Akave, an enterprise cloud infrastructure company delivering a modern, S3-compatible decentralized alternative to traditional cloud storage, announced it has raised $6.65 million as it formally enters the data storage market with the launch of Akave Cloud.
Based in Austin, Texas, Akave positions its platform as a compute-agnostic storage layer built to support AI and analytics workloads without vendor lock-in or egress fees. The company said Akave Cloud enables organizations to move data freely across AI and analytics platforms by decoupling compute from storage, giving enterprises greater control over where their data resides and how it moves across hyperscalers and emerging neocloud providers.
Akave said traditional cloud providers increasingly rely on opaque pricing models and steep data transfer costs, making it difficult for enterprises to forecast spending as AI workloads scale. In contrast, the company offers flat-rate pricing of $14.99 per TB per month with no egress fees, alongside built-in governance controls designed to provide predictable storage economics.
The platform runs on its own dedicated Avalanche Layer 1 blockchain and is designed to support enterprises managing large-scale, data-intensive AI and analytics environments. Akave said it delivers enterprise-grade performance, compliance controls and on-chain verifiability to create tamper-proof audit trails and programmable, blockchain-based access controls. The company also offers long-term archiving to the Filecoin network, enabling decentralized, verifiable storage with immutable content IDs tracked for every data object.
Akave Cloud features a fully S3-compatible API, allowing it to serve as a drop-in replacement for existing cloud storage. The platform integrates with Snowflake and Apache Iceberg, enabling organizations to run analytics, SQL queries and AI or machine learning workflows directly on decentralized storage without rearchitecting pipelines.
Founded in 2024 by a team with experience in data storage, data management and Web3, Akave has raised more than $6 million from investors including Protocol Labs, No Limit Holdings, Blockchange, Lightshift, Blockchain Builders Fund, Big Brain Holdings, Avalanche Foundation and the Filecoin Foundation.
The company said Akave Cloud is already being used by customers including Intuizi, LaserSETI, 375ai and Skymapper. Use cases include processing consumer intelligence data for advertising insights, ingesting high-throughput astronomical observation data and managing expansive AI training datasets with flat-rate pricing and zero egress fees.
Akave said the platform is available immediately for enterprises and developers.
KEY QUOTES
“Distributed systems improve scale and resiliency by spreading workloads across multiple nodes, but decentralization reduces reliance on any single controlling party, a distinction critical for enterprises deploying AI. The real challenge is maintaining control over where data lives, how it moves, and how it’s governed across environments. We built Akave Cloud to provide a portable, verifiable storage foundation that enables enterprises to run AI workloads with full data ownership, auditability, and long-term flexibility.”
Stefaan Vervaet, Founder and CEO of Akave
“Akave’s founding team brings a rare combination of data storage, enterprise, and Web3 expertise. We are excited to support their delivery of sovereign, verifiable storage to enterprises running AI at scale.”
Gin Chao, General Partner at No Limit Holdings
“As AI workflows span multiple compute environments, portability and verifiability become foundational. The next generation of AI infrastructure will be defined by portability, transparency, and governance. Akave Cloud demonstrates how decentralized storage, built on a dedicated high-performance Avalanche L1, can enable enterprises to manage data with greater sovereignty while supporting the scale and compliance requirements of modern AI workloads.”
Matias Antonio, Chief Investment Officer of Avalanche Foundation
