Andrena, a wireless Internet service provider, raised $18 million. The funding will fuel Solana’s decentralized internet project. Dragonfly led the Series A extension round. CMT Digital, Castle Island Ventures, and Wintermute Ventures also participated.
That was the deal organizer As a safe with token commands. This brings Andrena’s total funding to $38 million. Dragonfly also led a $15 million Series A round in February 2023.
Andrena has been in the game since 2017. It offers cheap wireless internet throughout the United States. They are now doubling their efforts in the field of blockchain technology.
The new funds will accelerate work on their DAWN protocol. DAWN stands for Decentralized Autonomous Wireless Network. It’s a fancy way of saying “the Internet without the big guys.”
DePINs are popular right now. They allow people to share physical things such as power or Internet bandwidth. Andrina is betting big on this trend.
“We are excited to build the first decentralized broadband DePIN protocol on Solana,” the company tweeted. They dream big. Their goal? Transforming the Internet from a provider-owned model to a consumer-owned model.
DAWN uses what is called “Proof of Delivery”. It is a way to check how much data each node can handle. They cooked this up using some clever Princeton and Polygon cookies.
For now, DAWN is just testing the waters. But they’re getting ready to go at Solana for real.
The DePIN market is on fire. Fundraising is up 296% year over year. The total market value reached $20 billion, according to Masari. That’s a 400% jump.
Solana leads the DePIN project group. It hosts about 78 of them. But other blockchains like IoTeX and Peaq are catching up.
Will Andreina’s bet pay off? Only time will tell. But with $18 million in their pockets, they have a strong chance of disrupting the online world.
Alexei Bondarev is the head of content at Yellow.com and has been reporting on cryptocurrencies for the past 10 years. He specializes in in-depth research and learning, with a focus on analytical reporting, industry context, and the larger forces shaping cryptocurrencies, from the era of artificial intelligence and security technologies to fintech innovations. He believes that everything digital will soon overtake everything analog and works hard to make it happen.
