Startup Backed by Jay-Z Is Helping Ethereum Devs Build Apps, Here’s How

A Jay-Z and Will Smith-backed startup announced the rollout of a new software suite yesterday, allowing blockchain developers to enjoy a more streamlined dev process.

Alchemy of CryptoKitties Fame

Called Alchemy, the startup raised $15 million in a 2019 Series A round counting Jay-Z and Will Smith among others as investors. Yesterday, the firm released its Alchemy Build suite, which includes debugging and search tools for blockchain developers.

While the firm is relatively unknown, its most famous product is CryptoKitties – the Ethereum dApp notorious for congesting the network back in 2018.

Build describes itself as a suite designed to reduce the amount of time blockchain developers spend on issues not related to the product itself.

Four main tools will be provided as part of the product; an explorer to detect bugs and errors, a visualizer to find transactions that aren’t going through, a composer to help with prototyping, and a debugger.

Products and services like Kyber Network, Binance Wallet, Augur, Opera Web, and Gods Unchained have previously used Alchemy to concentrate more on product development than debugging.

Alchemy CEO Nikil Viswanathan said Build allows applications to “supercharge” their platform, adding:

“Ultimately this means that…developers [can] build products faster, which means that the users get more products, and more innovation in the blockchain space happens overall.”

An additional benefit is that Alchemy-built products will be “better and less buggy,” he told Decrypt.

Testers are Happy

Testers are already raving. Ethereum-based digital asset marketplace OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer said “Alchemy Build has been crucial in helping us build and debug our global marketplace.”

For background, the company was started by Viswanathan and his co-founder Joseph Lau in 2017 – with the goal of eliminating technical hurdles faced by most blockchain developers.

Lau notes making blockchain development as easy as web development is “crucial to mainstream adoption.”

Alchemy raised $15 million in December 2019, featuring the who-whos of Silicon Valley such as LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and Charles Schwab.

The Series A was led by Pantera Capital, with partner Paul Veradittakit stating at the time that Alchemy Build was improving the “lives of Ethereum developers by leaps and bounds, helping drive the ecosystem towards its potential.”