Airwaive raises $3M in seed funding to decentralize the last mile of the Internet
San Francisco, Feb. 9, 2022 — We are excited to announce that The Airwaive Project, a blockchain-based decentralized wireless broadband platform, has announced a $3 million raise in a seed round led by United Overseas Bank (UOB) Venture Management and Signum Capital.
A list of strategic crypto venture capital firms and reputable industry partners have joined this round, including Fenbushi Capital, Spartan Group, Fundamental Labs, Digital Finance Group, Spark Digital, Gate.io, Jsquare, and Athena Ventures. This seed funding supports Airwaive’s mission to accelerate the development of decentralized wireless networks and brings more partners to decentralize the last mile of the internet. It also enables Airwaive to expand its global community of operators and hosts that are instrumental to creating networks.
Airwaive is a foundation created on the blockchain with a mission to close the gap in the digital divide by bringing affordable, wireless internet to homes around the world. Airwaive’s marketplace and applications power any type of wireless network in any location.
Co-founded by former ZTE and AT&T executive Jeff Yee, and blockchain serial entrepreneur Bin Zhu, Airwaive creates a proof-of-connectivity (PoC) consensus to leverage the internet for property owners with incentives enabling wireless network coverage globally.
“Most of the world lacks affordable access to broadband internet at home, primarily due to the cost of installing wirelines capable of high-speed data traffic,” said Jeff Yee, CEO of Airwaive. “A new generation of wireless technology, including 5G, is now fast enough to provide broadband-speed internet access to homes, decentralizing what is referred to as the last mile of the internet. We’re thrilled to have an awesome group of venture partners that share our vision to connect the world with wireless broadband.”
“As veterans of wireless-network and blockchain technology, the team at Airwaive has uncovered a strong use case for blockchain technology to be employed in the last-mile development of the 5G wireless network,” said YY Lai, partner at Signum Capital.
Lai said, “With its innovation, Airwaive can harness the collective power of decentralization to provide cost-effective internet connectivity to all communities of the globe. At the same time, Airwaive leverages the blockchain to ensure high transparency, accountability and equitability among all stakeholders on the value chain. At the helm, we are confident that the founders, [Yee and Zhu], have the capability to get the commercial partnerships up and running, which is absolutely critical in this project. Airwaive is the epitome of the best team with the right solution to solve a meaningful problem. Together with the community, Airwaive will assist in bringing internet connectivity to everyone: for the people, by the people.”
Currently, Airwaive has more than 30 operators and over 6 million potential host locations. This investment round accelerates the rollout of the Airwaive partner network and its PoC mechanism and blockchain integration in the coming year.
About Airwaive:
Airwaive connects wireless service providers with home and business owners who earn income operating wireless access points in their neighborhoods. Airwaive provides the tools and incentives for the components of a decentralized wireless network to thrive, offering internet service providers, hosts and validators the resources and motivation to build and scale the internet using wireless technology to reach everyone on the planet. Airwaive’s mission is not complete until 100% of the world has affordable access to broadband internet.
Join Airwaive’s mission to decentralize the last mile of the internet for greater affordability and access. Learn more on the website.
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