Paradigm

Paradigm is a research-driven investment firm based in San Francisco, specializing in the cryptocurrency sector. Founded in 2018 by Matt Huang and Fred Ehrsam, the company aims to support innovative companies and protocols from their inception, often at the idea stage. Paradigm emphasizes a builder mentality, with many of its team members having experience in developing tools and protocols that play a significant role in the crypto ecosystem. The firm is committed to advancing the frontier of cryptocurrency through both investment and the creation of open-source software. Research is central to Paradigm's approach, as the firm believes that deep understanding fosters innovation and progress. Rather than solely providing financial support, Paradigm actively engages in collaboration, whether it be through producing research papers or offering product and business strategy guidance.

Matt Huang

Managing Partner

Past deals in Smart Contracts

Across Protocol

Initial Coin Offering in 2025
Across is a cross-chain bridge secured by UMA's optimistic oracle for L2s and rollups. It also optimized for capital efficiency with a single liquidity pool, a competitive relayer landscape, and a no-slippage fee model.

MetaDAO

Initial Coin Offering in 2024
MetaDAO is a technology company that develops a decentralized, autonomous platform for decision markets. This platform facilitates a pure market-based governance system, allowing traders to create and trade in decision markets, where the outcomes are influenced by market mechanisms and active stakeholder participation, rather than traditional governance structures.

Conduit

Series A in 2024
Conduit operates as a platform focused on providing crypto native infrastructure aimed at supporting developers in the cryptocurrency space. The company collaborates with leading crypto engineering teams to develop a comprehensive suite of tools that facilitate the creation, deployment, and maintenance of smart contracts, particularly on the Ethereum network. By offering a visual programming environment, Conduit enables developers to build, test, and deploy smart contracts efficiently, utilizing various programming languages and libraries. This streamlined approach enhances the overall development process, empowering builders in the rapidly evolving field of cryptocurrency.

Axiom

Series A in 2024
Axiom enables smart contracts to securely compute over Ethereum's whole history, including transactions and receipts. Developers can send on-chain queries to Axiom, which are automatically completed with ZK-verified responses delivered back to the developer's smart contract.

Blast

Venture Round in 2023
Blast is an Optimistic Rollup-based Layer 2 network.

Dzone Finance

Series A in 2023
Dzone Finance is a cross-chain Dex and Bridge aggregator.

Flashbots

Series B in 2023
Flashbots is a research and development company dedicated to improving the efficiency and transparency of Miner Extractable Value (MEV) in blockchain ecosystems. The company focuses on creating tools for miners and searchers to extract MEV in a more transparent and efficient manner. Flashbots aims to mitigate the negative impacts of current MEV extraction techniques, which can pose existential risks to state-rich blockchains like Ethereum. Their goal is to establish a permissionless, transparent, and fair ecosystem for MEV extraction and redistribution.

EDX Markets

Series A in 2023
EDX Markets operates as a digital asset marketplace. It caters to the needs of both crypto-native firms and large financial institutions. The company trades in various cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash. EDX Markets combines innovative technology with financial services to enable safe and compliant trading of digital assets. It also provides trading resources and a UAT Environment for its users. The company is also known for its focus on hiring crypto talent, as stated by its CEO, Jamil Nazarali.

Utopia

Series A in 2023
Utopia Labs is a company that specializes in developing an operating system tailored for decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). This platform facilitates the management of payment requests, payroll, and financial reporting for DAOs. By providing a comprehensive payment application, Utopia Labs enables users to send and receive payments instantly and without cost on a global scale. The system allows users to streamline the management of invoices and expenses for contributors through a single interface, automate recurring salary payments, and organize transactions using tags for enhanced transparency in reporting.

Conduit

Seed Round in 2023
Conduit operates as a platform focused on providing crypto native infrastructure aimed at supporting developers in the cryptocurrency space. The company collaborates with leading crypto engineering teams to develop a comprehensive suite of tools that facilitate the creation, deployment, and maintenance of smart contracts, particularly on the Ethereum network. By offering a visual programming environment, Conduit enables developers to build, test, and deploy smart contracts efficiently, utilizing various programming languages and libraries. This streamlined approach enhances the overall development process, empowering builders in the rapidly evolving field of cryptocurrency.

