Framework Ventures launches $400 million fund targeting AI, crypto, robotics, and energy
Framework Ventures has closed a new $400 million fund designed to back startups at the intersection of crypto, artificial intelligence, robotics, and energy, marking a significant broadening of the firm’s original blockchain-first strategy. The vehicle, the firm’s fourth, reflects a growing trend among digital asset investors who are moving beyond pure crypto and into a wider category of what Framework calls “frontier technology.”
According to co-founders Vance Spencer and Michael Anderson, roughly half of the capital has already been allocated to investments, underscoring how quickly founders in their orbit are building across multiple advanced tech verticals. While they declined to disclose specific limited partners, the fund’s backers reportedly include sovereign wealth funds, funds of funds, an Ivy League university endowment, and several nonprofit institutions.
A recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows that Framework managed approximately $1.28 billion in assets as of December 2025, highlighting its rise from a specialized DeFi investor to a broader multi-stage venture platform. The new fund significantly extends the firm’s remit, taking it from a crypto-centric shop to an investor in what it sees as the foundational infrastructure of the next decade’s digital economy.
Anderson emphasized that the move into AI and adjacent sectors is not simply a reaction to the surge of hype and capital flowing into artificial intelligence. Instead, he described the shift as founder-led: entrepreneurs already backed by Framework increasingly want to build products that fuse crypto rails with AI capabilities, often adding robotics and energy considerations to their long-term roadmaps.
Framework’s roots are firmly in decentralized finance. Launched in 2019, the firm became an early and notable backer of projects like Aave and Chainlink, both of which played a central role in establishing the DeFi ecosystem and blockchain oracle infrastructure. Building on that early success, Framework raised a $100 million second fund in 2021 and a $400 million crypto-focused vehicle in 2022, positioning itself as a key player in the digital asset venture landscape.
The latest fund marks a clear expansion of that thesis. Beyond traditional blockchain protocols, Framework is now backing companies such as Mecka AI, a robotics data startup that sits at the crossroads of machine learning and automated systems. The firm has also taken a stake in Better.com, a mortgage company, signaling a willingness to invest in fintech and real-world financial services that may not be purely crypto-native but can benefit from frontier technologies.
This pivot mirrors a broader reorientation across the crypto venture sector. Several prominent firms that once focused almost exclusively on tokens, protocols, and DeFi are now diversifying into AI, data infrastructure, and real-world applications. In May, for example, Haun Ventures unveiled a $1 billion fund dedicated to projects working on crypto financial rails, tokenization, and AI-powered agents designed to interact with decentralized systems.
Paradigm, one of the most influential VC firms in the crypto space, is reportedly in the process of assembling a new fund of up to $1.5 billion. That vehicle is expected to target startups in crypto, artificial intelligence, and robotics, reinforcing the notion that the most ambitious venture investors no longer see these sectors as isolated silos but as deeply interconnected innovation layers.
The timing of Framework’s new fund coincides with an intense wave of venture capital interest in AI leaders such as OpenAI and Anthropic, along with a growing class of specialized AI infrastructure and tooling companies. While some investors are repositioning away from digital assets altogether, Framework and its peers are instead layering AI, robotics, and energy investments on top of their existing crypto expertise, betting that convergence rather than substitution will define the next cycle.
At the same time, many firms native to the crypto ecosystem are rethinking how they allocate resources. Digital asset custodian BitGo, for instance, recently announced plans to cut nearly 15% of its workforce while pivoting more capital and talent toward security products, trading services, stablecoin infrastructure, settlement layers, and AI-enhanced platforms. This kind of restructuring underscores how AI is increasingly seen as a horizontal technology that can upgrade core crypto and financial services.
Meanwhile, new projects are experimenting with how blockchain and AI can reinforce each other. Story Protocol, originally known for its focus on intellectual property licensing, has rebranded as the DATA Foundation and is now concentrating on building systems to source, verify, license, and reward contributors for datasets used in AI training. By using blockchain-based rails, the project aims to create transparent, auditable mechanisms for compensating data owners and creators in an AI-driven economy.
Framework’s decision to group blockchain, AI, robotics, and energy under the single banner of “frontier technology” hints at how the firm expects these fields to overlap in practice. A next-generation logistics company, for example, might combine robotic automation in warehouses, AI models for demand forecasting, blockchain-based supply chain verification, and energy optimization systems tied to smart grids or carbon markets. Framework’s portfolio is positioned to capture value at multiple layers of that stack.
For founders, the new fund signals that capital is available for hybrid ideas that would have been harder to place just a few years ago. Entrepreneurs building AI-driven agents that can custody, trade, or analyze digital assets, or robots that interact with asset-backed tokens in real-world environments, now have investors who understand both the technical complexity and the regulatory nuances of these crossover products. The presence of large institutional LPs further suggests that these themes are no longer niche experiments but part of mainstream long-term allocations.
The convergence of AI and crypto also has implications for how data, ownership, and incentives are structured. Many AI models rely on vast, often opaque data pipelines. Crypto-native mechanisms such as tokenized rewards, on-chain attestations, and decentralized identity systems can introduce new ways to track provenance, distribute value to contributors, and verify the integrity of training data. Funds like Framework’s are likely to back projects that turn these concepts into production-ready platforms.
Robotics and energy add yet another dimension. As more robots operate in physical environments-factories, warehouses, even public spaces-the need for verifiable machine-to-machine payments, real-time data markets, and secure communication channels grows. Blockchain-based systems can offer settlement and auditability, while AI governs decision-making and robotics handle execution. Energy technologies, especially around grid management and renewable integration, may lean on similar stacks to price usage, track emissions, and coordinate distributed resources.
For the broader market, Framework’s expanded mandate is a sign that the “crypto winter” narrative is evolving. Rather than abandoning digital assets, sophisticated investors are reframing them as one component of a larger technological transformation. Tokens, protocols, and decentralized applications can serve as the financial and governance base layer for AI services, robotic networks, and energy systems. In this view, crypto becomes less about speculative trading and more about building programmable infrastructure for emerging industries.
Investors should also pay attention to how these multi-domain funds structure their portfolios. By mixing high-risk early-stage crypto protocols with more traditional equity stakes in AI or robotics startups, managers can diversify exposure while preserving upside. The presence of sovereign wealth funds and endowments in Framework’s LP base indicates that long-duration capital is comfortable with such blended strategies, which can ride multiple secular growth trends at once.
Looking ahead, the success of Framework’s $400 million fund will likely be judged not only by financial returns but by the degree to which its portfolio companies demonstrate real-world utility. Projects that bridge the gap between digital and physical infrastructure-such as AI agents interacting with blockchain-based financial rails, robots executing on-chain instructions, or energy systems governed by transparent smart contracts-will be key test cases for the firm’s expanded vision.
In sum, Framework Ventures’ new fund crystallizes a broader shift in venture capital: the most ambitious investors in crypto are no longer just betting on blockchains in isolation. They are positioning themselves at the intersections of AI, robotics, and energy, where they believe the most transformative companies of the next decade will be built-and where crypto technology may quietly serve as the connective tissue tying these frontier sectors together.