SUMMARY
Zeeve helps businesses deploy, manage and monitor their Web3 infrastructure for use cases such as DApps, smart contracts, DAOs, crypto exchanges, developer APIs, and more
The startup supports 14+ blockchain protocols – public as well as permissioned
Zeeve recently raised its seed round and plans to launch a decentralised node infrastructure protocol and add support for 50+ protocols in the near future
From information exchange in Web1 to the collaborative approach provided by Web2, the internet has evolved over time. It is now time for Web3 to make the internet more democratic, value-driven, and bring control back to the users through decentralisation.
As Web3 is gaining prominence, businesses are increasingly investing in deployment and management of blockchain tech to use it for real-world applications. Even tech giants like Facebook, Google and Twitter are looking to embed Web3 formats – whether it is Metaverse or bringing the ease of DAOs (decentralised autonomous organisations) – in their offerings
While these tech giants can afford to spend on the Capex-heavy blockchain infrastructure, for the rest, there are startups such as Noida-based Zeeve.
Founded by tech evangelists Dr Ravi Chamria, Ghan Vashishtha and Sankalp Sharma, Zeeve’s operations are comparable to that of Amazon Web Services (AWS) for Web2.
Zeeve is a blockchain infrastructure platform-as-a-service startup that provides direct infrastructure access to its customers.
A blockchain’s backend is made up of several parts, and blockchain developers are tasked with building code, deployment, and community support (because of decentralisation).
Zeeve provides data centres, builds security features, maintains servers, develops the code to build on blockchain and the platform to access the codes, and provides development tools, metrics and analytics, container services and community support.
How Zeeve Is Helping Small Businesses
Speaking to Inc42, Zeeve founder Chamria explained the underlying differences between the AWS system and Zeeve. In Web2, a platform is built offline where users can go to AWS or any other cloud player, set up the necessary infrastructure (incidences, databases), and use the necessary software (such as Node, React, PHP).
“Deployment in Web2 is no more a challenge,” he said. “But building on blockchain protocols has two different scenarios – building an application on public protocols such as Polygon or building an application using a private blockchain like Hyperledger Fabric.”
A blockchain consists of micro-ecosystems on the chain. With nodes being monitored by cloud infrastructures and businesses wanting to build on blockchain protocols, there’s a need for a connecting infrastructure layer, which Zeeve builds.
Unlike the centralisation provided by Web2 cloud players, a blockchain deployment is much more complex because it does not have a centralised database from which developers can pull queries.
“The data is actually residing into different blocks. So if a blockchain is running with millions of blocks, then actually each block contains a set of transactions,” Chamria said.
Building atop such a complex infrastructure is a costly affair. According to an EY report, the cost of maintaining and monitoring a production-grade Web3 network is more than 50% of the total cost of ownership (TCO). Besides, there is also the cost of employing a development and operations (DevOps) team of blockchain experts and developers (the number of such experts was only 150K+ in early 2022).
Naturally, it is not possible for small businesses to keep up with the requirements as blockchain’s use cases exponentially scale. Whether it is building decentralised applications (DApps), smart contracts, DAOs, crypto exchanges, or developer APIs, among others, Zeeve’s services eliminate the need for having an in-house blockchain-focused DevOps team.
“Zeeve’s (developer-focussed API) stack includes programming on Rust, Typescript and system scripts while standardising the orchestration of networks using cloud-native compute foundation (CNCF) tools along with Terraform and other developer kits,” Chamria said.
“Zeeve’s USP is 100% automation, multi-cloud decentralised network hosting, as well as managed hosting, CI/CD automation for smart contracts and proactive monitoring for rapid network deployments with faster incident management,” he added.
With its no code infrastructure builder, Zeeve enables people to participate in blockchain networks without building and maintaining their own hardware and code bases.
Besides, the startup also provides automation on both public and permissioned blockchain protocols. That is, its clients can use public protocols such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon, Binance Smart Chain, Tron, Avalanche, and Fantom, among others.
On the other hand, it also provides infrastructure access to its clients such as large enterprises and governments that prefer to deploy their decentralised services on permissioned or private protocols such as Hyperledger Fabric, R3 Corda, Fluree, Dragonchain, Hyperledger Sawtooth.
The plug-and-play platform has an eye on a total addressable market worth $490 Mn which is slated to increase to $6 Bn by 2026, the founder added.
The Path Ahead
In June, the startup raised $2.65 Mn in a seed round from Leo Capital and Blu Ventures to acquire more users, for product development, and to bring more than 50 protocols under its infrastructure platform-as-a-service.
Within one year of its launch, the startup claims to have already worked with over 10K enterprises, blockchain startups and consulting companies and Web3 developers.
Its clients have deployed, monitored and managed blockchain nodes and networks, staking infrastructure, blockchain LedgerData query engines and remote procedure call (RPC) endpoints.
The subscription-based startup claims that its revenue has been increasing 15% month-on-month in 2022. It plans to expand its business to the US, Canadian and Australian markets this year.
In terms of innovation, Zeeve plans to set up a completely decentralised node infrastructure to provide next-generation privacy and security in the months to come.