Uniswap

Series B in 2022
Uniswap Labs is a software company founded in 2018 by Hayden Adams, who created the Uniswap Protocol, a decentralized platform for swapping digital assets. The protocol has facilitated $2.75 trillion in transaction volume since its inception. Uniswap Labs focuses on developing widely used decentralized finance (DeFi) products, including a user-friendly web interface, a self-custody mobile wallet, and an API tailored for professional market participants. The platform empowers liquidity providers and traders by offering a financial marketplace that is open and accessible to all. Utilizing smart contracts, it enables secure and decentralized on-chain conversions of assets, allowing users to trade tokens directly without intermediaries while defining asset prices based on the liquidity staked in the system.

nxyz

Series A in 2022
nxyz is a company focused on enhancing the capabilities of builders, creatives, and entrepreneurs in the digital space by offering a robust blockchain indexing and data infrastructure. Its platform features a multi-chain API that transforms blockchain data into real-time, high-performance data streams. This allows engineers to access and interact with various blockchain elements, including wallets, transactions, NFTs, and smart contracts, while integrating both on-chain and off-chain information. By providing these tools, nxyz aims to facilitate the development of a more efficient and quality-oriented internet.

Exponential DeFi

Seed Round in 2022
Exponential DeFi platform makes it easy to discover, assess, and invest in DeFi yield opportunities. Anyone can become a lender or market maker with DeFi. Financial freedom is within everyone's reach when individuals have the ability to grow their wealth exponentially. Its platform helps investors assess the risk of DeFi yield opportunities so they can invest with confidence. Exponential DeFi platform was founded in 2021 and is based in San Francisco, California.

SignalPlus

Seed Round in 2022
SignalPlus is an enterprise technology firm specializing in enhancing accessibility to trading options for digital and cryptocurrency assets. The company offers a fully automated trading system that utilizes an artificial intelligence-powered trading robot to automate market making and risk hedging. This technology is designed to address the infrastructure gaps between centralized finance (CeFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi) option platforms. SignalPlus provides a comprehensive cryptocurrency trading dashboard that includes advanced pricing, analytics, and execution algorithms, as well as multi-vendor and direct market access. This makes it suitable for high-touch trading strategies while avoiding any cost commitments, effectively supporting traders in managing risks associated with their investments.

SignalPlus

Series A in 2022
SignalPlus is an enterprise technology firm specializing in enhancing accessibility to trading options for digital and cryptocurrency assets. The company offers a fully automated trading system that utilizes an artificial intelligence-powered trading robot to automate market making and risk hedging. This technology is designed to address the infrastructure gaps between centralized finance (CeFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi) option platforms. SignalPlus provides a comprehensive cryptocurrency trading dashboard that includes advanced pricing, analytics, and execution algorithms, as well as multi-vendor and direct market access. This makes it suitable for high-touch trading strategies while avoiding any cost commitments, effectively supporting traders in managing risks associated with their investments.

Optimism

Series B in 2022
Optimism is a decentralized infrastructure platform focused on enhancing Ethereum's scalability and transaction speed. Founded in 2019 and headquartered in New York, the company operates as a public benefit corporation, balancing the financial interests of shareholders with the broader needs of the community and society. Optimism develops open-source software that enables developers to build on the Ethereum blockchain more efficiently, utilizing zero-knowledge proofs to ensure the validity of state updates. By promoting fair access to public goods on the internet, Optimism aims to create a responsible and sustainable ecosystem that benefits both businesses and the wider community.

Gauntlet

Series B in 2022
Gauntlet is a financial modeling and simulation company focused on enhancing the safety and efficiency of blockchain protocols and smart contracts. Through its advanced platform, Gauntlet employs agent-based simulation techniques to analyze and optimize key parameters of various protocols. This approach allows the company to model market risks and economic incentives effectively, helping clients improve their capital efficiency and maximize returns for stakeholders while minimizing associated risks. By driving sustainable growth for leading crypto protocols, chains, and on-chain treasuries, Gauntlet plays a crucial role in enhancing the financial performance of businesses in the blockchain space.

