SendBlocks Emerges from Stealth with $8.2 Million in Seed Funding to Optimize Blockchain Data Management

Tel Aviv, Israel, July 2nd, 2024

SendBlocks, an innovative startup specializing in blockchain data management, has announced its emergence from stealth mode following a successful $8.2 million seed funding round. The round was led by Castle Island Ventures, with participation from various institutional investors including Pitango, Illuminate Financial, Laser Digital (Nomura), Starkware, and other notable leaders in the ecosystem.

SendBlocks strives to make blockchain data access straightforward. Its platform is fully customizable, allowing blockchain enterprises, ecosystems, protocols, and applications to specify the data they need, while SendBlocks efficiently retrieves it from the blockchain.

As high-throughput blockchains become more prevalent, new possibilities for blockchain applications are emerging thanks to improved usability and reduced transaction costs. “Our aim is to create an environment where any developer can access any blockchain data they require, without the need for an entire data team or incurring significant costs,” states Itay Shrem, Co-founder and CEO.

Among its clients, SendBlocks has notable partnerships including Bancor and SphereX, both of which have already experienced operational efficiencies and cost reductions through the platform. As the demand for high-throughput blockchains continues to grow, SendBlocks is positioning itself to become a leading platform in the blockchain data management landscape.

Challenges in Data Management within Web3

In the traditional web2 development framework, backend engineers directly access databases. However, in the blockchain ecosystem, the blockchain serves as the backend, accessed via RPC calls. This creates two primary challenges:

1. Flexibility: The rise in applications utilizing blockchain leads to diverse data needs across organizations. Each organization has its unique requirements and processes for data utilization. Currently, there is no solution that delivers the precise information required by blockchain users while offering a web2-like personalized experience. Organizations often resort to extensive investments in building in-house data management solutions.

2. Scale: In order to access detailed blockchain data, complex indexers must be developed, which continuously query the blockchain. However, these services frequently struggle to maintain performance in the face of high-throughput blockchains where transaction volumes are significantly elevated. Shrem likens this to ticket sales for a popular artist like Taylor Swift, where demand spikes overwhelm systems not optimized for such high volumes.

Introducing SendBlocks

“We believe that entering the web3 arena shouldn’t require a large data team and that infrastructure costs should align with the application’s user base rather than the blockchain’s throughput,” says Michael Kellner, Co-founder and CTO. “Simply scaling the blockchain isn’t enough; the entire stack needs to be scalable to accommodate the next generation of applications,” he continues.

SendBlocks addresses these challenges directly. Shrem and Kellner, both of whom have over a decade of experience at Talpiot, are leveraging their backgrounds in building secure and resilient infrastructures.

The startup’s approach aims to significantly reduce backend and indexing workloads for blockchain developers, maintaining flexibility and robustness by merging the conventional indexer and RPC processes into a single, user-friendly platform. Early use cases on the SendBlocks platform have already proven transformative for clients, offering capabilities such as flexible historical data access and fully personalized notifications.

By facilitating access to all on-chain activities, SendBlocks enables developers to save billions in API queries, leading to more efficient data teams across various blockchain infrastructures.

“Current data management solutions simply do not cater to the demands of fast blockchains,” explains Shrem. “We’re focused on building with scalability and ease in mind to ensure ecosystems achieve high engagement and retention,” he adds.

“SendBlocks empowers enterprises, ecosystems, and protocols with easy access to on-chain data, helping customers save substantial sums in development costs and drastically shorten time-to-market from months to weeks,” notes Sean Judge, General Manager of Castle Island Ventures. “The backgrounds of Itay and Michael in cybersecurity and cryptography position them well to reshape how businesses manage their blockchain data,” he affirms.

With the new funding, SendBlocks plans to expand its R&D team to support existing and prospective clients, while also scaling its marketing and sales efforts to draw in leading protocols and ecosystems.

Shrem and Kellner have assembled a robust team of nine, comprising alumni from major web2 firms such as Microsoft, AWS, and Talpiot’s intelligence unit, as well as from web3 organizations like Bancor and Algorand. Kellner’s expertise lies in post-quantum cryptography, while Shrem focuses on network coding and security.

About SendBlocks

SendBlocks is a leading blockchain data management startup that simplifies blockchain data access through a fully customizable platform. Emerging from stealth with $8.2 million in seed funding spearheaded by Castle Island Ventures, SendBlocks tackles the issues of data flexibility and scalability in high-throughput blockchains. By enabling enterprises, ecosystems, and applications to define and access the specific data they require, SendBlocks minimizes the need for extensive in-house data teams or costly outsourced solutions per data point.