From drones to nuclear reactors, what projects has Paradigm invested in after leaving the cryptocurrency space?
*Author: Zen, PANews*
After leaving the cryptocurrency space, the veteran venture capital firm Paradigm is accelerating the weaving of its hard technology network.
On November 5, American drone delivery company Zipline announced the completion of a $1.5 billion financing round, reaching a post-money valuation of $21.5 billion, with Paradigm co-leading the investment alongside WCM Investment Management and Layer Global. Just this January, its valuation was only $7.6 billion, nearly tripling in less than a year.
For the cryptocurrency world, the most eye-catching aspect of this financing round is undoubtedly the lead investor, Paradigm. This VC, which rose to prominence in the cryptocurrency industry, is best known for its successful investments in crypto projects like Coinbase and Uniswap.
However, if you look back at Paradigm's investment records over the past year, you'll find that this firm, which was once keen on researching token economics and smart contracts, is now more focused on drone flight safety, factory production efficiency, nuclear power generation, and even space defense.
After investing in several AI, robotics, and hard technology companies, Paradigm launched a new $1.2 billion fund in July this year to expand its footprint in cutting-edge technology.
### Why Paradigm Heavily Invested in Zipline
Founded in 2014, Zipline's initial business model was far from today's drone delivery service.
In 2016, the company began operations in Rwanda, using drones to deliver blood, vaccines, and other medical supplies to remote hospitals. At that time, many local hospitals lacked a stable supply of medical materials, and road transport was limited by geographical conditions. Zipline's drones bypassed rugged roads, providing a faster resupply method for these hospitals.
This seemingly altruistic business gradually evolved into a technology company valued at over $20 billion. After years of operation, Zipline expanded its services to multiple countries in Africa and entered the U.S. market, with its delivery categories extending from medical supplies to food, retail goods, and daily necessities.
What sets Zipline apart from typical drone manufacturers is that it not only manufactures drones but also independently develops flight control software, delivery systems, and takeoff and landing facilities, managing the entire logistics network. In simple terms, it aims to create an automated logistics service that can replace some ground delivery.
According to Zipline, this system has accumulated considerable operational data: as of November this year, Zipline drones have completed a total of 150 million miles of commercial autonomous flights. This year, delivery orders in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area exceeded 1 million, with the median time from order to delivery in October being 19 minutes, while traditional deliveries usually take over 30 minutes.
As the drone delivery business matures, Zipline's commercial footprint is rapidly expanding. This month, Walmart announced a new multi-year agreement with Zipline to add 300 new drone delivery sites in the U.S.; Uber aims to increase their collaborative delivery business to 1 million orders per day by 2029.
These developments have gradually given Zipline the characteristics of a scaled logistics company. **What Paradigm is likely interested in is the gradually forming logistics network behind the drones.**
Matt Huang, co-founder of Paradigm, also emphasized Zipline's scalability, safety record, and mature user experience in the financing announcement.
### From AI to Nuclear Energy: Paradigm's Investment Landscape
In addition to Zipline, Paradigm's investment portfolio includes several names that may be unfamiliar to those in the cryptocurrency space.
As early as April 2025, Paradigm led a $50 million financing round for the open-source AI research organization Nous Research. This company develops the Hermes series of models while exploring distributed AI training, aiming to involve more developers in the development of advanced AI models.
In July 2025, Paradigm participated in a $100 million Series B financing round for the mathematical reasoning AI company Harmonic. Founded by Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev and Tudor Achim, the company primarily develops an AI system called Aristotle that can formally verify mathematical reasoning results, aiming to reduce errors generated by large models in mathematics, coding, and hardware design.
In August this year, Paradigm also led a $9 million seed round for AI data research company Idler. Idler mainly develops reinforcement learning training environments and model evaluation data, helping AI agents learn complex tasks like software development and cybersecurity in simulated real-world work scenarios.
Interestingly, Idler's founder, Ivan Chub, previously participated in founding the on-chain game Dark Forest and the Ethereum application research organization 0xPARC. This time, talent from the crypto field is beginning to shift towards providing infrastructure for AI training.
Another project that better reflects Paradigm's investment logic is the AI computing power platform Andromeda. Andromeda aims to integrate dispersed GPU resources, evaluate and standardize different clusters, and complete computing power procurement, matching, and deployment through a unified platform.
In March 2026, Andromeda completed a financing round, reaching a valuation of $1.5 billion. Paradigm's total investment in it has reached $60 million.
In addition to AI, Paradigm's investments have also extended to industrial manufacturing, semiconductors, space defense, and energy sectors.
Among these, the "least techy" investment is undoubtedly in the American metal parts manufacturer SendCutSend.
The company's founder, Jim Belosic, initially just wanted to solve the problems he encountered while modifying cars. In 2017, he attempted to convert an old Ford car into a steam-powered vehicle but found it very difficult to customize some fine metal parts. Later, he came across laser cutting technology and discovered a business opportunity, founding SendCutSend in 2018.
