Crypto Data Platform Shadow Raises $9 Million in Seed Round Led by Paradigm
Crypto data platform startup Shadow has secured $9 million in a seed funding round, with participation from investors such as Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures, Electric Capital, Ethereum Foundation, Uniswap, and Flashbots. The company aims to reduce development costs on the Ethereum blockchain.
The platform’s first product is now available for public demo and allows users to augment any contract to obtain specific data through custom events and view functions. By utilizing “shadow forks,” private execution environments are created to mirror the state of a public blockchain in real time.
Shadow’s platform addresses common issues faced by onchain analysts and researchers, including inadequate events, contract optimization, and data ergonomics.
Sibling Co-Founders with Technical Expertise
Shadow was co-founded by siblings Alvin and Emily Hsia, who have previous technical experience at Airbnb. Both have been working together for eight years, both inside and outside of the crypto industry.
Alvin Hsia, CEO of Shadow, highlighted the challenge of working with blockchain data and stated that their solution aims to make it easier. He emphasized that most interesting data on blockchains is generated by smart contracts but that smart contract event logs are currently limited compared to how they work in traditional web development.
The product is already live, with early customers including DeFi protocols and web3 platforms. The funding will be used to expand the team by hiring more engineers.
Paradigm Excited about Partnership
Georgios Konstantopoulos, CTO and Research Partner at Paradigm, expressed excitement about partnering with Shadow. He mentioned that they had closely worked with the co-founders during Paradigm’s Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) Program and believes that Shadow Logs will enable teams to develop more cost-effective smart contracts, access more data, and reduce time to market.
Hot Take: Shadow Raises $9 Million to Revolutionize Blockchain Data
Crypto data platform startup Shadow has successfully raised $9 million in a seed funding round led by Paradigm. With the goal of reducing development costs on the Ethereum blockchain, Shadow offers a platform that allows users to access specific data through custom events and view functions. By utilizing “shadow forks,” the platform creates private execution environments that mirror the real-time state of a public blockchain.
The co-founders, Alvin and Emily Hsia, have extensive technical expertise and have been working together for eight years. They aim to address the challenges of working with blockchain data by making it more user-friendly. The product is already being used by DeFi protocols and web3 platforms, and the funding will support further team expansion.
Paradigm, one of the investors in this funding round, is excited about the partnership and believes that Shadow Logs will empower teams to develop cost-effective smart contracts, access more data, and accelerate time to market.