Blockchain infrastructure company Alchemy is launching an investment arm for the development of Web3.
The newly-announced Alchemy Ventures is partnered with a number of Alchemy’s investors. Projects the fund invests in will also have access to A16z, Pantera Capital, Coatue, Addition Ventures, Dreamers Inc., and The Chainsmokers among others.
The fund plans to invest more than capital. It will also provide upstart Web3 builders with access to the fund’s strategic partners and Alchemy itself, founders dinners for networking, Alchemy’s recruiting network, access to Alchemy’s suite of products and personal access to its team.
Alchemy announced the venture arm today in a blog post, but it’s already been building in the background. It’s already working with crypto exchange FTX, zk roll-ups solution Matter Labs, scaling solution Arbitrum among others and avatar tech company Genies, among others.
“We’ve been there from day one, helping companies like OpenSea, Dapper Labs, and 0x turn into some of the most used applications in the space,” said the blog post. “As a result, we have unique insight into the things that are most helpful for early-stage companies building on blockchain.”
Alchemy launched publicly in August of 2020, three years after its founding. It provides development and infrastructure tools for billions-worth of on-chain transactions and considerable assets locked in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and applications. It’s placed great focus on the non-fungible token (NFT) space as it’s grown, especially considering the explosion of NFT use in the late summer of 2021.
Amid the explosion of the NFT space, it added a roster of angel investors to guide expansion efforts, culminating in a Series C round led by a16z that valued the firm at $3.5 billion.
At the time, Alchemy said it planned to take that investment and invest it back into the blockchain community. In today’s blog post, the firm said Alchemy Ventures aims to fulfill that promise.
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story named CB Insights as a partner. Alchemy corrected its announcement after publication to reflect that Dreamers Inc. is a partner, not CB Insights.