The company's business model is also quite simple: customers upload design drawings, the system automatically quotes, and then the factory completes laser cutting, metal bending, and machining. Custom parts that previously required repeated communication with manufacturers can now be ordered like online shopping. With the development of robotics, autonomous driving, and aerospace industries, SendCutSend's customer base has grown, including Waymo, Anduril, Relativity Space, and the aforementioned Zipline.
In May this year, SendCutSend completed a $110 million financing round, with Paradigm co-leading alongside Sequoia and Stripe co-founders. In October, the company completed another financing round, reaching a valuation of $2.1 billion, nearly doubling from five months ago.
Interestingly, SendCutSend's founder Belosic has a rather pragmatic understanding of venture capital. In an interview with Fortune magazine, he stated that he likes to convert VC money directly into employee salaries, allowing employees to buy homes and raise children.
In the semiconductor manufacturing sector, Paradigm also invested in Fab2, a startup attempting to change the way chips are produced.
One of Fab2's founders, Sam Zeloof, became famous for making chips in his garage as a teenager, while another founder, Jim Keller, is a well-known chip architect who has worked on processor designs for companies like AMD and Apple.
Fab2 aims to build small, automated semiconductor factories by independently developing pumps, valves, sensors, and precision machining equipment, ultimately achieving mass production of these factories.
In September this year, Fab2 completed a $500 million Series A financing round, reaching a valuation of $3.7 billion, led by Fundomo, with participation from Paradigm and other institutions.
Paradigm's investments have also extended into space. In April this year, American space defense company True Anomaly announced the completion of a $650 million Series D financing round, with Paradigm participating as a new investor. The company develops autonomous spacecraft Jackal and mission management software Mosaic, primarily addressing space security and military needs for the U.S. and its allies.
If investing in drones and space defense is already cross-disciplinary enough, then Paradigm's investment in nuclear energy companies takes it a step further.
In July this year, nuclear energy startup Antares announced the completion of $470 million in financing, co-led by Paradigm and Caffeinated Capital, which includes $370 million in equity financing and $100 million in debt financing.
Antares is developing micro nuclear reactors for military bases, remote facilities, and special mission scenarios, designed to generate power between 100 kilowatts and 1 megawatt. In June this year, its Mark-0 demonstration reactor achieved critical status, and the company plans to continue advancing its power generation system and commercial deployment.
Thus, Paradigm's investment portfolio now covers AI models, automated logistics, industrial manufacturing, space defense, and advanced nuclear energy. From digital assets to physical industries, it is participating in building a technological infrastructure that is fundamentally different from the past.
### Betting on the Future is More Important than Holding onto Crypto
Paradigm's transformation actually reflects a deeper trend in the Silicon Valley venture capital market: the imagination of the future is shifting. At the end of October, a16z Crypto rebranded to a16z Frontier, focusing on frontier technology.
In 2018, when Matt Huang co-founded Paradigm with Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, cryptocurrencies were seen by many investors as an important part of the next generation of internet and financial infrastructure.
That was a period full of imagination—Bitcoin, Ethereum, and smart contracts brought new financial and technological experiments, and many startups emerged in areas like decentralized trading, digital assets, and on-chain finance. Paradigm built its investment reputation during this time.
However, breakthroughs in generative AI have rapidly brought artificial intelligence from long-term technological research into commercial applications. Large models have spawned new software and services, driving demand for GPUs, data centers, energy, and automation equipment. Robotics and autonomous systems have begun to enter logistics, manufacturing, and other physical industries.
These fields not only attract a large amount of venture capital but also provide substantial and relatively clear commercial demands.
In contrast, while cryptocurrencies have made some progress in areas like stablecoins, payments, and financial market infrastructure, many native crypto projects still revolve around token issuance, trading, and speculative activities. Market activity is highly correlated with token prices and industry cycles, and the path for technological innovation to translate into sustained commercial revenue still needs to be broadened.
For venture capital firms that are always looking for high-growth opportunities, AI and its extended physical technology industries are clearly a more attractive direction.
Paradigm Managing Partner Alana Palmedo provided a rather straightforward explanation: Crypto is the frontier technology that Paradigm entered early on and remains exciting, but now there are too many significant changes happening in other fields that cannot be ignored.
The job of investment institutions is to seek the future. As more potential major technological breakthroughs occur in AI, robotics, manufacturing, and energy, expanding the investment scope to these industries is a rather natural choice.
Moreover, the companies that Paradigm invests in share a noteworthy common characteristic: most of them are focused on solving specific problems in real industries.
Zipline aims to reduce delivery costs and improve logistics efficiency; SendCutSend helps businesses obtain custom parts faster; Antares explores stable and reliable energy supply; True Anomaly seeks to meet the growing demand for space security.
The markets they face already exist, and the goal of technological innovation is to provide solutions that are more efficient, lower in cost, or more capable. This contrasts with many crypto projects that first establish a token economy, attract users and liquidity, and then seek long-term business models.
Of course, physical technology also has its own challenges. Investors may need to wait for years to determine whether a technology truly has the potential for scalable profitability. For top VCs, the real risk is not missing a particular token or cycle, but rather narrowing the future down to a single narrative. Paradigm's new $1.2 billion fund is betting on a hard technology network that can embed itself in real industries and transcend cycles.