SCOOP: Crypto Fund Paradigm's Assets Under Management Climb 343% to $13.2 Billion

Andreessen Horowitz AUM rises 53% to $54.6 billion

In previously unreported financial filings, some of the technology industry’s top investors disclosed the soaring values of their portfolios.

The crypto investment firm Paradigm disclosed that its assets under management have ballooned to $13.2 billion.

That’s up 343% from $2.98 billion in Paradigm’s financial filing from December 2020.

Traditionally, the value of venture capital firms’ holdings have been kept secret and are not subject to financial disclosures.

But in a recent shift, venture capital firms — eager to invest in crypto tokens and other assets — have begun to file as registered investment advisors. To maintain that designation, firms are required to reveal the total amount of assets under management across their holdings.

Andreessen Horowitz — which manages a suite of venture capital funds, including a crypto fund — disclosed last week that its assets under management reached $54.6 billion. That’s up 53% from $35.8 billion in its previous disclosure.

The assets under management for Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto-focused funds total about $9 billion.

Sequoia Capital, which is in the process of reshaping its entire investing structure, disclosed that its holdings total $85.5 billion. (In its initial filing as a registered investment advisor in September, Sequoia disclosed that it had $80.7 billion in assets under management.)

Tiger Global, which invests in both public and private companies, disclosed that it has $124.7 billion in regulatory assets under management. That’s up 58% from $79.1 billion in its 2021 filing.

Coatue disclosed last week that it has $72.1 billion in assets under management.

Like any single financial metric, gawking at the size of these firms’ assets under management has its limitations. These totals are shaped by valuations given to private, illiquid holdings. The value can be driven upward by raising new funds or downward by distributing assets to limited partners. But raising more money isn’t proof of good financial performance — and returning money to limited partners is a necessary condition of being a successful investor.

For instance, Paradigm raised a $2.5 billion fund since it last disclosed its assets under management. So, putting that new funding aside, it would seem that Paradigm has grown its assets to $10.7 billion since its December 2020 filing. That would suggest a 259% return on the $2.98 billion that the firm had under management previously.

Registered investment advisors are required to disclose “regulatory” assets under management — which is a government-defined term and doesn’t necessarily capture how these firms think about the full scope of their assets under management. But it provides a shared definition that makes it easier to compare one investor to another.

These assets under management figures offer a glimpse into the sheer scale of firms like Paradigm and Andreessen Horowitz and how their size has continued to grow as they’ve poured money into crypto and startups.