Paradigm is a San Francisco-based multi-stage venture firm founded in 2018 by Matt Huang and Fred Ehrsam, respectively a former Sequoia partner and a co-founder of Coinbase. The firm built its reputation as the most prestigious and technically rigorous investor in crypto, with a research-and-engineering org that ships widely used open-source infrastructure (Foundry, Reth, Centaur) and original security research (EVMbench, co-authored with OpenAI). With Fund III, Paradigm formally expands its mandate beyond crypto to the "technical frontier", adding AI and robotics as first-class investment priorities.
Paradigm invests across the technical frontier: crypto and financial system reinvention, AI infrastructure, and robotics.
The firm targets multi-stage positions from early seed through growth, prioritizing companies where genuine engineering depth is a competitive advantage.
Fund III has already backed Zipline and True Anomaly, two robotics and space-defense companies outside crypto, alongside continued activity in crypto protocols, DeFi infrastructure, and financial market reinvention.
Paradigm Fund III closed at $1.2B in July 2026, below its reported $1.5B target, a notable gap against the $2.5B raised at the 2021 peak.
LP composition is not publicly disclosed.
The firm's flagship debut fund has grown from $760M to $8.3B in value since inception.
Leadership
Matt Huang is Co-Founder and Managing Partner, a former Sequoia partner who has been the firm's day-to-day leader since Fred Ehrsam stepped back from the managing partner role in October 2023.
Alana Palmedo is Managing Partner, co-authoring the Fund III announcement with Huang and leading the AI and robotics expansion publicly. She is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate.
Fred Ehrsam is Co-Founder and General Partner, co-founder of Coinbase, who remains a general partner and active investor following his transition away from the managing partner role.
Investment Strategy
Paradigm deploys capital across the full lifecycle from seed through late-stage growth, with no fixed check size, historically ranging from small early entries to nine-figure growth positions in its highest-conviction bets.
The firm's technical research team, which includes open-source contributors and security researchers who double as investors, is the core differentiating asset: Paradigm can engage at the systems architecture level in ways most generalist and crossover funds cannot.
The "technical frontier" expansion is framed as a natural extension of this engineering credibility into AI infrastructure and robotics, where the firm believes the best deep-technical returns are increasingly concentrated.
Notable Investments
Notable Exits
Matt Huang — Co-Founder & Managing Partner
matt@paradigm.xyz
Alana Palmedo — Managing Partner
alana@paradigm.xyz
Fred Ehrsam — Co-Founder & General Partner
United States
