Instagram and Facebook veteran joins crypto VC Paradigm as CMO

David Swain has joined Paradigm, a crypto venture capital giant, as its chief marketing officer.

Swain, who previously served as head of global communications at Instagram and senior director of technology communications at Facebook in his career, moved to Paradigm last month, according to his LinkedIn profile. Most recently, Swain was vice president of global partnerships at Strava, a social fitness app and community boasting over 120 million members.

Swain's appointment comes shortly after Paradigm raised $850 million for its third fund in June. This fund aims to invest in early-stage crypto projects. It follows Paradigm's $2.5 billion fund raised in 2021, the largest crypto investment vehicle at that time.

"I've had a front-row seat to the past two major platform-level shifts of the internet, and the pace of development across the crypto stack is unlike anything I've seen," Swain told The Block in a statement. "It's a rare opportunity to join a team like Paradigm where there is as much of an emphasis on building as investing. Much of my career has been spent working across developer and startup ecosystems helping founders navigate growth — couldn't be more excited to be getting back to the build phase."

Swain went on to say that he shares a "deep belief" that crypto can do for money, finance and digital property what the internet did for information and media.

"Navigating the path to crypto reaching its full potential is inherently complex for founders and the broader community. My job will be to serve both," he said.

Paradigm hires CMO

Swain's move to Paradigm is intriguing as the firm recently also showed interest in investing in frontier technologies like artificial intelligence.

Last year, The Block reported Paradigm had removed references to crypto and web3 from its website and rebranded as a "research-driven technology investment firm." Huang later described this change as "kind of ridiculous" and emphasized that the firm's commitment to crypto has never been stronger, while also noting that developments in artificial intelligence are "too interesting to ignore."

This year, Paradigm has backed more than 10 crypto startups, leading and joining big funding rounds for several projects. These include leading a $225 million Series A round for the Layer 1 blockchain developer Monad, a $150 million Series A for the decentralized social networking protocol Farcaster, a $70 million funding round for the Bitcoin staking protocol Babylon, and a $55 million Series A round for zero-knowledge proofs startup Succinct Labs.

San Francisco-based Paradigm invests in startups ranging from $1 million to over $100 million and reportedly manages over $10 billion in assets. Founded in 2018 by Huang and Fred Ehrsam, a Coinbase co-founder, Paradigm remains a major player in the crypto investment space. Ehrsam stepped back from a leadership role last October.

It's unclear whether the CMO position at Paradigm is newly introduced or if Swain is replacing someone, though it appears to be the former. Alana Palmedo, managing partner and chief operating officer at Paradigm, told The Block in a statement that Swain "uniquely understands the dynamics of technical breakthroughs and the opportunities they bring. He brings an incredible perspective to our portfolio and founders across the crypto industry."

(Updates with comments from David Swain and Alana Palmedo)

The Funding newsletter: Stay updated on the latest crypto funding news and trends with my bimonthly newsletter, The Funding. It's free. Sign up here!