OpenSea

Series C in 2022
OpenSea is a peer-to-peer marketplace dedicated to the trading of crypto collectibles and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). It facilitates the buying and selling of various digital assets, including gaming items and virtual goods, all secured by blockchain technology. Users can engage in transactions through smart contracts, which enhance security and trust in the trading process. The platform aims to streamline the exchange of these digital assets, making it accessible for anyone interested in the world of crypto collectibles. By providing a user-friendly interface and robust infrastructure, OpenSea has established itself as a leading marketplace in the burgeoning NFT space.

Aztec

Series A in 2021
Aztec specializes in developing privacy-focused technologies for Ethereum-based transactions. It is renowned for creating PLONK, a leading standard in zero-knowledge proofs, enabling fast, private interactions on the public blockchain. The company's research team has made significant contributions to Layer 2 solutions on Ethereum and possesses extensive expertise in deploying intricate cryptosystems within Web3 environments. Aztec Network recently unveiled an advanced version of zk.money, showcasing its Aztec Connect SDK's ability to facilitate seamless integrations with prominent DeFi protocols like Lido and Element Finance. The company is currently working on building a secure, encrypted blockchain secured by Ethereum.

Euler Labs

Series A in 2021
Euler Labs is a developer of a non-custodial lending protocol built on the Ethereum blockchain, designed to facilitate lending and borrowing of a wide range of crypto assets. The platform operates without the need for trusted third parties, allowing users to earn interest on their crypto holdings or hedge against market volatility in a capital-efficient manner. Euler's innovative approach incorporates reactive interest rates that adjust in real-time based on market conditions, alongside asset-specific collaterals, which provides clients with a risk-minimized opportunity to engage in crypto finance. The company's technology aims to enhance financial accessibility and efficiency for users in the decentralized finance space.

dYdX

Series C in 2021
dYdX is a prominent decentralized exchange that aims to empower traders by providing a secure and efficient trading platform. Founded in 2017 by Antonio Juliano, a former engineer at Coinbase and Uber, dYdX operates on Ethereum using audited smart contracts, which eliminates the need for trust in a central authority during trading. The platform offers a variety of financial products, including perpetual, margin, and spot trading, as well as borrow and lend pools. Users can earn interest on their deposits and engage in margin trading with customizable leverage options. By combining the security and transparency associated with decentralized exchanges with the speed and usability typically found in centralized platforms, dYdX strives to create an open financial system that grants universal access to advanced trading tools.

Lido

Initial Coin Offering in 2021
Lido is a developer of a liquid staking platform designed to address challenges related to initial cryptocurrency staking. The company offers open-source middleware that enhances the functionality of Ethereum network block validation. This middleware is permanently deployed on the Ethereum blockchain and is accessible to users through various interfaces and channels. Lido enables users to stake their assets while simultaneously receiving synthetic native tokens of equivalent value, which can be utilized across different decentralized finance applications to generate yield. The platform aims to simplify and enhance the staking experience within the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Gitcoin

Venture Round in 2021
Gitcoin, established in 2017 and headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, operates a platform that connects open-source developers with funding opportunities. The platform, built on the Ethereum network using Solidity, enables developers to monetize their work in various programming languages, including Python, Rust, Ruby, JavaScript, and Solidity. Gitcoin fosters a symbiotic relationship between developers, maintainers, and financiers, promoting the growth of open-source projects and the community. The company's grants management platform offers decentralized allocation infrastructure and smart contract-based funding mechanisms, facilitating efficient capital distribution and community-driven innovation within blockchain ecosystems.

Opyn

Series A in 2021
Opyn is a decentralized protocol focused on optimizing options trading for users interested in Ethereum and ERC20 assets. The platform allows users to earn premiums or express views on assets by trading options, specifically offering European, cash-settled options that automatically exercise upon expiry. As a pioneer in decentralized finance (DeFi), Opyn initially launched the first live ERC20 options protocol, enabling users to create, buy, and sell options on any ERC20 token. Its innovative offerings include the ability to trade option spreads and combos, enhancing capital efficiency for traders. Opyn v1 continues to operate on the Ethereum network, providing a venue for American, physically settled options while the company expands its range of ERC20 options. Through its commitment to inclusivity, fairness, and transparency, Opyn aims to enhance the trading experience within the decentralized finance ecosystem.

