EasyA becomes a unicorn ahead of public market debut

Blockchain and AI development platform EasyA has become the latest tech unicorn after reaching a $1.1 billion valuation, the company disclosed Wednesday. Founded by brothers Phil and Dom Kwok and built without outside funding, EasyA has grown to more than 1 million users through an app that teaches coding with bite-sized daily challenges and enables users to develop and launch applications on their phones. The company also runs hackathons where developers and non-coders collaborate on applications and startup ideas. The founders said they chose to bootstrap EasyA to maintain control over its direction and long-term vision as they sought to build a leading blockchain and AI developer platform. “We’ve always had a very clear vision of where we wanted to take EasyA,” Dom Kwok said in a statement. “Investors can provide capital, but they can also change the trajectory of a company and influence how it’s run (not always for the better). Most people raise because they don’t have a business model that can survive without external funding.” EasyA’s valuation, which was determined by an independent third-party firm using audited financial statements, comes as the company moves toward a prop...