By
Temitope Olatunji
April 24th, 2024
Paul Almasi, Alchemy’s head of ecosystem development, stated that the company identifies itself as an ecosystem builder and seeks to get people to experience the new technology.
According to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on September 9, Web3 platform Alchemy is on course to raise $12 million to establish a new venture capital fund. However, the purpose of the Alchemy SPV III fund has not yet been disclosed. Also, the fundraising process is yet to be initiated. It is speculated that the funds would go into its usual operation of investing in crypto-focused startups. The blockchain platform has established a venture arm called Alchemy Ventures for this purpose.
Paul Almasi, Alchemy’s head of ecosystem development, stated that the company identifies itself as an ecosystem builder and seeks to get people to experience the new technology.
“We believe as ecosystem builders, it’s our responsibility to help everyone get excited about the new technology, but also to bring new developers within the ecosystem even during the market downturn,” he said.
Alchemy launched a $25 million grant in June to support Web3 developers and startups. It is reported that the funds were made available in July with applicants eligible for as high as $50,000. In February, it raised $200 million in equity investment to get its valuation to $10.2 billion. It was valued at $3.5 billion at the October Series C. CEO Nikil Viswanathan also disclosed that its user base had grown by 300%.
Almasi in an interview mentioned that they focus on funding projects that are dedicated to increasing the utility of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT). Similarly, they are focused on projects that are seeking to make decentralized finance (DeFi) accessible to institutions and at-home traders. For now, the first cohort would be made up of diverse representations of builders specifically chosen by the Alchemy team.
“Building Web3 is painful … we want to have a centralized place where people can go and learn about these things in a structured way,” said Almasi.
Its funding goes beyond Web3 builders as the platform has equally invested in educational projects including Web3 U and The Road to Web3.
Recently, the crypto market has been much affected by severe pullback forcing projects to lay off workers as others go bankrupt. However, this is seen as a perfect opportunity for Web3 projects to grow.