Crypto investment firm Paradigm is seeking to raise $1.5 billion for a new fund to invest in AI, robotics and other frontier technologies, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Sources say Paradigm will continue to invest in crypto but will use its existing technical investment team to evaluate deals in frontier tech companies. San Francisco–based Paradigm has $12.7 billion in assets under management, according to regulatory filings.
The firm launched a $2.5 billion flagship fund in November 2021 and publicly announced a third fund in 2024 — an $850 million venture fund focused on early-stage crypto projects. According to WSJ sources, managers decided they did not want restrictions that could cause them to miss attractive opportunities.
There is also overlap between crypto and AI, such as agentic payments — transactions made by autonomous AI agents — the sources noted.
Paradigm acknowledged it had been exploring AI and its convergence with crypto as early as 2023. That year the firm removed Web3 and crypto-specific language from its website, prompting speculation about a pivot; co-founder and managing partner Matt Huang denied the changes signaled a move away from crypto but said the team had been “tinkering” with AI. Huang later tweeted that while Paradigm remains highly committed to crypto, developments in AI are too interesting to ignore and that the two areas are not zero-sum and will overlap.
Earlier this month, Paradigm and OpenAI released EVMbench, a benchmark that evaluates how different AI models detect and patch security vulnerabilities in smart contracts.
Venture capital investment in AI surged in 2025: OECD data shows AI firms attracted $258.7 billion — 61% of all VC investment and double AI’s share from 2022. Generative AI accounted for 14% of AI VC funding, with U.S. firms receiving the largest share.
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