Main Highlights:
- Alchemy, a blockchain and Web3 development SaaS startup, has raised $250 million in a Series C fundraising round, valuing the company at $3.5 billion, exactly six months after collecting $80 million at a $505 million valuation.
- According to Alchemy CTO and co-founder Joe Lau, the firm has been performing so well that it hasn’t even touched the $80 million raised in its Series B round.
- Alchemy manages approximately $45 billion in transaction volume for businesses worldwide.
- Despite its rapid expansion, Alchemy maintains a lean crew. It now employs 37 people.
Alchemy, a blockchain and Web3 development SaaS startup, has raised $250 million in a Series C fundraising round, valuing the company at $3.5 billion. The funding round comes precisely six months after the company raised $80 million at a valuation of $505 million in its Series A fundraising round of $250 million. According to people familiar with the deal, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) spearheaded the fundraising effort, which was quite competitive. Several notable venture capital firms competed to not only support the startup but also to lead the investment.
Aside from the fact that Alchemy’s valuation has increased sevenfold in six months (equating to a gain of more than $500 million per month), the funding is remarkable for several other reasons. In the first place, it represents one of the most significant Web3/blockchain investments undertaken by a16z to date. As a demonstration of its commitment to the cryptocurrency field, the company announced the formation of a $2.2 billion cryptocurrency fund in June. (For those unfamiliar with Web3, a group of protocols led by blockchain tries to rethink how the Internet is wired at the backend to make it more secure.)
Also significant is the fact that Alchemy has achieved something that most firms struggle with: financial viability. It’s “extremely profitable,” according to the CEO and co-founder Nikil Viswanathan. As demand for its offering soared and sales grew 15x since its last raise in April, he claimed it’d turned the corner recently. According to Alchemy CTO and co-founder Joe Lau, the firm has been performing so well that it hasn’t even touched the $80 million it raised in its Series B round.
Internet Cloud Computing
AWS (Amazon Web Services) conducted the Internet’s cloud computing for AWS (Alchemy). Developers considering establishing a product on top of a blockchain, or using conventional blockchain apps, will find a good starting point with the startup. A “required” developer tool removes the complexity and costs of infrastructure development while improving apps. In August of the following year, it will make its product available to the public.
It now powers a wide range of transactions across practically every blockchain industry, including financial institutions, exchanges, and multi-billion dollar decentralized finance projects. Every central NFT platform, including MakersPlace, OpenSea, Nifty Gateway, super rare, and CryptoPunks, has soon adopted it as the technology behind their implementations. Other clients are dapper Labs, Axie Infinity, and Fortune 500 companies like Adobe, which recently signed a blockchain agreement. In addition, it caters to “the vast bulk of DeFi’s needs.”
Alchemy fuels company transaction volumes totaling over $45 billion. This is an increase from the last rise in April, which was $30 billion. Since then, the number of blockchains powered by the company has increased. Demand has led them to expand their platform to incorporate more cryptocurrencies, including Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Flow.
Viswanathan remarked that Alchemy had experienced a significant influx of fresh developers. He went on to say that Alchemy now has a lot more firms and teams using it, as well as more developers per team or company. Despite its rapid expansion, Alchemy has managed to keep its staff lean. There are now 37 people working there. Based in San Francisco, it has a New York office and remote workers all over the world.
The company intends to devote the majority of its new resources to fostering a blockchain community. According to the company’s founders, alchemy got off to a good start in 2017, when the market was small, and many people still underestimated the field’s potential.
In Viswanathan’s opinion, Alchemy has significantly influenced the current growth and adoption of blockchain technology. “A crucial driver” for the expansion of blockchain and Web3, according to Andreessen Horowitz (16z) general partner Ali Yahya. Alchemy is already “the de facto developer platform” for Web3.
“Alchemy’s growth across all important metrics has been astonishing,” he stated in an email. Alchemy’s platform allows developers to construct blockchain products utilized by millions of people worldwide, same to how Microsoft and AWS established platforms to power the computer and internet sectors.
Alchemy’s Series C Funding
John L. Hennessy, Google’s chairman and former president of Stanford University, echoed Yahya’s comments and invested in the company’s most recent round. New investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and Redpoint also took part in the Series C funding. Several of Alchemy’s previous supporters have increased their commitment to the company. Alchemy has now raised around $345 million since its 2017 launch.
The Glazer family (owners of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Manchester United), the Chainsmokers’ Mantis, former Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, Coinbase, SignalFire, Samsung, Stanford University, Charles Schwab, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and others have all invested in the company in the past.
