Funding Roundup: Paradigm shows VC strength with $850M fund

The first quarter of the year is off to a good start so far, but it’s clearly still below the highs of last cycle

article-image

Lana Sham/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

This week ended with a bang as Paradigm announced it raised $850 million for its third fund.

Now to be fair, Bloomberg got ahead of the news and teased back in April that Paradigm was aiming to raise between $750 and $850 million. 

Don’t get me wrong, venture capital is still below 2021 and 2022 levels, but this fund shows that crypto’s clawing its way back after a brittle winter, as our very own Michael McSweeney wrote in the Empire Newsletter Friday. 

But, as McSweeney pointed out, $850 million is a far cry from the $2.5 billion fund the firm raised in 2021

Pitchbook’s Robert Le warned Blockworks in April that it may be too early to think a bull market is upon us. The first quarter of the year is off to a good start so far, but it’s clearly still below the highs of last cycle.

Read more: What the Roman Empire and crypto have in common

“Bitcoin has monetized to $1T+. Ethereum, Solana and other blockchains are scaling. Stablecoins are being adopted globally. Frontier research speeds along. New infrastructure is enabling consumer applications. Hundreds of millions of people own crypto. And crypto is now a main character on the world’s political stage,” Paradigm wrote in its announcement. 

While it’s not yet clear what kind of projects Paradigm is looking to invest in, the firm pointed to its investments in Uniswap and Optimism as the types of “early-stage work that we love contributing to” and “what we’ll be increasingly focused on going forward.” 

Other notable raises: 

  • Nuffle Labs, a spin-off of NEAR Foundation, raised $13 million in a mix of a strategic grant from NEAR and an investment led by Electric Capital.
  • Ava Protocol announced it raised $10 million in seed funding across two rounds of $5.5 and $4.5 million, respectively. 
  • Squads Labs raised $10 million in a Series A led by Electric Capital and participation from Coinbase Ventures and RockawayX. 
  • Manta Network unveiled a $50 million EcoFund. 

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Research Report Templates (19).png

Research

Suilend has grown into the top money market and liquid staking provider on Sui. STEAMM, Suilend’s Superfluid AMM, presents a compelling avenue for growing market share within Sui’s DEX landscape and revenue generation for the protocol. Suilend’s multi-product suite position it well for owning market share across key verticals. While current metrics across the Sui ecosystem are likely inflated due to Sui Foundation incentive programs, SEND trades at amongst the lowest multiples in the lend/borrow sector, suggesting that a bull case for continued growth in the ecosystem may be mispriced.

article-image

Silk Road founder Ulbricht made a triumphant return to the Bitcoin Conference, 10 years on from sentencing

article-image

A Blockworks Research report looked at who could take up some of the marketshare in the launchpad space

article-image

Business-to-business stablecoin payments are on the rise, per a report from Artemis, Dragonfly and Castle Island

article-image

Crypto continues to do its thing: incentivizing behavior

article-image

Kraken will soon offer Backed ‘xStocks’ as Solana tokens

article-image

In a unanimous decision, the US Court of International Trade has ruled that Trump’s IEEPA tariffs are unlawful