coindesk.com
Web3 developer platform Airstack has raised over $7 million after closing the second half of a pre-seed funding round that was led by Superscrypt. The startup allows developers to access and utilize cross-chain data using natural language requests backed by artificial intelligence (AI), an increasingly popular albeit controversial technology in the crypto space.
"We did extensive interviews with developers over the past year, gaining insights into their previous tool usage and the challenges they faced," said Jason Goldberg, CEO of Airstack, in an interview with CoinDesk. "Airstack was built to directly address those pain points."
Since its debut in April, Airstack has successfully attracted over 200 developers, who have used the platform for projects spanning marketing engines, decentralized finance (DeFi) portfolio optimizers, customer resource management tools, advertising platforms, and decentralized social and messaging applications.
With Airstack, developers can query, combine, and integrate on-chain or off-chain, cross-chain, and cross-application data using a single query and response. For instance, a natural language query involving the Polygon blockchain's native MATIC token might be, "Get all holders of MATIC token who hold a minimum of 10,000 MATRIC, their token balances, and their ENS and Lens and Farcaster."
The first half of the funding round closed in the third quarter of 2023 and included Polygon among the backers. Hashed Emergent, NGC, Primal Capital, UOB Ventures, and Signum Capital, among others, also were investors.
Simultaneous with the funding announcement, Airstack unveiled an updated version of its Jam social app. Built on Farcaster and Ethereum, the iOS and Android app features user profiles and groups built around users’ Web3 collectibles.
While Airstack currently provides its services free of charge, the company plans to implement a pricing model in the future. Goldberg expressed his strategy: "Our immediate focus is to onboard thousands of developers onto Airstack in the coming months. We aim to identify the areas where we add the most value and where genuine business use cases emerge before finalizing our pricing model."
Read more: Imagining the Future AI and Web3 Can Build