Aethir, a Singapore-based decentralized cloud infrastructure (DCI) firm, has on Wednesday announced the completion of its Pre-A funding round, bringing the total value raised to date to over $9 million and the company valuation to $150 million.

The round was led by leading global investors, including Sanctor Capital, Hashkey, Merit Circle, and CitizenX with further support from Mirana Ventures, Animoca Brands, Momentum6, Big Brain Holdings, Builder Capital, Tess Ventures, Maelstrom (Arthur Hayes) and many more, Aethir said in a statement.

The completion of this successful funding round follows a previous seed round led by Framework Ventures and Infinity Ventures Crypto.

Aethir said the investment underscores the demand for its solutions and demonstrating investors’ conviction in its potential to revolutionize the gaming and artificial intelligence (AI) industry through its DCI.

Already serving a growing customer base, including high-profile enterprises, AI companies and gaming studios, the investment enables Aethir to expedite its global expansion in key markets like South East Asia, Latin America, and North America, as well as to bolster its innovative DCI.

“The cloud sector has traditionally been a challenging industry to scale, plagued by high costs, particularly for customers requiring complex real-time rendering or streaming infrastructure – and that’s not taking into account the additional stress on the ecosystem as a result of the AI boom,” said Mark Rydon, Aethir Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer.

“At Aethir, we’re laser-focused on solving the cloud scalability challenge. We’ve built a global DCI network specifically to scale complex cloud infrastructure services globally; a significant milestone for the future of the gaming and AI industry,

“The cost and performance advantages of our DCI are significant, and when coupled with our ability to operate in developed and developing markets alike, we’re unlocking a huge amount of potential value for our customers,” he added.

Aethir was established in 2021 by cloud industry veterans to build what they’ve coined scalable DCI.

Its network helps gaming and AI companies put their product directly in the hands of consumers.

The firm which has a team of 68 employees, solves market fragmentation via the decentralized cloud.

The firm has shown consistent growth under Rydon’s stewardship, creating a scalable and secure decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) service that caters to the rigorous demands of enterprise-grade gaming and AI applications.

“We’re backing projects that are using the blockchain to solve real-world issues. Aethir is meaningfully expanding the addressable market for gaming and other streaming content in the world’s highest-growth (but hardware-constrained) markets,

“Everybody wins as Aethir expands – gamers, publishers and globally distributed rendering node operators alike,” said Arthur Hayes, Chief Investment Officer of Maelstrom.

Meanwhile, Sanctor Capital Chief Executive Officer Han Kao said that for the metaverse to become a populated, engaging, virtual universe, the underlying infrastructure needs to support efficient, low-cost computation.

“Aethir is part of this next-generation infrastructure stack that unlocks the gaming and social communication possibilities we have been waiting for,” he said.

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