Alkimi Review - The First Agentic Programmatic Marketplace Built on Blockchain Infrastructure

Alkimi is a London-based advertising technology company founded in 2021 by Ben Putley and Chandru Narayanan — two programmatic veterans who spent careers watching intermediaries absorb 40-80% of every advertising dollar before it reached publishers. The platform they built runs on Sui blockchain, processing 15-25 million ad impressions daily with 3 billion+ transactions completed to date.

What Makes It Different

Traditional programmatic exchanges charge up to 20% in platform fees alone, with the full intermediary chain consuming 40-80% of advertiser spend. Alkimi runs on a flat 3-8% total platform fee. Publishers receive 92-97% of what advertisers spend. Every transaction is recorded on Sui's tamper-proof ledger, making 100% of ad spend auditable in real time — something standard programmatic infrastructure cannot offer.

For Advertisers

AI agents brief campaigns in plain language and negotiate deals autonomously within parameters each advertiser sets. NEXUS AI handles real-time campaign optimization. Fraud detection runs on-chain, eliminating the post-campaign reconciliation process that typically costs finance teams weeks of manual spreadsheet alignment. Brands running on the platform include Coca-Cola, Samsung, Visa, and TikTok.

For Publishers

Publishers list inventory and their AI agent negotiates deal terms directly with buyer agents, generating a shared Deal Sheet — one live record that both sides see simultaneously, no separate reconciliation required. Publishers ranging from Tubi and Paramount to blockchain-native media have integrated the platform. An AdFi liquidity pool currently in development will allow publishers to access payments earlier than the standard settlement window by drawing on on-chain liquidity.

The Weak Point

Alkimi's agentic model requires both buyer and seller to have AI agents operating within IAB AAMP standards — a setup that large agencies and enterprise publishers with existing technical infrastructure can adopt relatively quickly, but creates a real adoption barrier for smaller publishers and independent media buyers who'd need to build or integrate agent infrastructure before accessing the marketplace at all.

Three billion transactions on a blockchain built for sub-second finality is the kind of proof-of-scale that most ad tech companies swap for a slide deck.