3 - 4 minute read
Alchemy, a company that builds Web3 infrastructure for decentralized applications, launched a venture capital arm in late 2021, during a record-breaking year for crypto investments. The company was valued at $10 billion during a $200 million fundraise in early 2022. Despite the bear market that has since crept in, Alchemy Ventures continues to back early-stage investors.
According to Alchemy Ventures head Paul Almasi, the venture arm invests off the main company’s balance sheet, and every dollar put out must tie back to the top-level goals for the Alchemy ecosystem. While returns are still important, the firm has three other primary goals: attracting early-stage founders to the Alchemy ecosystem, gathering strategic intel to make better decisions for the Alchemy roadmap, and growing out the main team through acquihires or full acquisitions.
Alchemy Ventures invests across blockchains and use cases, with particular interest in end-user applications and infrastructure or developer tools that help drive end-user adoption. The firm invests an average of $150,000 to $250,000 per company, with about three-quarters of the investments in pre-seed or seed stage rounds. Alchemy Ventures offers a wide range of operational support, including early product feedback, customer introductions to help validate the product’s market fit, and recruiting. The firm is also preparing to launch Alchemy Connect, a full-service platform and social network for founders.
Alchemy Ventures has made 84 investments to date across two portfolio tracks. The core ventures portfolio involves a cash infusion in exchange for equity, while the accelerator exchanges infrastructure credits for Amazon Web Services, Alchemy, and others for equity. Forty-six of the firm’s portfolio has gone through the accelerator side.
When it comes to investment strategy, Alchemy Ventures invests in areas that include end-user applications and infrastructure or developer tools that help drive end-user adoption. The firm believes that the ideas and products that will define Web3 for the next 20 years will be built in the next two to three years and, as an infrastructure platform, strongly believes that those ideas will be brought to life by developers.
“It’s very important for us that we want to align ourselves with Web3 missionaries, not mercenaries,” said Almasi.
The Bottom Line
Alchemy Ventures, the venture capital arm of Alchemy, invests off the main company’s balance sheet and has three primary goals: attracting early-stage founders to the Alchemy ecosystem, gathering strategic intel to make better decisions for the Alchemy roadmap, and growing out the main team through acquihires or full acquisitions. The firm invests across blockchains and use cases, with particular interest in end-user applications and infrastructure or developer tools that help drive end-user adoption. Traders may find opportunities in early-stage investments that align with Alchemy’s goals and values in the Web3 ecosystem.
