"Those three make a lot of sense," says Charles Moldow, a general partner at Foundation Capital, a venture-capital firm in Palo Alto, Calif. "These are the areas we are most focused on," he says. Artificial intelligence has benefited from advances in processing power and analysis that are opening myriad new ways to create products. Meanwhile, growing attention to cryptocurrencies has helped persuade a crop of highly skilled entrepreneurs to work on putting the underlying blockchain technology to various uses. As for the third: "Cybersecurity should be a perennial anchor on the list," Mr. Moldow says.