Global spend on the blockchain technology is projected to reach $19 billion by 2024, growing at a CAGR of 42%, an IDC study has said. In the last two years, conversation around the technology has moved beyond concepts to application, both in and outside the enterprise, and in public and permission-based blockchain networks.
Capitalising on the growing demand and aiming to establish infrastructure capabilities in blockchain globally is Zeeve. “Our growth is a reflection of how the blockchain market has been expanding,” says Ravi Chamria, co-founder and CEO. “When we started out, we were building full nodes, the complete infrastructure. As the market matured, we got into application programming interface (APIs) for various public protocols, because not everyone wanted full nodes,” he adds.
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With demand for blockchain evolving, Zeeve is now building its own indexing protocols, query engines, privacy and security capabilities and sophisticated dashboards for advanced analytics. “BFSI and telecom are two of the biggest industries we operate in. Consortiums, supply chain financing solutions, decentralised finance (DeFi) exchanges, non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces and prediction markets are the major areas we are working in today,” says Chamria.
Zeeve follows a software as a service (SaaS)-like subscription model for its API business and charges its clients on a monthly basis for every node it builds and maintains for them. Having seen investments of over $2.5 million, the business is profitable, with protocol partners accounting for major revenues, followed by enterprises. “Although enterprises are expected to yield large revenues, the adoption is gradual and limited for now,” says Chamria. “They usually start with 20-30 nodes and only if they grow to over 1,000 nodes do they become a large business for us. Public protocols, on the other hand, are past that level from the start,” he adds.
With the advent of virtual worlds like the metaverse and growing popularity of virtual games like fantasy leagues, Zeeve sees a great opportunity for blockchain’s application in the Indian market. “In metaverse, a person’s digital identity will be a blockchain smart contract. Since there will be millions of such contracts, we see Indian startups actively entering the metaverse space. In addition, NFTs are gaining traction with Indian fans and collectors, which is a huge plus for us,” says Chamria.