Josie Doan/PitchBook News
Michael Sonnenshein, one of crypto’s longest-tenured executives, is stepping back from the industry to join an AI-focused venture capital firm, he told PitchBook exclusively.
His new role as partner and group president at Corner, a multi-stage firm investing across venture, infrastructure and incubation, makes him the latest crypto investor to migrate (or expand) his focus to AI. He sees the two sectors as converging, he said.
“While we’ve now seen regulation beginning to catch up and create frameworks on crypto, we don’t have as much of that yet around AI, and I think that’s to come, and that, to me, smells like more of an opportunity than anything,” he said.
Sonnenshein’s move comes amid a rocky time for crypto markets and a boom in AI. The crypto veteran, who previously spent more than 10 years at digital asset manager Grayscale, ending as CEO, and most recently as president of asset tokenization company Securitize, said crypto’s downturn didn’t drive his decision to jump ship.
Instead, he said he was attracted to the opportunity to unify Corner’s three core business lines. And while he will not initially make investments, his focus will be on building out the team, fundraising and helping to “institutionalize the business.”
The firm, which has offices in Palo Alto, New York, Tel Aviv and Tokyo, invests from seed to late-stage. Its recent portfolio exits include Melio, an Israeli-founded B2B fintech startup acquired by Xero for $2.5 billion in 2025; crypto prime brokerage Hidden Road, acquired by Ripple for $1.25 billion in 2025; and X-Energy, the Amazon-backed nuclear energy company that went public on the Nasdaq in April.
The firm has an unusually international LP base, says it has returned more than $300 million to investors since its inception in 2018 and currently manages $1.7 billion.
As head of Grayscale, Sonnenshein pushed for favorable crypto regulation during the Biden administration and led the company through a series of setbacks, including tumult for its flagship ETF, GBTC, which came under heavy pressure from investors as its shares traded at a steep discount to the value of its underlying bitcoin holdings.
This week, Coindesk reported that Grayscale is delaying its IPO, internally citing unfavorable market conditions.
AI VC deals, meanwhile, surpassed 2025’s full-year total in the first quarter of 2026 alone, according to a recent PitchBook research report. AI startups raised $255.5 billion globally, narrowly eclipsing last year’s $254.4 billion total.
Learn about our editorial standards.
