Crypto investment firm Paradigm is looking to raise $1.5 billion for a new fund that will invest in companies in AI, robotics and other frontier technologies, according to the Wall Street Journal.
According to sources familiar with the situation, Paradigm will continue to invest in crypto companies, but it will use its tech investment group to look at deals in tech companies, they said.
San Francisco-based Paradigm has $12.7 billion in assets, according to recent regulatory filings.
It launched a flagship fund of $2.5 billion in November 2021, which was the largest crypto fund in history. It has publicly announced its third fund in 2024 – an $850 million venture fund focused on early-stage crypto projects.
According to WSJ sources, the company’s managers decided that they did not want to be limited in a way that would cause them to miss out on attractive deals.
The person said there is overlap between crypto and AI, such as agency payments or transactions made by independent AI agents.
A paradigm that explores AI in early 2023
Paradigm admitted that it was still “working” with AI and its convergence with crypto three years ago.
In 2023, Paradigm was seen removing Web3 and crypto-specific language from its website, prompting some to speculate that it had already switched from crypto to AI.
Matt Huang, co-founder and managing partner of Paradigm, denied at the time that the website changes reflected a shift away from crypto, but acknowledged that the team was exploring AI.
In a tweet weeks later, Huang said that while “we’ve never been more excited about crypto and continue to invest at all stages,” “the advancement of AI is too interesting to ignore.”
“Crypto and AI seem to be framed as zero-sum competition. But we don’t buy it. Both are interesting and have a lot of overlap. We’re happy to continue the research,” he said.
Earlier this month, Paradigm and OpenAI released EVMbench, a new benchmark that evaluates how different AI models detect and fix security vulnerabilities found in smart contracts.
AI accounted for more than half of all VC funding in 2025
According to OECD data, in 2025, venture capital investments in AI companies will amount to 258.7 billion dollars, accounting for 61% of all VC investments, and its share will double from 2022.
VC funding for AI companies accounted for 14% of all AI venture capital investments, with companies in the United States attracting the largest share of VC funding.
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