Synthetix

Seed Round in 2020
Synthetix is a decentralized synthetic asset issuance protocol based in Australia, established in 2017 by Kain Warwick. Built on the Ethereum blockchain, it facilitates derivatives trading in decentralized finance (DeFi) by enabling the creation of synthetic assets that provide exposure to real-world currencies, commodities, stocks, and indices. The platform offers unique financial instruments such as perpetual futures and options markets, allowing users to trade synthetic forms of assets with infinite liquidity. Synthetix operates a peer-to-contract trading system and utilizes a distributed collateral pool, ensuring transparency and accessibility for customers seeking on-chain exposure to various decentralized assets.

Nebulous

Seed Round in 2020
Nebulous, Inc. is a technology company focused on developing blockchain hardware and software infrastructure for the decentralized internet. Founded in 2014 and based in Boston, Massachusetts, the company is known for its flagship product, Sia, a decentralized cloud storage platform that utilizes blockchain technology to create a data storage marketplace. Additionally, Nebulous offers Skynet, a decentralized content delivery network (CDN) and file-sharing platform tailored for developers, along with SiaStream, which provides affordable storage solutions for media files, enabling fast streaming. As a core contributor to the open-source Skynet project, Nebulous plays a significant role in advancing the decentralized web ecosystem.

Uniswap

Series A in 2020
Uniswap Labs is a software company founded in 2018 by Hayden Adams, who created the Uniswap Protocol, a decentralized platform for swapping digital assets. The protocol has facilitated $2.75 trillion in transaction volume since its inception. Uniswap Labs focuses on developing widely used decentralized finance (DeFi) products, including a user-friendly web interface, a self-custody mobile wallet, and an API tailored for professional market participants. The platform empowers liquidity providers and traders by offering a financial marketplace that is open and accessible to all. Utilizing smart contracts, it enables secure and decentralized on-chain conversions of assets, allowing users to trade tokens directly without intermediaries while defining asset prices based on the liquidity staked in the system.

Reflexer

Seed Round in 2020
Reflexer Labs, founded in 2020 and based in the USA, is focused on developing a low-volatility collateral solution for the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. The company aims to address the inherent volatility in digital assets by creating a volatility-dampened synthetic instrument that leverages control theory within smart contracts. This innovative approach automatically adjusts the supply of collateral in response to market conditions, providing a stable foundation for DeFi applications. By mitigating investment risk and minimizing potential loss, Reflexer Labs seeks to enhance the reliability and attractiveness of decentralized finance for businesses and investors.

Yield Protocol

Seed Round in 2020
Yield is building a decentralized lending protocol to bring fixed-term, fixed-rate lending to decentralized finance. Yield was founded by Allan Niemerg in 2020 and is based in Chicago, Illinois.

Keep

Initial Coin Offering in 2020
Keep Network, established in 2017 and based in George Town, Cayman Islands, specializes in creating interactive links between public blockchains and private data. The company's core product, tBTC, is a decentralized bridge enabling users to securely and anonymously transfer their Bitcoin to the Ethereum network, facilitating participation in decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. Keep Network's technology, an off-chain container for private data, allows smart contracts to leverage the full power of public blockchains while maintaining data privacy.

Keep

Venture Round in 2020
Keep Network, established in 2017 and based in George Town, Cayman Islands, specializes in creating interactive links between public blockchains and private data. The company's core product, tBTC, is a decentralized bridge enabling users to securely and anonymously transfer their Bitcoin to the Ethereum network, facilitating participation in decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. Keep Network's technology, an off-chain container for private data, allows smart contracts to leverage the full power of public blockchains while maintaining data privacy.

Optimism

Seed Round in 2020
Optimism is a decentralized infrastructure platform focused on enhancing Ethereum's scalability and transaction speed. Founded in 2019 and headquartered in New York, the company operates as a public benefit corporation, balancing the financial interests of shareholders with the broader needs of the community and society. Optimism develops open-source software that enables developers to build on the Ethereum blockchain more efficiently, utilizing zero-knowledge proofs to ensure the validity of state updates. By promoting fair access to public goods on the internet, Optimism aims to create a responsible and sustainable ecosystem that benefits both businesses and the wider community.

