Nikil Viswanathan is best known as co-founder and CEO of Alchemy, one of the leading blockchain developer platforms in Web3. In parallel with running Alchemy, he has built a small but focused angel portfolio of roughly seven early-stage investments, primarily in crypto infrastructure and Web3 applications.
Viswanathan studied computer science at Stanford University. Before Alchemy, he held product and engineering roles at Google – where he worked on Gmail and YouTube – as well as at Microsoft. He later served as VP of Product at Pinterest, giving him deep experience in scaling consumer platforms before turning his attention to blockchain infrastructure. He co-founded Alchemy in 2017 alongside Joe Lau, a fellow Stanford alumnus who previously co-founded Down (a social networking app) and also worked at Google.
Alchemy itself became the backdrop for Viswanathan's investment thesis. The platform processes hundreds of billions of blockchain API requests per month and counts companies including OpenSea, Aave, Dapper Labs, and many others among its developer customers. That front-row seat to which teams ship reliable products – and which collapse under load – informs where he places his angel capital.
Notable investments
Detailed public disclosure of Viswanathan's full angel portfolio is limited. He is known to have backed early-stage Web3 and infrastructure startups through direct checks rather than a formal fund vehicle. Given his operational role at Alchemy, his investments cluster around developer tooling, NFT infrastructure, and decentralised application layers. Specific portfolio company names and deal terms are not consistently disclosed in public filings or press releases. Public information about individual deal sizes and the full list of seven portfolio companies is limited as of the time of writing.
Team
Viswanathan operates as a solo angel investor rather than through a partnership structure. His investing activity runs alongside – rather than separately from – his full-time role as CEO of Alchemy. His Crunchbase profile lists him as investor, founder, and board member across his activities. Joe Lau, his Alchemy co-founder, shares a similar background and has independently made early-stage investments, though the two do not appear to operate a joint vehicle.
Recent activity
In 2022 Alchemy closed a $250 million Series C at a $10.2 billion valuation, led by Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Venture Partners. That round brought total funding to over $300 million and cemented Alchemy's position as core infrastructure for Ethereum and EVM-compatible chains. Viswanathan's public commentary through 2024 and into 2025 has focused on the expansion of Alchemy's product suite – including Account Kit for smart-account abstraction – rather than new angel deals. He is an active voice on Web3 developer trends via his public social channels.
As a practitioner-investor, Viswanathan occupies a distinct position: he controls infrastructure that a large share of the Web3 ecosystem depends on daily. That vantage point gives his angel bets an informational edge that purely financial investors lack. His portfolio count of seven reflects a deliberate, concentrated approach rather than a spray-and-pray strategy. Startups he backs gain credibility from the association and, in most cases, direct access to Alchemy's engineering network. Whether he expands into a formal micro-fund structure as Alchemy matures remains to be seen, but his current posture suggests he prefers hands-on, selective bets over volume.
