David Swain has joined cryptocurrency venture capital giant Paradigm as Chief Marketing Officer.
Swain, who previously served as global communications director at Instagram and senior director of technical communications at Facebook, joined Paradigm last month, according to her LinkedIn profile. Most recently, Swain served as vice president of global partnerships at Strava, a social fitness app and community with more than 120 million members.
Swain’s appointment comes shortly after Paradigm raised $850 million for its third fund in June, which aims to invest in early-stage cryptocurrency projects. It follows Paradigm’s $2.5 billion fund raised in 2021, which was the largest cryptocurrency investment vehicle at the time.
“I’ve had a front-row seat to the last two major platform-level transformations of the internet, and the pace of development across the crypto stack is unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” Swain said in a statement to The Block. “This is a rare opportunity to join a team as focused on building as it is investing, like Paradigm. Most of my career has been spent helping developers and founders navigate growth in the startup ecosystem, and I’m excited to get back to building.”
Swain said he shares a “deep belief” that cryptocurrencies can do for money, finance and digital assets what the internet did for information and media.
“Finding a way for cryptocurrencies to reach their full potential is inherently complex for both founders and the broader community. My job is to serve both,” he said.
Paradigm, CMO Recruitment
Swain’s move to Paradigm is interesting, as the company has recently expressed interest in investing in cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence.
Last year, The Block reported that Paradigm had removed references to cryptocurrencies and web3 from its website and rebranded itself as a “research-focused technology investment firm.” Huang later described the change as “somewhat absurd,” and stressed that the company’s commitment to cryptocurrencies was stronger than ever, while noting that advances in artificial intelligence were “too exciting to ignore.”
This year, Paradigm has supported over 10 crypto startups, leading and participating in large-scale funding rounds for several projects. These include a $225 million Series A round for Layer 1 blockchain developer Monad, a $150 million Series A round for decentralized social networking protocol Farcaster, a $70 million funding round for Bitcoin staking protocol Babylon, and a $55 million Series A round for zero-knowledge proof startup Succinct Labs.
Headquartered in San Francisco, Paradigm invests in startups valued between $1 million and $100 million and has over $10 billion in assets under management. Founded in 2018 by Huang and Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, Paradigm remains a major player in the cryptocurrency investment space. Ehrsam stepped down from his leadership role in October of last year.
It’s unclear whether the CMO position at Paradigm is new or if Swain is replacing someone else, but it appears to be the former. Alana Palmedo, Paradigm’s managing partner and chief operating officer, said in a statement to The Block that Swain “uniquely understands the dynamics of technological innovation and the opportunities it brings. He brings incredible perspective to portfolios and founders across the cryptocurrency industry.”
(Updated with comments from David Swain and Alana Palmedo)
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