Ben Franklin-funded blockchain startup AlphaPoint racking up awards. and clients (Correction: mea culpa)

Tom Paine





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AlphaPoint, the innovative blockchain startup that began life in the Philly area but appears to have mostly migrated to New York, was  named the overall winner in the 2017 Benzinga Fintech Awards.

AlphaPoint received a $1.5 million seed investment in October 2014 from investors including Ben Franklin, Robin Hood Ventures and Invite Media cofounder Scott Becker. CEO Joe Ventura and VP of Development Jack Sallen are founders; Igor Telyatnikov (ex-LiftDNA) is President & COO. Vadim Telyatnikov, founder of King of Prussia-based LiftDNA (acquired by OpenX) is on the board.

CrunchBase shows AlphaPoint having raised a total of $2.5 million; CrunchBase also reported a March 2017 investment by SocialStart, a relatively small but interesting Seed / Series A VC , but the amount is not specified.

In addition to the Benzinga award, AlphaPoint also won Water's Technology Sell-Side Technology Award 2017 for Best Infrastructure Provider to the Sell Side. AlphaPoint is also a finalist in PACT's 2017 Enterprise Awards' Technology Startup category, with the winners to be named tomorrow night.

The AlphaPoint Distributed Ledger Platform (ADLP), which runs on Microsoft Azure, is currently installed at over a dozen “revenue-generating customers,” Water's Technology reported AlphaPoint as saying, including CME Group; Scotiabank; BTCC, a Chinese bitcoin exchange; and Brighton Peak, a Melbourne-based bitcoin exchange. It is designed to resolve key bottlenecks faced in high-performance enterprise environments.

Asked by Philly Tech News about its Philly area presence, COO Telyatnikov responded by email, "We have been growing our PA Technology and Operations teams and are currently hiring. We are excited to be expanding our Pennsylvania team and are committed to helping the region become a hub for blockchain technology." When asked whether its headquarters was in New York, he responded, "Our New York office is our primary sales office." AlphaPoint has offices on Sugartown Road in Berwyn, though as best as I can tell from LinkedIn maybe two of its roughly twenty employees are based there. A few others are scattered elsewhere in the US.

Clarification: I missed some email responses in the thread with COO Telyatnikov:

 "We actually currently have 7 people in PA."

"Worth noting we also recently brought on a VP of Sales based in Philadelphia, the tech and ops roles are the current open roles we are hiring for (5 in total)."

"Per the number we have in PA also would not agree that we mostly have migrated to NY. We only have 7 full time in NY as well - and we previously had offices in both locations as well (we also have staff in North Carolina and San Fransisco)."

I sincerely apologize for my error. I had asked a question explicitly aimed at gathering this information,  and  failed to note the full response.

Update 5/22: AlphaPoint Unveils an Asset Issuance and Custody Solution for Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs)




Philadelphia-based Chaikin Analytics also was a winner in the 'Trading Recommendation' category. Wayne-based Quantaverse, which I profiled last December, was also nominated for an award. Its also a nominee for PACT's 'Technology Startup' award.