Leading blockchain infrastructure provider,, works with some of the largest enterprises in the worldShell Oil to simplify the process of deploying nodes for these organizations as they dip their toes into the powerful potential of the blockchain. Blockdaemon’s out of the box solution helps auto-scale blockchain networks with a few clicks and the solution acts as the “middleware tool” across every stage of a project. The platform offers monitoring and reporting on node health and performance ensuring that clients are up to date on the performance. The company also offers a set of robust APIs thaa allows builders who are seeking to interact with public, permission-based, and staking networks to connect with over 30 networks. The versatility of the platform supports the deployment of nodes with just three clicks irrespective of cloud provider or infrastructure.
AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and Founder Konstantin Richter to learn more about how Blockdaemon is making the blockchain accessible for enterprises and developers. the company’s plans to add new functionality, and recent funding round, which brings the company’s total funding raised to $11.6M.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
In our latest strategic funding round in May, Blockdaemon raised $5.5M in capital. This funding round was supported by a number of new investors including Hashkey, CoinShares, Blockchain.com Ventures, Kenetic, SPiCE VC, and Fenbushi Capital. Early investors Comcast Ventures, , Coinfund, Boldstart, and Heavybit also continued their participation in our latest funding round.
Tell us about the product or service that Blockdaemon offers.
Blockdaemon is a leading blockchain infrastructure provider, its node management platform helps auto-scale blockchain networks securely with enhanced monitoring, back-up systems, HA clusters, APIs and cloud-managed node monitoring of on-premises solutions with our Blockchain Package Manager (BPM). Builders looking to interact with public, permission-based, and staking networks can connect to 30+ protocols through the Blockdaemon Marketplace.
In our next phase of growth, Blockdaemon is broadening its vision of infrastructure to include deeper financial reporting and APIs. Additionally, Blockdaemon will be contributing directly to the stability, resiliency, and accessibility of payment-centric networks including Transparent Systems, Celo, MobileCoin, and the Lightning Network, as well as supporting the success of ETH2.0.
What inspired the start of Blockdaemon?
The idea for Blockdaemon originated from my experience running eth nodes in the middle of 2017, and the realization that doing so was very difficult with the existing infrastructure at the time—none of the conventional cloud-formation tools available in the market could cater to blockchain.
How is Blockdaemon different?
Blockdaemon is unique in the depth of technical services it can offer clients. It offers middleware tooling for blockchain projects, across every stage of the development lifecycle: early on, in testing, staking/reporting, then clusters for exchanges/custodians, and finally, APIs for developers. Blockdaemon’s cutting-edge monitoring and reporting services on node health and performance, ensure that clients are kept up-to-date on performance at every stage of the process.
What market does Blockdaemon target and how big is it?
We connect institutions, enterprises, and individuals to blockchains. The decentralized ledger technology (DLT) market is still growing and we estimate that the market will be worth tens of billions of dollars.
What’s your business model?
Blockdaemon has a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, clients can deploy nodes and connect to networks via our marketplace. It supports clients that want to rapidly scale up their networks, by providing custom node configuration across private/public chains and cloud services that work best for business.
How has COVID-19 impacted your business?
The health and safety of our team members and family are our first priority and we are grateful that our team has stayed well. Since the pandemic, we made sure to check in with one another even more frequently to stay connected and aligned. From the beginning, we have been a distributed team, so working remotely across time zones is not new to us, although adjustments were required in the changing business landscape.
From a strategic perspective, when we evaluate projects, they need to align with our values and mission. A good example of this is that we are a founding member of the Celo Alliance for Prosperity, a mission-aligned network of organizations working towards a more inclusive global financial system, fostering social impact and financial inclusion through the use of blockchain technology.
What was the funding process like?
We are lucky that we have many investors on board who are really passionate about what we do and our plans for the future which makes the process easier. Nonetheless, it was a busy period with lots of conversations and running over financials to assure investors.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
The COVID-19 pandemic has slowed funding rounds in a variety of sectors across the globe. Maintaining the momentum of a company’s growth during such a period can be challenging, particularly in communicating confidence to investors unsettled by the economic uncertainty. Fortunately, the talented team at Blockdaemon has united and worked hard during such a period of uncertainty to demonstrate our capacity to continue operations largely unaffected by the pandemic.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Blockdaemon has a strong operational track record, trusted by some of the biggest names in the crypto space such as Stellar, Cosmos, and Polkadot for node deployment. As well as that, our business has not been significantly impacted by the pandemic — in fact, March was our most successful month to date.
As well as that, our business has not been significantly impacted by the pandemic — in fact, March was our most successful month to date.
The growing maturity of digital currencies across legislative, technical, and economical dimensions, as well as the acceleration in the development of plans for digital currencies by financial authorities, indicate that the digital assets economy is only going to increase in strength in the coming months — leading to an increased demand for node deployment.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
Over the next few months, we plan to onboard several new key protocols coming to mainnet to offer even greater diversity to clients on our marketplace. We will also extend our traction across more products and networks and in return see greater improvement of margins.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Although it is a challenging time for businesses low on capital, there are strategies that can benefit companies to make the most of such a period. Aggressively focusing on one core business dimension can help to gain traction quickly. By creating a strong narrative that is ambitious yet needs little investment to start with, businesses can position themselves to weather the current economic uncertainty.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
Blockdaemon is well-positioned to ride out the current economic uncertainty. I expect that we will see strong growth for the company throughout the year as more big blockchain technology projects are due to launch and infrastructure costs need to be streamlined.
What’s your favorite restaurant in the city?
Mina’s at PS1 in Brooklyn.
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