Flashbots

Seed Round in 2020
Flashbots is a research and development company dedicated to improving the efficiency and transparency of Miner Extractable Value (MEV) in blockchain ecosystems. The company focuses on creating tools for miners and searchers to extract MEV in a more transparent and efficient manner. Flashbots aims to mitigate the negative impacts of current MEV extraction techniques, which can pose existential risks to state-rich blockchains like Ethereum. Their goal is to establish a permissionless, transparent, and fair ecosystem for MEV extraction and redistribution.

Compound

Series A in 2019
Compound is an open-source interest rate protocol based in San Francisco, California, that facilitates the development of new financial applications for developers. Founded in 2017, it operates a decentralized finance lending platform designed to create efficient money markets through real-time asset management. The protocol, built on the Ethereum blockchain, employs a series of open-source smart contracts that algorithmically adjust interest rates based on the specific supply and demand of each asset. This enables users to access liquid, transparent, and predictable interest rates, making it a widely adopted system with thousands of users and numerous applications integrating its functionalities.

O1Labs

Series A in 2019
O1Labs, established in 2017, is a blockchain technology company that specializes in zero knowledge cryptography and innovative cryptographic solutions. The company's significant contributions include the development of the Mina Protocol, recognized as the world's first lightweight, scalable, and decentralized zk blockchain. Additionally, O1Labs has created o1js, an intuitive framework designed to assist developers in building zk applications. By leveraging zero-knowledge proofs, O1Labs seeks to enhance blockchain accessibility and facilitate the creation of user-friendly cryptocurrency applications that operate natively in web browsers. The company's vision is to drive the next generation of applications powered by zero knowledge cryptography.

Veil

Seed Round in 2019
Veil, Inc. is a peer-to-peer trading platform that focuses on prediction markets and derivatives, leveraging the Augur and 0x protocols. Founded in 2018 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, the company allows users to engage in betting on various prediction markets while also facilitating the trading of a diverse array of crypto assets. Veil's innovative platform aims to enhance user participation in decentralized markets by providing a seamless and accessible trading experience.

Cosmos Network

Seed Round in 2019
Cosmos is a versatile project focused on creating a network of distributed ledgers aimed at addressing persistent challenges within the cryptocurrency and blockchain sectors. It provides a container-first monitoring system that operates independently of specific infrastructures or operating systems, allowing users to connect all containers in their data centers to a unified dashboard. This dual functionality not only enhances monitoring capabilities but also facilitates better integration and communication among various blockchain networks, fostering a more interconnected ecosystem.

Namebase

Seed Round in 2018
Namebase is an open-bidding domain marketplace that facilitates the buying, selling, and management of top-level domains and HNS coins. The platform simplifies the use of next-generation domain names, enabling users to host websites and receive cryptocurrency through their domain names. By providing a straightforward marketplace, Namebase supports users in navigating the evolving landscape of digital assets and domain ownership.

Spacemesh

Venture Round in 2018
Spacemesh is a company based in North Pole, Alaska, that develops a unique Layer 1 blockchain protocol designed to support a decentralized and secure cryptocurrency ecosystem. Its innovative blockmesh operating system utilizes a Proofs of Space-Time consensus protocol, which enables participants to contribute computing power through unused hard drive space without incurring significant resource costs. This approach distinguishes Spacemesh from traditional blockchain architectures by employing a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) structure rather than a linear chain, and it incorporates a leaderless voting mechanism to ensure fairness and decentralization. The platform is built to facilitate the deployment of general-purpose smart contracts at scale, promoting an environmentally sustainable and equitable cryptocurrency that is capable of self-healing and maintaining high security. Spacemesh aims to redefine permissionless decentralization and is set to launch its genesis block in December 2022.

Gauntlet

Gauntlet is a financial modeling and simulation company focused on enhancing the safety and efficiency of blockchain protocols and smart contracts. Through its advanced platform, Gauntlet employs agent-based simulation techniques to analyze and optimize key parameters of various protocols. This approach allows the company to model market risks and economic incentives effectively, helping clients improve their capital efficiency and maximize returns for stakeholders while minimizing associated risks. By driving sustainable growth for leading crypto protocols, chains, and on-chain treasuries, Gauntlet plays a crucial role in enhancing the financial performance of businesses in the blockchain space.
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