm now managing roughly $11.9 billion in assets in 2025. The fund size is slightly less than the $1.5 billion the firm was seeking to raise, as reported by the Wall Street Journal in February.
According to Bloomberg, Paradigm has already deployed capital from the new fund into several companies, including autonomous drone delivery company Zipline International, which was valued at $7.6 billion in January, and space defense startup True Anomaly, which reached a $2.2 billion valuation in April. The firm's interest in AI predates its latest fund, with co-founder Matt Huang acknowledging in a June 2023 post on X that advances in artificial intelligence were too interesting to ignore while the firm remained dedicated to crypto. The new fund arrives with Paradigm managing roughly $11.9 billion in assets in 2025, with its crypto portfolio including Uniswap (CRYPTO: $UNI), Kalshi and other infrastructure and financial technology companies. On the AI side, the firm has invested in Nous Research, the company behind Hermes Agent, and highlighted internal AI projects including Centaur, an AI agent project, as part of its research-driven approach. The firm's latest announcement specifically named Zipline, SendCutSend, True Anomaly, and Nous Research as examples of companies it has supported across drone delivery, rapid manufacturing, space defense, and open AI.
Despite expanding into AI and robotics, Paradigm emphasizes that crypto remains central to its investment strategy. The firm named Hyperliquid, Kalshi, and Tempo among examples linked to its crypto market infrastructure strategy, with Hyperliquid operating in crypto derivatives, Kalshi focusing on prediction markets, and Tempo being a stablecoin and agent-friendly blockchain project co-founded with Stripe. The firm also pointed to its internal work on blockchain tools and security, with Foundry and Reth remaining part of its open-source work, while Paradigm built EVMbench with OpenAI to test AI agents for smart contract security. These projects demonstrate that Paradigm still uses research and software development to support crypto infrastructure, with the firm filing to raise the fund earlier this year according to SEC filings.
Founded in 2018 by Matt Huang and Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, Paradigm built its reputation as one of crypto's largest venture investors. The firm launched a $2.5 billion flagship crypto fund in November 2021, then the largest dedicated crypto fund, before raising an $850 million fund for early-stage blockchain startups in 2024. According to Bloomberg, Huang rejected the idea that crypto and AI compete with each other, writing that the firm did not view them as a zero-sum competition and expected plenty of overlap between the two technologies. The firm now describes itself as a frontier technology investment firm that builds and invests across crypto, AI and robotics from the earliest stages, joining Framework Ventures and Haun Ventures in widening their investment scopes beyond traditional crypto focus. The new fund launch comes as the stablecoin market cap fell to $312 billion in June, marking its largest monthly drop since TerraUSD, while tokenized equity volumes surged 145% to a record $3.86 billion, as reported by Bloomberg. This diversification strategy allows Paradigm to maintain its commitment to crypto investing while expanding into adjacent technology sectors, positioning the firm for broader market opportunities beyond digital assets.
