Alchemy’s Paul Almasi Says “The Future of Web3 Will be Defined in the Next Two to Three Years”

The blockchain infrastructure company wants to play a key role in the industry by aligning itself with companies building products that could still be relevant after 20 years.
Image source: Alchemy

Last Updated on May 18, 2023

Quick take:

  • Alchemy’s venture arm wants to play a role in defining the future of web3.
  • The web3 investment fund mainly invests in early-stage companies building on the Alchemy ecosystem.
  • The fund was last valued at $10 billion following a $200 million fundraising in early 2022.

Alchemy has continued with its efforts in backing web3 startups despite the market downturn. The blockchain infrastructure company’s venture arm raised $200 million earlier last year at a valuation of $10 billion.

Although several web3-focused VCs, and certainly mainstream venture capital firms have reduced their investments in the industry since June last year, Alchemy has maintained its strategy of investing in early-stage web3 startups.

In June, it launched a $25 million developer grant program to ramp up the mass adoption of web3. In August, it also acquired web3 education service provider ChainShot for an undisclosed amount.

And in December, it launched a free web3 app store that people can use to access decentralised apps. The platform can also be used by developers to launch web3 apps.

All these products and investments are part of a vision to play a key role in defining the future of web3. In a recent interview with CoinDesk, Alchemy’s Paul Almasi described the fund’s strategy as that of aligning itself with “web3 missionaries, not mercenaries”. 

The company is specifically focused on backing founders that are looking to build on the Alchemy ecosystem. The leading blockchain API and infrastructure provider has ongoing partnerships with some of the leading blockchain companies including Astar Network a leading blockchain infrastructure provider that supports Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-based smart contracts for multi-chain transactions.

Alchemy is also backed by leading venture capital firms like A16z, Lightspeed, Coatue and Altimeter, among others.

It currently counts layer 2 Ethereum scaling solutions Arbitrum, Matter Labs and Optimism, 3D avatar tech Genies, web3 communications provider XMTP, and decentralised analytics platform Space and Time, among its 84 portfolio companies.

Although the return is still an important element for any investor, Alchemy is prioritising projects that build apps and solutions that leverage the use cases of blockchain technology. These are companies that could still be relevant in 20 years.

And Almasi thinks that those companies will be built within the next two to three years. “We felt strongly that the ideas and products that are going to define Web3 for the next 20 years are going to be built in the next two to three years. So we have to do everything in our power to help make that happen,” Almasi told CoinDesk.

“And for us being an infrastructure platform, we strongly believe that those ideas are going to be brought to life by developers,” he added.

Alchemy has not appeared as a lead investor in many startups. The company mainly invests $150,000 to $250,000 per company with three-quarters of its investments dedicated to pre-seed stages. It also extends its partnership with portfolio companies through its support system which offers among others, early product feedback, customer introductions to help validate the product’s market fit, and recruiting.

In February 2023, Alchemy launched a new tool called “create web3 dapp”, which cuts the web3 app development time to just four minutes. According to Almasi, in the coming weeks, it will launch Alchemy Connect, a full-service platform that also acts as a social network for founders.

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