Alchemy Blockchain Firm Receives $15M from Big Silicon Valley Whales
In a Series A funding round, Stanford University alongside top founders in Silicon Valley invested in Alchemy, a blockchain startup founded by two Stanford graduates. The funding has enabled Alchemy to raise $15 million from investors, according to Bloomberg on December 17, 2019.
Stanford, Silicon Valley Top Shots Back Alchemy
Per the report, Stanford University and top founders in Silicon Valley supported San Francisco-based startup Alchemy with a total of $15 million during a Series A funding round.
According to Alchemy, Silicon Valley leaders who invested in the company include Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn’s co-founder and executive chairman, Jerry Yang, Yahoo’s co-founder and former CEO of Yahoo!, as well as Charles Schwab, Yahoo’s financier.
On the other hand, two Stanford graduates, Nikil Viswanathan and Joe Lau founded the two-year-old blockchain company, and the duo had previously set up Down to Lunch, a social network that allows college students to invite all their friends to lunch at the same time.
Viswanathan while commenting on the funding remarked that Alchemy aims to be Microsoft for blockchain.
Likewise, Lau said only researchers could take advantage of computers in the ’70s and ’80s, however, it is not the case today since everyone has access to a computer.
Lau further outlined that the same limited access was evident in the early days of the internet, but there is widespread use of internet technology today.
As stated on its website, Alchemy has already attracted a slew of reputable blockchain companies as clients and partners, including CryptoKitties, an Ethereum-based crypto-collectible, Augur, a prediction-marketplace, OX, a peer-to-peer asset exchange protocol, and Trustwallet, Binance’s official cryptocurrency wallet.
Chris Kelly, the former Facebook Inc. legal chief who is also one of Alchemy’s investors said he has high expectations for Alchemy to be a major player in the blockchain space.
“Everybody is focused on cryptocurrencies, but the real use here is for blockchain to effectively distribute trust — with provable transactions and provable contracts. So being the infrastructure for that, I think they’re setting themselves up for great success”
Academic Adoption is Booming
Interestingly, higher institutions around the world are joining the movement to promote broader adoption of distributed ledger technology (DLT). Institutions including Harvard University, Stanford University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have invested in cryptocurrencies via endowment funds.
Similarly, major universities worldwide are offering blockchain courses to improve people’s knowledge and skills in this modern technology.
For instance, 56 percent out of the top 50 universities in the world offer a blockchain course, which is a significant increment from 48 percent as of 2018. Also, Monash University, one of Australia’s leading universities launched a blockchain center in November 2019.
