Sia Network receives $3.5M in funding; plans to launch a streaming service

Nebulous, the developers behind the Sia Network, has raised $3.5 million in a pre-Series A round, Coindesk writes. The investment was led by Bain Capital, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners and Dragonfly Capital Partners. 

Sia Network offers decentralised and permissionless storage. According to Bain Capital’s Salil Deshpande such storage is “the cornerstone” of dapps since he believes centralised storage makes dapps centralised.

The company is currently storing approximately 450 terabytes of data uploaded by the network’s users, Nebulous CEO David Voric explained, with approximately 500 to 1,000 people using the network.

The company is planning to use the new funding to develop media streaming and storage services this summer, with plans to double the team behind the project from 12 to 24 within a year.

Streaming services could be attractive to people with archival footage and indie filmmakers. Materials that are too niche for popular streaming platforms, such as Netflix, could be streamed from Sia. People wishing to share media materials would not need to become hosts; Sia does not require someone to be a node operator to upload data onto the network, Vorick said.