Arweave-Based Bundlr Raises $5.2M to Boost Decentralized Storage

As more of the world moves onto blockchains, it is becoming increasingly important that users are able to store large amounts of data cheaply and quickly on-chain. One team working to make this vision a reality is Bundlr, which announced a $5.2 million funding round on Wednesday for its bid to help scale up blockchain storage solution Arweave.

Bundlr’s funding round was led by Framework Ventures, Hypersphere Ventures and Permanent Ventures, and it also saw participation from OpenSea and Race Capital.

Bundlr is building out a suite of tools to make it easier for users to upload and access files on Arweave, a blockchain-based storage network that aims to compete with cloud platforms like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud.

Read more: ArDrive Raises $17M to Make Arweave’s Data Storage Blockchain More Usable

Similar to Ethereum layer 2 solutions which expand the network by offloading activity onto a separate blockchain, Bundlr sits on top of Arweave and allows for near-instant transaction finality – meaning files are immediately searchable and accessible.

Uploading data onto Arweave comes with a time-delay between when data is uploaded and when it becomes accessible, but Bundlr aims to make blockchain storage “as fast as AWS,” founder Josh Benaron said with a nod to Amazon Web Services.

Uploading data on a decentralized blockchain may pose advantages for applications like archiving, where data permanence, security and provenance (verifying data’s origin) are important.