Blockchain Startup Raises $15M From Stanford And LinkedIn, Yahoo Co-Founders

Alchemy, a San Fransisco-based startup providing blockchain infrastructure to enterprises, has raised $15 million in seed and Series A funding, it announced on Tuesday.

The lead investors in the startup included Stanford University, Coinbase, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd SSNLF, Pantera Capital and Mayfield Fund, Alchemy said.

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Alphabet Inc. GOOGL chairman John Hennessy, Thomson Reuters Corporation's TRI former CEO Tom Glocer, and Charles Schwab Corporation's SCHW founder Charles Schwab, invested in their individual capacities.

Alchemy's co-founders Nikil Viswanathan and Joe Lau are both Stanford graduates; the university has invested an undisclosed amount in their startup as part of the Series A funding.

The startup, founded in 2017, already has some prominent cryptocurrency companies as its clients, including CryptoKitties, Augur, Kyber Network, and Opera Ltd OPRA.

"Right now people are trying to build skyscrapers with picks and shovels. We need to give them construction equipment," Viswanathan told TechCrunch's Josh Constine. "None of this exists for blockchain."