Mixing AI with blockchain got this startup Visa, Stripe as clients

When Ethan Chan walked away from a career in AI in 2022, no one expected him to jump into the world of blockchain.

Terra Luna had just vaporized US$40 billion in value, FTX was about to implode, and the word “blockchain” felt radioactive.

Image credit: Timmy Loen

But Chan and his co-founder Cheng Han Lee chose this time to pitch a big idea.

They wanted to build a massive data terminal that could track blockchain transactions. No crypto, no flashy tokens — just raw blockchain data scraped and structured for engineers, regulators, and, eventually, AI agents.

“If I could give you all the data – how much are you willing to pay me?” he asked potential clients. The answer convinced Chan and Lee to build their startup, Allium.

The company’s AI product scans petabytes of blockchain data daily from over 100 blockchains and produces easy-to-digest output for its users. Think of an AI-enabled search engine for Web3 data.

It uses AWS Bedrock – an Amazon service for building genAI applications – to analyze data and provide real-time dashboards, AI-powered queries, and plug-ins that let banks, fintech firms, and regulators see what’s happening on-chain.

But in 2022, with interest in Web3 taking a nosedive, Chan told his partner that they needed to raise funds to make it.

In less than two weeks, the US-headquartered startup secured a US$50 million seed round from Theory Ventures, Amplify Partners, and
Kleiner Perkins, a Silicon Valley venture firm.

In 2024, it closed a US$16.5 million series A round, and the company has now grown from a two-person team to hiring 30 full-time staff split between New York, San Francisco, and a growing office in Singapore.

In 2025, the demand for good data has grown significantly. Payment systems, institutional exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and regulators all need trustworthy information – and they are paying for it.

Major clients such as Visa and Stripe now use Allium’s data for enhanced analytics and fraud detection in their financial operations.

Visa, in particular, is watching the data closely for information on stablecoins.

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