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Former Paradigm investment partner Casey Caruso’s Topology has been backed by Andreessen Horowitz’s executives, an OpenAI founder and even Paris Hilton.
Casey Caruso, a former investment partner of crypto-focused venture capital firm Paradigm, has raised $75 million to kickstart her new early-stage venture firm called Topology.
Caruso, who was listed in Forbes’ 30 under 30 list in 2022, said in a Dec. 12 X post that Topology will back founders who “put everything on the line to bend the arc of human progress.”
She worked at Paradigm between May 2021 and January 2023 and was the crypto specialist at Bessemer Venture Partners for two and a half years before that.
The former Paradigm investment partner has invested in everything from brain-computer interfaces and decentralized protocols to semiconductors and new cities over the last 8 years.
Source: Casey Caruso
Caruso would have overseen many of Paradigm’s crypto investments, such as Coinbase, Fireblocks, Blast, Optimism, Uniswap, MakerDAO, Chainalysis, MoonPay, Gitcoin and Friend.tech.
Fortune reported that Topology’s $75 million raise was led by Cendana Capital and Accolade Partners, while limited partners include an undisclosed OpenAI founder, VC firm Andreessen Horowitz’s Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon, one of the authors of GPT-4 and Bessemer’s managing partner Bob Goodman.
American celebrity and tech investor Paris Hilton even contributed to Caruso’s new fund.
Caruso said Topology had been in stealth mode for seven months before launching on Dec. 12.
Related: VC Roundup: Funding falls to $2.4B in Q3 2024, early-stage startups dominate
Caruso, 31, said she started writing open-source software at 15 years old and mined crypto while still in “school.”
She used those profits to start angel investing — providing capital to startups often in exchange for ownership equity.
Casey Caruso featured in Forbes’ 30 under 30 list in 2022. Source: Casey Caruso/ LinkedIn
The serial investor also worked as an engineer at Google and had a brief stint studying neuroengineering at Harvard University before dropping out to work for Paradigm.
Crypto VC funding fell 17% quarter-on-quarter to $2.4 billion from 478 deals in Q3, Galaxy Research reported on Nov. 15.
However, early-stage companies — Topology’s primary focus area — accounted for 85% of the funding.
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