Fly.io raises an additional $70 million for edge app delivery, led by EQT Ventures
Fly.io, an application delivery network company, has raised $70 million in a funding round led by EQT Ventures as it goes up against established players in the cloud and content delivery markets.
This amount is in addition to the $40 million it raised last year in Series A and Series B funding rounds. The additional funds will help Fly.io increase its hardware fleet, expand its regional presence and improve support and reliability, the company says.
According to the company, Kurt Mackey founded Fly.io because he believed the traditional method of using a content delivery network (CDN) was inefficient, so he created Fly.io to offer a more logical way of delivering apps closer to end users. Fly.io believes that apps run better when closer to their users, as some apps, such as video streaming and real-time presence, may require physical locality for optimal function, for example.
Further, the company says it needed to raise additional money as Fly.io services run on its own fleet of hardware. The company explains the choice isn’t just a technical one; it’s also an economic one. Fly.io says that owning its hardware ensures its long-term viability as a platform and can offer options for app builders. In contract, some application delivery services are built entirely on the cloud services of companies like AWS and Microsoft Azure, which can result in lower margins for a company building its offerings on top.
Fly.io initially launched with 19 regions, which the company says is sufficient for individual application developers. However, as the company aims to cater to platforms such as managed databases and developer tools, it must expand to other regions. Thus, Fly.io currently has 33 regions and will continue to launch in new areas.
The company aims to provide features available through simple commands within its flyctl system and allow any app packaged in a container to run on its platform. They guarantee users can get an app running on their service in single-digit minutes and across all continents with just a minute or two more.
Fly.io is competing against numerous companies in the CDN and edge platform space, including large players like Cloudflare and Akamai. Others, such as Vercel, are offering alternatives to edge functions-as-a-service from large cloud providers such as AWS and its Lambda offering.
Article Topics
Akamai | AWS | Cloudflare | DevOps | edge applications | EQT Ventures | Fly.io | Vercel
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